Adjusting

I'm really glad I'm still working as a contractor for my former employer (translating), because otherwise I would definitely go crazy. It's hard to have a sense of purpose while waiting around for a job to open up. Good news is the station just posted an opening today, so hopefully things will speed up now. To be totally honest, I'm still a little bummed about not making the final in the Hearst competition. I'm just feeling it more tonight. Thank goodness for the county library! I officially have a card and have been reading a lot. Although I'm going to have to cut back on the dramatic books because I had awful nightmares the other day...

I bought a good windbreaker/rain jacket today, because I'll definitely be needing it here. The wind is crazy!

It's kind of ominous-sounding at times, honestly. This place is just so wild. Yes, there's a 55,000-people city, but it feels like nature is bent on pushing back just as hard as it can. At least we don't get tornadoes! Although given our proximity to Yellowstone we'd probably be the first wiped off the map in a catastrophic event. Do I sound grim enough for you? :) (sorry, we watched 2012 last night)

We're starting to make friends, slowly but surely. I'm hoping I'll be able to volunteer at the YW camp because that sounds like fun. Ah, and I'll be flying to Las Vegas for my little sister's high school graduation! I'm excited for her: she's singing the national anthem (which is kind of funny considering I'm pretty sure she'll have to learn the words... Growing up in a foreign country will do that!) But I'm sure she'll be fantastic.

Andrew is playing basketball with people from our stake right now, I'm glad he's making friends :) speaking of friends, it never gets old seeing cottontail rabbits in our yard. A big fat turkey even waddled through the other day! Pretty crazy.

And that's about it. Unfortunately I don't have anything very exciting to post about. Maybe I'll put up pictures of our temporary cozy country home :) We visited a SWEET apartment the other day. You guys, it has a fireplace! It was dreamy. And pricey. But man, I dream of cuddling up by the fire on those cold Casper winter days...

Christmas

This Christmas was really wonderful. My entire family hasn't been together in one place since the Christmas after I left for BYU, so as you can imagine it was pretty special. My mom and sisters got in a day before my dad, and through an (un)fortunate set of circumstances we ended up with a rental van with enough seating for the whole clan, so we all drove up to pick him up at the airport on Christmas Eve.

He was our best Christmas present :) But that doesn't mean we weren't concerned when his suitcase full of my aunts' gifts didn't show up at first...

No worries though, it had arrived on an earlier flight and was waiting for us safe and sound. We packed into the van and headed to Temple Square. It was beautiful, and very cold. Probably the coldest day of the whole visit actually - it's crazy how warm it was!

Everybody loved it, my dad especially. Although I think he was mostly just thrilled to have his whole family together again.

These Las Vegasites/Bordeauxans aren't used to the cold...

Marina got tired/cold feet or something so Andrew became a horse and carried her around.

Once we were thoroughly chilled we piled back in and drove home, munching on Christmas-colored pistachios (those silly Americans...). So at this point you're probably thinking "wait a second... don't you guys live in a one-bedroom apartment?" How perspicacious. We are lucky enough to have some awesome neighbors that left for the break and agreed to let us use their apartment as base #2. They live just below us so we had everybody in the same building. It made coordination quite nice, although getting that many girls out the door quickly is always difficult no matter what...  anyway. We listened to a Christmas story and then Andrew got so tired he had to be carried into bed. How many Defranchi girls does it take to drag a full-grown man a few feet? 

 

Then we woke up the next morning to a delicious (if I do say so myself) Christmas morning breakfast. Gourmet hot chocolates made with syrups and whipped cream served in personalized cups (I was most excited about that part to be honest) with warm croissants, french bread, Nutella, jam, cheeses and more. Hey, we know how to do breakfast in France!

Then off to church. The meeting lasted a little long for my taste, but hey when you have presents waiting under the tree anything is too long! Although I did appreciate the meeting. We had a stake sacrament meeting and the Stake President asked the wives of high council members to speak - without their husbands gasp! It was a really neat idea. 

I even snapped a stealthy shot. He he. Sylvia can sniff out a camera from a hundred miles, so of course she managed to pose.

And back home for the opening of the presents! With stockings made by yours truly...

You know you've made a good choice when you hear squeals of joy... Success!

My dad labeled his gifts with picture puzzles... this one spells out Lydia ("lead" + "dix" (ten) + A)

After that, we did all kinds of fun stuff. Good food and lots of cooking...

