Matt's Visit and Packing Up

Meeting Matt at the train station.

We returned to Rennes from our travel-ganza late on a Friday afternoon and my brother Matt was waiting at the train station to meet us. He was in the midst of a month-long European adventure across Spain, France, Germany, Portugal, and the Netherlands. His bus go to Rennes early that Friday morning so he had about seven hours on his own to explore Rennes and we hope he did. He said that he tried to take a nap in one of the city's parks because he didn't get much sleep on his night bus from Spain to Rennes.

Part of the map-covered bedroom.

Lisa and I both felt bad that we couldn't provide Matt with the same kind of hospitality we've given other guests because, after returning to Rennes, we had three days before we had to vacate our apartment and return to the US. That meant that we had a lot of packing and last-minute errands to do. It also meant that every day Matt was there, someone came by to pick up pieces of furniture they'd bought from us. So every day, we changed what piece of furniture we sat on or ate off of! It was a little sad to pack up everything we own, especially all the maps we'd hung up in the bedroom and the postcards we'd put in the toilet room. In every city we visited this year, we got a map from the tourist office and, when we returned home, hung them on the bedroom walls as decoration and as a reminder of all the amazing trips we took. Similarly, in the toilet room, we hung up a postcard from nearly every city we visited. Returning to bare white walls was a bit depressing!

On the other hand, it was exciting to know that we were just a few days away from returning home to the US and our friends and family. It was stressful few days, though, of canceling our utilities, cleaning, and trips to the post office to mail boxes of books, maps, and brochures home because it was cheaper than paying the overweight baggage fee on the plane. Also, once we started boxing and mailing things, it was surprising how much we had accumulated in France - admittedly, not much by American standards, but quite a lot in proportion to how much we brought with us. Mainly it was maps and books we had purchased, but then again, this blog is called "Running and Reading in Rennes" so you shouldn't be surprised we bought a lot of books.

Our cheese-mongers.

Our apple-seller.

Amidst all the packing and selling and moving, we were able to do a few things with Matt in our area. On Saturday, we took him to the market where we were able to buy some last good fresh French produce and cheese and say good-bye to the many vendors we had become familiar with over the course of the year. They were as sad to see us go as we were to say good-bye to them! We were very happy the cheese-mongers agreed to pose for a picture for us.  We also went into central Rennes that afternoon to go to a record store. Since had Matt hadn't brought any good-sized sturdy luggage, though, he didn't want to try to take records home with him so he bought a few cassette tapes instead. Also downtown, we saw part of what passed for Rennes' Gay Pride Parade and Matt listened to and recorded a good gospel choir singing to advertise their church.

Gay Pride Parade, French-style.

A Family and Gourmet Weekend in Vitré

Nota bene: This is a long entry with almost no pictures because we neglected to take any during this trip.  Be prepared for lots of food description.

After Laura left us, we spent the afternoon doing laundry and preparing to visit friends in a neighboring town.  I met Adriana in one of my classes at the university, and she asked me to tutor her children in English all year.  Andreea and Ramona are two adorable little girls who amazingly talented at languages.  They speak Romanian, French, AND English.  My current challenge with Andreea is reading, and she has made lots of progress already.

Adriana and her husband Dan invited us for dinner, and we've been trying to find a date all year that would work for all of us.  They then invited us to spend the night because we take the train out there, and it is very limited in the evening.

Our weekend began by introducing Aaron to Dan and the girls, and the girls were VERY excited to have company for whom to perform.  They had lots of energy and entertained us for a while before being sent upstairs to amuse each other.  We then spent a bit of adult time chatting and having Aaron get to know the family with whom I've spent most Wednesday and Friday evenings.  Dan is a doctor and educated us a bit on the removal of stomachs and how the body can cope afterwards.  I for one was very fascinated.

After chatting and tasting a special Romanian drink, we sat down to a traditional dinner, with everything homemade and delicious.  We started off with bread and three vegetable dishes (forgive me if I'm forgetting anything!): green beans in homemade egg mayonnaise, celery root in homemade egg mayonnaise, and garlicky potatoes with olives.  Mmmm.  Adriana explained that homemade mayonnaise is made with one hard-boiled egg yolk and one raw egg-yolk, plus oil and some seasoning.  It puts Helman's to shame!

