Hooray Visitors!

We had 2 sets of visitors in April/May, so we spent a fair amount of time traveling. Ange (Emily's sister) and Scott came to see us and we took a road trip to France. We visited Reims Cathedral, where all of the French kings were coronated. Then we proceeded to explore historic homes of French aristocracy in the Loire Valley. The chateaux were lovely, but our favorite place to visit was Amboise, France. The picturesque little town is where Leonardo DaVinci spent the last few years of his life. The manor where he stayed was lovely and had a spacious garden where we tried out some of his inventions.

On our last day, we traveled to Chartres cathedral and attended part of mass... then it was on to Giverny to visit Monet's gardens. Of course, we dragged Ange and Scott to the usual Belgian sites as well. We had a great time with them and are glad they are such laid-back travelers. We had to slow the pace a bit to accommodate the kids, but we visited a lot of cool places.

Our other visitors in May were our good friends, the Thains, who used to live in Belgium. They stopped by to see us for a couple of days and we were so, so glad! We were also glad that (having already seen the sites) Ellen and Jerry were content to just lay low and eat yummy food (especially English cheese) while we rested from our travels in France.