I tried my hand at my first Pulla and I think it came out pretty beautifully!

Andrew built a fort for the girls

And we took plenty of family photos. I got individual shots with each of the girls and of course we did group photos too. That's where a tripod comes in handy.

Webcam sessions with the rest of the family back home...

More cooking:

We're French, it's what we do. We also played outside, hiked the Y, saw bridal veil falls...

Of course, Andrew brought his pellet gun and hid in the bushes/rocks to get at us...

And finally it was time to take everyone back to the airport :(

We came back to our suddenly-empty apartment and felt kind of... lonely. But the semester started up so fast after that we didn't have time to be lonely for too long. We're so glad to have had such a wonderful family vacation though. What a perfect Christmas!

French kids & film

Basically, this is how I'm hoping my little boys will turn out if I only speak French at home.

Well, minus the swearing perhaps. Also, I want to see Monsieur Papa and Le cochon de Gaza.

Finally! An internet!

Phew! We are in Bordeaux now, with my papa and Amelia. Just a few more pics of our place though, because it really is crazy:

The plethora of cat books just cracks me up:

Our little room. I like our window, and what's really funny is the lady that helps school kids cross is outside our door every morning, so we have at least one friend :)

Our sweet 70s wallpaper.

For the back story: the lady who owns this home will be 101 years old next month. She lived here as a girl, her parents built it in 1924 and then when they died she took it and lived there with her own family--she finally moved out to live with her daughter last September. I imagine these stairs were starting to be too much...

Our room with the flower power wallpaper was that daughter's room in the 70s. And this daughter is married to the president of the France chapter of BYU Alumni (who incidentally never went to BYU); they've been so nice with us, taking care of us and setting it up for us.

Anyway. Back to the tour. Here's the Narnia wardrobe in our roommates' room.

They're super nice too, they're one of the BYU couples that had signed up for the internship and miraculously managed to find something else the next day. The funny thing is we've really barely seen them, what with staying at my uncle's, going to Bordeaux, and all that. I'm sure we'll do more stuff with them once Andrew starts his internship for good. Which brings me to that: Andrew showed up for orientation on Monday and got the rundown, met everybody and his boss, and then before noon they told him "Ok, well we'll see you next Monday then!" So he just came on down to Bordeaux with me this week. It was definitely a nice surprise.

It also turns out my dad was doing a concert in Paris last night, so he got us two tickets to go see him. It was a concert representation of an opera, so the opera minus the costumes and staging and all.

Theatre des Champ-Elysees

I thought at first it might be pretty lame compared to the real deal but it was seriously awesome--the soloists still played a part and told a story, and the music was fantastic of course. We met my dad for dinner first and had something good at a Lebanese restaurant nearby, and then walked over to see him sing. Incidentally, apparently you have to tip the ushers in Paris. It was pretty awkward when I realized she was asking me for money for having showed us the 5 yards to our seats... The opera was Il Trovatore. It was sad (no surprises there!) and beautifully performed (duh, we're in freaking Paris. Side note: Andrew was flipping through the program and said: "wow, there's a lot of really awesome concerts and famous artists this summer" and we just looked at each other like what did we expect--we're in the cultural center of the world!). The two female leads in particular were fantastic. Leonora was played by a superb soprano -- she had such beautiful clarity and the way she went from filling the hall with her voice to the softest pianissimo was gorgeous. I may or may not have teared up a few times... And then the gypsy mother was fantastic, very imposing and terrifying at times... quite the diva too. In the end I didn't feel like decor or costumes were even necessary--they told the story plenty enough as it was. Ah, I love opera! I missed it so much!

And by the way, check out the five-star hotel next to the theater… 

We just sat there eating chocolate and watching rich diplomats come and go in their fancy cars.

And the cerise sur le gateau was the Eiffel Tower when we came out: it was sparkling!

As an aside, my cat is a snooty brat. But I should have expected that.

Also, I found the suit of my dreams. It’s only 600 Euros! 

Yikes, that’s more than what I paid for my plane ticket! But seriously, can you imagine me in that on my own show… oh boy. I’ve thought of making it, but we’ll have to see if I can find A) somewhat comparable fabric and B) a good enough pattern: it is perfectly tailored.

And that's all for tonight--we're off to have dinner with my aunts!