For our second course, the meat-eaters had chicken (which was something like schnitzel), and we all had fried potatoes that were partially boiled and then cooked in spices and oil.  They reminded me of a vegetarian version of my grandmother's bacon-fat potatoes, which, though I am a vegetarian, might still have the power to convert me for just one tempting moment!  I was glad to know a vegetarian version (including some special Romanian spice mix) could compare!  To top it all off, Dan made a garlic sauce to put on top of everything.  He normally likes to make it with yoghurt, but he used cream this time, and either way, I think it must always be delicious.  It was spicy with the heat of the garlic and reminded us of sauces we've had at Turkish restaurants.  It was at that point that we realized there was a lot of Turkish influence on Romanian food.

Dessert time came, but we all thought we might explode if we continued to eat, so we took a break to watch a movie--The Day After Tomorrow.  It was very dramatic and supplied ample entertainment before we had Adriana's apple cake with homemade whipped cream frosting.  It was very good--flavorful but not overwhelmingly sweet.  Now, because I took my camera but neglected to take any pictures, you have no pictures of our actual time there in this entry, but we are providing you with a few pictures of Romanian food that we learned about.  When I was tutoring one afternoon, delightful smells of dough and cinnamon were pouring from the kitchen, and Andreea and I looked at each other in the middle of our lesson to say at the same time, "Oh, that smells so good!"  Andreea's great-aunt was there and had made what she called a "tarte" of apples but was really much more perfect than that.

Romanian Apple Pie.

I couldn't leave without knowing the recipe, so we realized that we could communicate with what we both knew in Italian (I don't know Romanian, and she didn't know English or French).  The dough is made with yeast, equal parts milk and water, and flour.  You make a firm but moist dough and knead it until it's smooth.  You let that rise.  For the inside, you grate apples and put a bit of sugar and cinnamon on them and let them drain.  This produces a sort of juice.  It did take a while before I was able to understand what to do with this juice--in the end, she brought me the cup and said, "Por Dan!  Yum!" Ah!  Now I understood.  Then, you put the apple mixture on a round of dough and twist the dough up to seal it in, making a dumpling-like object that you put in the oven to bake and become perfection.  Oh so delightful.

My attempt at garlicky tomatoes.

After the movie and more discussion of various cuisines, we went to sleep, listening to the incessant rain that graced us with its presence that weekend.  When we woke up the next morning, we learned about the glory of Romanian breakfast.  Aaron enjoyed a steak covered in butter, and Dan shared his special salad with me.  This consisted of grinding garlic with olive oil and tossing it with salt and cucumbers and tomatoes.  You then eat it with bread and let the juices soak into all the dough.  When you do this, you have the sweetness of the bread, still crunchy on the outside, then mixed with the tartness of tomatoes, spice of garlic, mellow coldness of cucumber, and the touch of sea salt.  Divine.  I think Dan was a little worried he found a worthy opponent to enjoying such a salad.  He let me have the last of the garlicky olivey tomatoey cucumbery liquid for my last piece of bread.  That was a true act of generosity.  I have been making an attempt to imitate this for my lunch every day this week.  I can't wait to have a mortar and pestle again so I can crush instead of chop the garlic!

We spent the afternoon digesting and watching some more movies: Mission to Mars and Runaway Jury.  This basically doubled the number of movies we watched this year.  It was good to have some American cinema education on foreign soil.  We played with the girls and chatted a bit more until it was time to catch our train.  Overall, it was very relaxing, and it was nice to spend time with a family and get to know them better.  We look forward to many years of friendship!

Our Week with Laura: Part Two

Lisa and Laura on the ramparts of Dinan.

We arrived back from Paris in the early evening and made dinner.  We needed to be up early the next day for our day-trip to Dinan, Dinard, and Saint-Malo.  We left bright and early for the county bus and headed on our way.  Laura, like Chris and us, liked Dinan a lot, enjoying its charm and its views.  We were even graced with some sunshine!

How to play dress-up
in Dinan.

We went first to the market (sans hurdy gurdy player this time) where Laura and I continued our tradition of buying scarves--mine in blue and hers in muted pinks.  I think some things will never change, and I'm okay with that!  Aaron (continuing his tradition of buying books in Dinan) found a new travel journal just in time for our next adventure.  We also took Laura past the medieval clothing shop because she and I have always enjoyed a good costume.

The beach at Dinard.

After a picnic lunch in the park behind the oldest church there, we hopped on the bus to Dinard where we got to walk on the beach a bit and see the Hitchcock statue.  We only had a short time there because another bus left for our final destination of Saint-Malo.  Aaron had been there twice, but I had only visited once and had wanted to go back all year.

Laura in the stained-glass rainbows.

Rose window in the cathedral.

