TRAVEL TRAVEL TRAVELING!!

Oh the excitement... the anticipation... the joy at the preparation (NOT!!!! Come on my friends are you kidding me? I HATE the prep...) - HOWEVER - I do like the trip (albeit tiring) and just the fun of traveling.

We have done this wonderful trek to Garden City, SC (south of Myrtle Beach) since I was about FOUR or FIVE years old... 31-ish years!!! WHAT a tradition! This is something that as a little girl I would look forward to alllll year long. We would take that long trip down from VT/NH... And it was so easy to pack then - I just needed music, books, and whatever else in my carry-on but now... BOY do I know what my mom must have gone through - now that I am doing it!

Ahhh the tradition continues with the Marriners now... MY FAMILY! My parents fly in from UT and we travel all together. It's fun to catch up and visit before we leave. I really miss them -we're a very close knit family! Then we get up at an incredibly AWFUL (early) hour in the AM and travel 10ish hours north. My girls have been going since they were born and it creates such memories... Now I view the anticipation in their faces. I hear how they speak of it... And it reminds me of the innocence and just fun of vacation and traveling!!

Just tonight little Boo asks me "Momma are you excited for the beach (always how we refer to our vacation). And I could unequivocately answer YES!! Everything was packed and ready to go and now the excitement to get outta dodge and just go relax at a house, right on the beach, TRAVELING to a new, yet familiar place is just AWESOME!

I dislike the preps for traveling. I get nervous and stressed a bit (Chris would say A LOT more than a bit). However - I love to go places, I love to do new things, I love to see new places, eat and drink in the culture...

But right now - I love going to "the beach". I love being with friends & family. I love that we go EVERY year and I have only missed going twice (1st - 16yrs old - I was in Zimbabwe, Africa on a mission trip & 2nd I had just had my 2nd baby girl and she was only 2 weeks old). I even went 3 days after my surgery on my back last summer!!!

Our family loves "the beach". It's true. The travling, the fun, the excitement, it is alll part of vacation!!!!

This is a bit choppy and rambling... but I just am excited and wanted to write a little about our TRAVELING!!! It's been a wonderful summer... but we need our VACATION finally!

musing on travels... my mind wanders on allll the other places i want to go sometime soon....

Time... is not on my side...

Well it's late again... what was the time last post... oh yeah 3:45am... now it's 3:06am. I have done a lot of pondering these late hours over the last few days. It's been a hard week. But my pondering has been actually very informative. Thank goodness for the web and books! WOW! I've learned a bit about some friends & family news. Got to connect blogwise with my sister (love you!!). sigh... I really miss a lot of people! And part of missing people is because of lack of traveling. Lack of traveling is because well no rough stuff for this stinkin' back and right now pas d'argent. Poo. Can I say Merde even though it's naughty - it sounds better in another language oui?

Therefore this summer has been a slow summer... but a great summer! I am trying to "enjoy the journey not the destination". I haven't been able to do a lot of the fast-paced, death defying, crazy things I've done in past summers (again stinky). I was prescribed to take it easy, VERY easy, no lifting, carrying, running, jumping, standing too long, sitting too long, (you get the idea), no physical stresses to my body - means - well it means just that... so I have done a lot other things to make up for that (truth be told - i've done some naughty unprescribed things too but shhhhhhh don't read this small print)!

But alas back to point (it's late remember?), resting and being calm equals no travel (cue sigh again... right...about... now) so therefore I've been thinking a lot about France and missing it.

WOW! Did you read that??? SHOCKER below:
Do you know people... when I first moved to France I thought my life was over?! Yes you read that correctly! HELLO?! I was a SENIOR IN HIGHSCHOOL my friends...!!

Yet the most important lady in the entire universe (besides my mom of course - but she learned from this lady...) my NAIN (grandmother to all you non-Chase/Rider types) told me:

"Kymbi... someday you will look back and you will cherish that you were fortunate enough to live in France".

The young, silly and super-naive, blinded by first love, 18-yr old- me said: "No Nain I don't think so... please let me live with you". But she persisted that someday I would MISS FRANCE... and look... here it is... you saw the proof above!!! I MISS FRANCE. I miss the language, the smells, the antiquity, the laissez faire de les gens, Paris, Dijon... yep even a little bit of THE DREADED Chambon sur Lignon (insert the musical emphasis dah, dahhhh, dahmmmmmm!!), the history, the customs... yep I miss France.

France truly came on my mind more so today. I was fortunate to be accompanied by two very wonderful people to a French restaurant south of us in posh-Sarasota! My dear friend Amy along with her baby guy Jack-Jack (who gave me the cutest smile to which I saved it in my heart to help warm it - these late nights of blahs) told me about this place and asked me if I wanted to go (long, choppy sentence sorry). Well since I had been missing it - I couldn't get it outta my mind (or salivary glands)... so away we went. 1 word... YUM! And the company c'était formidable!!

But now the yearn pour l'échapper belle - the great escape... to see France with my girls has come. To show them where I lived. To show them things I learned. To show them how their mommy became changed - stronger, sure of herself, independent, versed in another whole belle language. To show them how she learned to love a country-so she can share it with them - even though she DID NOT set out to do so.

Maybe this summer... while not being able to be "adventurous" physically... I can be adventurous with my girls and start them learning French. (Maybe it can help me too - because OOH-LA-LA this femme's - well let's just say mon français est très rouillé). I can take a picture walk with them through my MANY albums and photos of the many times I spent all over in lovely France...

Musing of France... sigh...

Bisous bien sur...
PS: Will try to find some photos of the trip I took with Chris one winter and post a few... maybe it will also help to satisfy that j'ai le virus du voyage!!