Normandy!

Everyone probably can remember that one certain vacation from childhood, where Murphy (and his law) rode along....lesser families may have given up and gone home. But not us, we are Condermans, we always press on....

We had to get up at about 4am on Saturday morning to catch the early ferry out of Dover. Somehow, we managed to turn around twice in the first 5 minutes. About a half hour down the road, I realized that I had forgotten the bread and peanut butter. In our family, no peanut butter=potential kid riot. Not good, not good. We made it to Dover with about 30seconds to spare...only to find that one of the Ferry companies had gone on strike. Dover was just one big cluster of lorries, blocking all of the roads and making it impossible to get to the port to catch our ferry. We missed our ferry. We had to buy a new ticket and wait four hours to get on our ferry. It is a lot of fun keeping two tired peanut butterless children happy for four hours....

We finally got on the boat. Warning bells went off in our heads as we sat down at the table and were handed our "complimentary" barf bags. About 5 minutes into the Channel crossing, the vomiting marathon began. Our kids did well until about halfway through the trip...Murphy must have dropped the ball because Ava actually hit the barf bag (rather than the floor, seat, Mommy, etc). Eli was unhappy but, thankfully, unpukey.

Murphy must have hung around the docks waiting for our return because the rest of the trip was about as smooth as it ever is...the pictures are a little out of order...but enjoy...
Here we are on the beach in Normandy...wasn't it nice of Ava to loan Eli her hat?
Isn't she beautiful??
Pink hat aside, isn't he handsome??
Walking from the American cemetery to the beach
Eric pretending he is a Nazi, Ava pretending she is a "grass princess",(Eli is behind me throwing rocks at flowers)
Here we are at the Abby at Mont Saint Michel. The Archangel Micheal descended here in 708, so they named the island after him. Maybe that is why Ava got a little overwhelmed and had to go "inspect the bricks".
In the little Abby garden
The winding streets of Mont Saint Michel
And now we are back on Normandy beach (yes out of order-I know)
This is the cathedral at Bayeux where we stayed. We got to see the famous Bayeux tapestry depicting William the Conquerer, um, conquering I guess. The town was lovely and Ava and I had fun exploring the grounds around the cathedral at night, looking for ghosts. We think we might have seen a few...
Yes I love my little Auto timer on my camera
And back to Mont Saint Michel...if it looks familiar, it is probably because the city in Lord of the Rings, Return of the King was designed after it. Maybe that is what inspired our kids to act like little orcs and dive into the "swamp" of receding tide water outside of the city. It was great fun to watch them play in the mud and get to have some "kid time".
Eli was really on the trip too...he just doesn't ham it up for the camera like my pretty Ava!
Eating bread and cheese on the window sill in France...does life get any better?

Note- the boat crossing back over involved no vomit from our children- yeah! But we did manage to miss a turn and wind up in downtown London. Why is it that Eric and I are both college educated well traveled adults, and yet we manage to still get 10 IQ points dumber anytime we try to read a map??? C'est la vie...