I love the stained glass in the cathedral there.  As I think we told you way back in September, all (or at least almost all) of the glass was destroyed in World War II, so it has been replaced recently.  It's rather modern and is just abstract shapes instead of trying to tell stories that are depicted too small to really see.  The light ends up in little rainbow puddles on the floor, and it seems like a lot of life could be there.

While in Saint-Malo, we made Laura try a Kouign-Aman, a butter, flour, egg, and sugar pastry that contains so much butter, the locals even make post cards making fun of it!  We split one among the three of us because the first time Aaron and I found that it was too rich for just two people to share.  We each had a couple of bites, which was the right amount.

Laura at Saint-Malo enjoying the only other sunlight
observed during her trip.

We walked up to the ramparts and had a good view of Dinard and the Channel before walking down to the beach to collect some seashells.  Because it was low-tide, we thought about walking out to Chateaubriand's tomb, but we realized it was farther than it first looked.  It was so nice to have some sunshine that we stayed on the beach until it was almost time to leave for the bus back home.

Constance, Thomas, and Aaron's whipped cream.

The next day, we decided to relax a bit and stay closer to home.  We headed back into downtown Rennes to do some shopping and meet Thomas and Constance for a drink.  Constance had a bit of a cold, but we still had a nice time.  They took us to the Haricot Rouge, which sells milkshakes.  Well, Constance carries extra straws in her bag, so we all got to taste.  It was not a milkshake.  It was milk with flavored syrup stirred in, no ice cream at all.  Still, she adored it, and so that was very good.  Aaron ordered hot chocolate viennois which means that it's covered in whipped cream.  As you can see in the picture, it was!  After we finished our drinks, they took us around to some of the sites, where people were already drunk at 6pm!  That's another thing the locals mock on post cards here.

After that, it was back home for dinner and packing.  We ended the meal with a collection of nine different flavors of macaroons, which we quickly devoured.  They were very delicious.  Saturday morning, we took Laura on a very rushed trip to the market because we couldn't let her leave France without seeing it at its very best.  She got some honey from the honey man who has the best voice I have ever heard!  If I ever manage to get a recording of it, you will have a sound clip here!  We saw Laura off for a sad good-bye at the train station, but we look forward to seeing her again soon in the States!

Laura, sporting her new scarf while
attacking the macaroon collection.

Macaroon siege continues.

Macaroons conquered.

UK Trip: Edinburgh, Day One

The last stop on our whirlwind tour of the UK was Edinburgh, Scotland. We woke up early at our airport hotel in Cardiff to catch our morning to flight to Scotland, another turboprop plane. (It was in the Cardiff airport where we realized that, in the UK at least, they don't announce the gate for your departing flight until 20 minutes in advance. We think this is because they want to keep people in the main concourse with the duty-free shops where they can blow more money, rather than sitting quietly at the gate to wait for their flight!) Once in Edinburgh, we took the very convenient bus from the airport to central Edinburgh for a half-hour ride.

The Old Town of Edinburgh.

We got off at the train station in order to visit the tourist office for our free map and advice on what to do and see in our two days in the city. We then walked to our hotel, the Frederick House, to drop off our bags (since our room wasn't ready yet). Just walking to the hotel, we both quickly decided that Edinburgh felt like a fantastic city. It's very different from almost anywhere else I've been. The Old Town (the medieval and early modern city) is situated along and south of a ridge between Edinburgh Castle and Arthur's Seat (all that's left of an ancient volcano). On the north side of the ridge is the train station and the New Town, built in the 18th century on a nice grid pattern and full of neoclassical business buildings. Our hotel was in New Town and it was amazing to see how many people were out on the streets, shopping, going to work, etc. The city had a very energetic feel to it and the landscape was also very beautiful.

Lunch in a church basement.

For lunch, we chose something called the Undercroft Cafe, located in the basement of the parish church of St. Andrew and St. George in New Town.It was quite an experience! Basically, it was a dressed-up fellowship hall with food coming out of the small church kitchen and the clientele was mostly elderly Scottish women and a few middle-aged businessmen who must have worked in the area. The food was about what you'd expect from a church basement kitchen - good, but not great. Also, it was Shrove Tuesday (the day before Ash Wednesday) and the tradition in the British Isles is to eat pancakes on this day. So after we finished lunch, I went back to the counter to order a pancake for dessert (it was more like a crepe than a pancake).

It was while waiting in line for the pancake that I had an experience that confirmed for me that Edinburgh is a great city. Behind me, a middle-aged Scottish man asked the guy behind the counter about the soup on offer that day, something called "crofters' broth." Here's what happened:

Worker: Well, it's a broth....
Man in Line (laughing, to me): Well, I guess I asked for that one, didn't I? (While we both laugh, he points to the sign reading "crofters' broth) It says "crofters'" - it looks like there's more than one crofter in the broth, doesn't it? (Again, we both laugh.) I'm a pompous ass, I'm sorry! (To the worker.) What's in the quiche today?
Worker: Cheese and onions.
Man in Line and me, almost simultaneously, while laughing: No crofters in that!

