Thanksgiving In St. Germain

This week was an unfortunate emotional roller coaster with Aimée  and it’s not fun to see a child so sad so I rode a lot of it with her. Thank goodness the week ended amazingly surrounded by great supportive friends.

Emily at Thanksgiving 

Aimée turned 9 this week, and her parents threw a wonderful family party for her. Everyone spoke French, so I was only able to pick up half of what was being said, but it was still really fun getting to meet the family. My mom brought some wonderful things for Aimée s birthday when she came. So I was able to give Aimée a cupcake cookbook and some twisty hair pins. She loved them both!

Not too long into the party, Aimée decided that she was not happy with one of the gusts and went to her room for the rest of the night. For the next two days Aimée stomped around the house telling us how much she hated her birthday, and that it was the “worst one yet!” Aimée was in this hot/cold mood all week. It pushed Cecile to her limits. Cecile was also having a hard week because it was the one year anniversary of her mom's death. So having Aimée in a bad mood wasn't helping.

It was during this week that I had my hardest day since moving to Paris. I was drained from this day. Between the French schools telling me that I owned them more money, the Utah school giving me bad news about my major, and Aimée’s bad mood I was not having a great day.

Emily and Joanna fell asleep right after eating.
Me with the family

By the end of the night I was tired and ready for bed, but when I typed out my email to my family I remember how lucky I am.  Overall it was a really crappy day, but this has only been one bad day out of the dozens of wonderful days I've had! Things are going to be hard sometimes, but they will get better. And they did.

My week improved very fast. I went out with Brittany, and we found these AMAZING BAGS at the market for only 10 euros. They are strong and sturdy. The other bags I have been getting are cheap, but not very good. Cecile encouraged me to talk to the school about the over charge and explained that I have already paid what I needed to pay, and turns out that they had made a mistake. Aimée was much better. I tried to give her some time spent with me since I am always trying to keep Daniel occupied.

The biggest thing that happened to me this week was going in for my Medical Appointment for the French Consulate. It was kind of scary. Right when I walked up to the door there was a riot going on. The people looked like gypsies, and were blocking the door. There were police there who had to fight them back. It was freaky. I had to get a police man to escort me in. When I finally got in, the lady told me not to take out my passport. After that, the appointment was fine. It took almost 40 minutes before I could see the doctor, and I only talking to them for maybe 20 minutes. They checked eyes, weight, height, lungs and blood pressure. After I was finished they said that was the last thing I would need to do and they would send me the medical card. They also gave me an x-ray of my lungs! So that’s fun.  

Sometimes you just need to join in and dance in the street. 

The family went on a little trip to London this weekend for Aimée s birthday, so I had the apartment to myself. It was quite a journey getting the kids to the train station after picking them up from school, and after two trains and an RER ride I got them to their parents. Whew. Then I came home and napped for 13 hours. I was out for so long that I had friends sending me messages to see if I was OK. J

The weekend was really nice. It started with a lovely sushi lunch and movie with Brittany (ARGO, Go see it! Fantastic!), and ended with a beautiful trip to St. Germain to see Emily and Joanna for a second Thanksgiving Dinner. It was a wonderful day. We cooked a Thanksgiving dinner in the morning, sat down with the family in the afternoon, and watched a movie to end it all off. St. Germain is BEAUTIFUL. I decided that if I ever move to Paris I would live in St. Germain with my family. There was a Christmas market going on in the town and we walked up there to find a big dance in the streets. Of course, Emily was over there in a second, but it took me a minute to choose to join her. I was never going to get this moment again. It was so much fun! I love it! I am so happy for the wonderful life I have here and all the love that I found while living here.