I thought I said Enough already?!?!?!?!

As you can see from the page below we have had a few rather interesting weeks...

Dannielle had an accident on the playground at school... a rather slow trip to the hospital in an ambulance ensued... one very lovely Dr (thanks Dr Fran)... untold specialists... 6 x-rays later... two different neck braces to be worn until seeing the Spine Injury Specialist ... a huge number of limitations on what she could and couldn't do... (think NOT much at all and you are about right!)

Well today was her appointment with the Spine Injury Specialist over at Burwood Hospital... those of you who know Christchurch know that its on the whole other side of the city from us here... and the appointment was at 9:10am!!!! We made it by leaving shortly after 7am with plenty of time to spare... wasn't at all sure how the traffic would be after the earthquake and all... though I do have to say I was rather glad that I left early... we got seen straight away and were out of the hospital again shortly after her appointment had been made for...

Thankfully she has got to take the brace shown off and its replaced with her soft sleeping collar that sits under her chin... she has to wear that till she sees the specialist again... the big score is though that she can spend time with it off... gradually increasing that time till she doesn't need it at all (they said about 7-10 days) and her next appointment on the 11th of April...

It's looking good though... much brighter than it had been for a while... NO fractures in her spine... more x-rays would have been taken today if her range of movement had of been better to check for ligament damage... so cross your fingers and toes and anything else you can cross that we get good news then too!

Now I have also been doing a bit of scrapping... getting pages completed for our French Trip books... two down already... I really like the smaller books they have more of a chapter feel about them... and it means more than one person at a time can check them out... always good!

Third has a few more pages left to go... and I have to say that using templates has helped in the speedier creation of the pages... kudos mostly goes to Suzanne of Roadside Designs at Two Little Pixels since they are pretty much all I have been using... though having said that I have used some of Tracy Little's PhotoArt BlogBoards as well... thinking outside the square so to speak and using them in ways not necessarily intended... though it sure makes it easy to show off lots of photos in one spot!

So anyway here are a couple more pages from our trip books... both at the gorgeous Chateau le Montellier... love that place...

I've been scrapping ...

I have been scrapping... amongst the 101 other chores there are for a Mama to do each day... getting some of our French trip photos scrapped... and having a blast doing it too!

So for your viewing pleasure... but keep in mind that I am randomly picking photos out at the moment to scrap... so while they are in the order of travel there are many many more photos that will be fitting in between them...

(to see a list of credits click on the images)

Our first day in Paris...

at the Louvre

at Chateau le Montellier

at Parc du Oiseau (Bird Park), Villars des Dombes

Hope you enjoyed seeing the pages... there will without doubt be more to come!

Snails... TGV... Arles

Snails... those things that the very young eat willingly... but hit 7 or 9 and there is the oooooohhhh yuk factor... then apparently the eating of snails is not the done thing... well not willingly that is...

I was however very proud of both my girls for actually trying a snail each... not that you can taste much of the snail over the herbs and garlic... but it is another thing ticked off the list... Frogs legs are still on it right along with Creme Brulee...

The TGV was an experience right from the start... thankfully we had decided to go and print out our etickets the day before we were due to leave... thankfully because we had a hiccup... rather a large one at that... the reference number we had been given should have actually been a 6 letter reference rather than the strict numerical one we had... after a short wait we were helped by a supremely helpful lady... who while admitting to only speaking a little English... helped us by not only finding our "lost" booking but by giving us a whole lot of very helpful advice... it meant that we didn't walk in the following day to a "huh what do we do now" thing...

301 kms an hour is the fastest we saw appear on our GPS screen during the 3 hour trip from Paris to Avignon... seriously weird in itself... considering we travelled the equivalent of Picton to Dunedin in that time... now we all know that the Picton -Dunedin trip is quite frankly not possible in twice that time!!!!!

There was a surprise awaiting us in Avignon though... sadly even though we had booked and requested a Citroen C5 to drive while we were here in France... alas and alack there was NOT a C5 to be had for love nor money... instead we got given a... WAIT for it... a Swedish car instead... a Volvo V50 1.6 diesel... the ride is shall we say... HARD in comparison to what it would be in a Citroen... and yes this comes from prior experience... surely someone else other than me remembers the delightful Eloise? Built for style and comfort... Chris has come to grips with the fact now that we will NOT be driving a French car in France but is happy to know that we are at the very least protected by more airbags in one single car than we have in all our cars put together back home!

Arles ... or more importantly the ancient part of the city has become our home for the last few days... full of two lane roads and the have to be seen to be believed one way system... where traffic slows for pedestrians on the roads to slowly amble there way to some sort of safety which is often only an illusion most times... we are staying in a gorgeous old home that has been converted to a hotel... it even has a swimming pool that we have all enjoyed at least once when the temps got so high here that even the shockingly cold entrance to the pool didn't put you off...

Our first day here we visited the Roman Amphitheatre... or the lion stadium as the girls refer to it... It is quite simply massive!!! It was built in the First Century AD and considering it has stood for pretty much 2000 years its in pretty good nick... it has been used for many different things during the millennia it has been standing apart from its original purpose... it apparently housed 200 dwellings and 2 churches at some stage since this is the numbers mentioned during a "clearing out" of the amphitheatre... I have to say I was totally impressed with the amount of "refurbishment" of the whole structure... and the fact that they are using and have available the very same ancient materials that the original builders use...

Now I have to apologise for the lack of photos with this post... I do promise that we have taken more than a few photos... its finding any kind of time to edit some down to a size that blogger and or facebook won't throw a complete hissy fit at... hopefully in the next few days this can and will happen...

in the mean time stand by for not only photos but more on an old bridge that we couldn't get to the top of! Fish... big and small and not a one to be seen on a dinner plate... Haribo... dinosaurs, evolution... and much much more...