Eating a homemade pancake on Shrove Tuesday.

After I'd finished my pancake, on the way out, the man came up to me again and said, "The broth was pretty thick, so there must have been a lot of crofters in it!" Then, in honor of it being Shrove Tuesday, he offered me one of the small homemade pancakes that his wife had made that morning and which he had in a little plastic baggie. It was very kind of him and the pancake was pretty good, much closer to American pancakes than a crepe.

The National Gallery of Scotland with Edinburgh Castle in the background.

Following lunch, we walked to the Scottish National Gallery, situated near the train station, and spent most of the afternoon there enjoying their very extensive art collection. We next decided to climb up the hill to Edinburgh Castle. It was quite a climb, but at the top, there were some fantastic views over the city of Edinburgh and the hills beyond. At the ticket office to the castle, they told us they would be closing in about an hour and that we really needed two hours to see the castle, so we bought tickets for the next day.

Lisa on the Esplanade of Edinburgh Castle.

The birthplace of Harry Potter.

 We then walked from the Castle down the Royal Mile (the street running along the top of the ridge from Edinburgh Castle to Holyroodhouse, the Queen's residence in Scotland) and into Old Town. We passed the Elephant House, where J.K. Rowling first started to write the Harry Potter books, and we ended up at the National Museum of Scotland. It seems very much like the Scottish version of the Smithsonian so there were plenty of generic exhibits on evolution, the history of technology, basic forces of physics, etc - in other words, exhibits we could see at plenty of museums in the US. We were interested in the parts dealing with the history of Scotland and, while the museum closed about 45 minutes after we got there and we had to leave, we were able to see some Viking remains and some artifacts from the 15th and 16th centuries. Plus, we saw Dolly the Sheep, the first mammal cloned from an adult cell.

Dolly the Sheep.

Since she was born in Scotland, on her death, she was stuffed and put in the museum.

The Lewis Chessmen, National Museum of Scotland.

The Frederick House Hotel.

After that, we walked back to the hotel stopping in a Charles Tyrwhitt store on the way, a company I'vebought many shirts from on-line. The store was a bit disappointing, though; they didn't have any of the patterns I wanted to try on. The hotel was one of the nicer places we stayed on this trip. It's a four-star hotel in an old building, but we got a great deal on it on-line. The room was big (for some reason we were in a triple room with an extra bed), we got an actual closet for our clothes, and lots of free tea (we took it all with us when we left).
 

Oatcakes.

We then headed out for dinner and found a great place, Henderson's Bistro, that was entirely vegetarian and organic and mostly local. I had an onion and pepper quiche with a chutney sauce and salad, plus an organic Scottish beer that was quite good. We also ordered oatcakes (a traditional Scottish food, of course) but the kicker was they had a vegetarian haggis which Lisa, of course, tried. It was lentils, beans, oatmeal, mushrooms, carrot, onion, and garlic, served with the traditional clapshot sauce (I honestly don't know what this is!) and red wine gravy.

Vegetarian haggis.

(You can find the recipe for this delicious treat on the Henderson's website.) Speaking of vegetarian haggis, we were both surprised at how vegetarian-friendly the UK is, especially compared to France. We had no difficulty finding vegetarian dishes for Lisa and they were usually pretty good. Anyway, for dessert, we split a very yummy cherry pie with an oat crust. Henderson's was an extremely tasty restaurant and if you're ever in Edinburgh, we highly recommend a visit.

Scottish 5-pound note.

When we paid for dinner, we got a Scottish 5-pound note in change, which said "Clydesdale Bank" on it and had a picture of Alexander Fleming (the discoverer of penicillin), not the Queen on it (as the English pound notes do). Upon asking, we learned that Scotland retains the right to print its own money independently of the central bank of England (although Scottish notes can be refused in England at the discretion of the merchant). Along these same lines, I should note that the couple days we were in Edinburgh came right after David Cameron had met with the prime minister of Scotland, who is demanding a referendum on full Scottish independence. So many of the newspaper headlines were about various promises and threats made to the Scottish pm to get him to not go through with his intention to hold the referendum.

This first day in Scotland was amazing. Edinburgh is beautiful, the weather was good, and the people were very friendly and nice. Our second day, though, was even better and confirmed that Edinburgh is my second favorite non-US city (after Rome, of course).

