Bonjour! And other French words

Okay - that is the only French word I know.  I took Spanish in high school.  French seemed too scary.

A few weeks ago, we asked Finley if she could go anywhere in the world, where would she like to go.  Her first thought was Paris.  She wanted to go to Paris and see the Eiffel Tower.

This made Mat and I pause and think.  We know that her vision is getting worse.  She seems to have had significant changes this year, and it is showing.  We know a cure is in her future, but it won't bring back what she lost.

And that cure isn't something we can depend on until she actually has it.  Until then, she is just a little girl going blind slowly but surely.

So we asked her to make a list.  All the places she would like to see before her vision is gone.  The list was pretty hysterical.  It started out good with places like France, Leaning Tower of Pisa, Japan, and so on.  Then it got a little stranger when she asked to go to Connecticut (where we just lived and is 1 hour away and we are there all the time) and her old home in Florida. But then she picked places like Colorado and Hawaii which are both equally beautiful.   And then it got down right funny when she wanted to go to Idaho.  Idaho??  When we asked her why, she said she wanted to see a cow.  You know - since we don't already live in the country and have neighbors who own them.  Where she can see a cow for free.  No - Idaho has some kind of special cows.

We hung her list up on our kitchen bulletin board.  And then Mat and I started to talk.  What if we made one trip a reality this summer?  Waiting didn't seem like a good option because we don't know what is going to happen from year to year with her sight.  Right now her vision is still good enough that I think taking a trip - she will get a good visual memory out of it.

So we took the leap.  We decided to go to PAris this summer.  And London.  We are going to go this summer for 13 glorious days.  We have been hard at work over the last few weeks getting everything booked and getting the kid's passports.  We have a pretty good idea what we are doing.  We decided to stay in apartments in both London and Paris because we have 5 people AND we need more space.  We are getting pretty excited.

Mat and Cainan are the only ones who have ever traveled abroad.  And Cainan was too little to remember.  I hate to fly, but I think my excitement of getting to do this for Finley will kill most of the jitters.  I still can't believe we were able to make this a reality for our girl.  For all of our kids.

So, in a few months we will say "au revoir" and head over to Europe.  Hey - I know two French words!  We can't wait.