5 Brief Lessons Learned for Planning a Family Trip Abroad

November 11, 2015 by Michele Cherie in Travel, Contentment, Home Management

Here's a short summary of the top lessons I learned for taking our family abroad. So many parents would love to take their children abroad but haven't yet made it happen, so I thought I'd share the basic tips that I learned during this first stay overseas. I learned one of these tips the hard way, but thankfully you won't have to!

1. Open a separate savings account for the trip. We did this about eighteen months before we left on our trip, and the separate savings account was essential in helping us to be financially savvy and to visualize our progress towards our overseas stay. It was so encouraging to make our planned monthly deposits to this account.

Meal Planning and Grocery Shopping in Lyon & Paris, France

September 09, 2015 by Michele Cherie in Cultural Reflections, Travel, Home Management, French Culture

Bonjour again from Lyon! This is my family's first extended stay in France, so it's also the first time I've had the role of preparing meals for my children here. Living here has improved my meal planning skills and expanded our palates, I'm glad to say! I've consistently tried to plan French meals so my children can enjoy one of the best aspects of living in France--the food and the culture surrounding it. Here's what I'm doing differently here:

Family, Food, and Friends: One Week in Bretagne

July 27, 2015 by Michele Cherie in Travel, Contentment, French Culture, French Language Learning, International Exchange

I'm writing you with a full stomach and a contented heart because we've just spent a week in Bretagne (Brittany in English). Bretagne is on France's northwestern coast below Normandy, and it's a popular vacation destination for Parisians who want get out of the city. It's an area with Celtic culture that can be seen in the age-old erected menhirs and dolmens--great Stonehenge-like monoliths that you might recall from Asterix comic books. We didn't see those rocks, though we enjoyed hiking among similar ones with my distant relatives. Actually, I should say my probable relatives--we haven't proved we're related, but genealogy suggests we are and we share a variation of my maiden name. I enjoyed staying with this retired couple ten years ago, and this past week my husband and children got to join me in experiencing their amazing hospitality.