On American Visitors, Closed Castles, and Snails

The weekend after our visit to Chartres, we hosted our first visitors as a couple in what is going to be a very visitor-filled semester - and we love having visitors, so it's very exciting! These particular visitors were our friends Jimmy and Jenny from North Carolina. They took a multi-week trip through northern France the UK and in the process, visited us and another friend in Durham, England.

After renting a car in Paris, they drove to Rennes on Friday night. After a few hours of talking and catching up, we went to bed. Saturday morning, we took them to our marché in Cesson to buy food for our dinner that evening. (Unlike outdoor markets in the US, here in France, they run year-round, not just in summer.) Two of Jimmy's goals in France were to have a traditional four-course French dinner and to eat escargot. Since he hadn't done either of those yet and since our house was their last stop in France, we did our best to plan a full meal before their arrival so we knew exactly what we needed to get at the market, including several kinds of cheese for a cheese course. Our regular cheese-monger was very helpful in this regard, recommending several different types he thought would be appropriate. We also purchased some snail-like creatures from another merchant (although it's not clear if these were actually snails or just some other kind of shell-creature) and he, too, was very helpful in explaining how to prepare them.

Lisa and Jenny both agreed that this
would be a cool place to get married.
Their husbands both wondered why
they were still thinking about getting
married.

Jimmy, braving the
castle stairs.

Following the shopping trip, we came home, packed a lunch and headed out in the rental car to show Jimmy and Jenny around our area. Fortunately, Jimmy can drive a stick-shift since it's nearly impossible to rent an automatic car in France, making it difficult for Lisa and I to drive anywhere! Our first stop was a ruined castle in Saint-Aubin-du-Cormier (about a 25-minute drive northwest of our town). Lisa had heard about this castle from two American Mormon missionaries she befriended on the bus. (They're very nice and we've even played ping-pong with them at their church, but that's a story for another time.) The castle dates from the 13th century and was meant to guard the border between the two baronies of Fougères and Vitré, although I don't know why it's ruined. Anyway, despite the cold misty rain that was falling, we climbed all over the ruins and explored several underground passageways (they didn't really go anywhere, sadly; no buried treasure here). It was very cool because this is the first ruined castle we've seen in France and the first one where we can literally climb and walk anywhere we want!

Castle ruins at St-Aubin-du-Cormier.

After the castle, we got back in the car and headed to Fougères in order to see a castle that wasn't in ruins. We ate our packed lunches in a municipal parking lot then set out to find the castle. After a couple unsuccessful attempts to figure out where exactly we were, we decided we should stop in the tourism office to get a map. Unfortunately, finding the tourism office also proved difficult until Lisa asked in pharmacy. After waiting in line behind a middle-aged French couple who seemed to be using the sole employee of the tourist office to help them plan a weeks-long trip through Brittany, we finally got our map and some disappointing information: the castle in Fougères is closed in the month of January! (The young Spanish couple behind us were also disappointed to learn this and even more disappointed to learn there was no direct way to get from Fougères to Mont-Saint-Michel. Hopefully they found something else to do.) However, the trip wasn't a total waste because we found another fresh seafood store that seemed to be selling something much closer to snails than what we saw that morning so we got a few of these, too. Jimmy and Jenny were also able to buy some chocolates to take home with them as a gift.

Lisa and I at Vitré.

Still determined to see a non-ruined castle, we drove southeast to Vitré. It was a very cool castle and worth the trip. Inside, there's a small municipal art museum that had some nice 19th-century paintings of Vitré and its area. Lisa obviously described much of the castle in a previous entry, so I won't rehash it here. Instead, I'll just point out that Jimmy set off an alarm while trying to open a door in the castle, but fortunately, there were no armed guards or nasty dogs or anything.

Mmmm butter.

Should we really try these?

We then drove home and Lisa and Jenny prepared the four-course meal (which turned out to be five in the end!), Jenny bravely digging the snails out of their shells (which looked like quite a chore) and Lisa making most of the rest of the meal. The snails were cooked in a butter garlic sauce and we all tried one (except Lisa, of course, being a vegetarian). It was a very similar texture and taste to calamari and pretty good, I thought. We also had two kinds of wine and champagne; bean soup; galettes (Breton buckwheat crepes) with ham, egg, cheese and mustard; salad; a cheese course; and a pear tarte tatin for dessert, along with some chocolates that Lisa and I had purchased at our local bread and pastry shop, unbeknownst to Jimmy and Jenny. One of the chocolates was shaped like a snail-shell and called escargot so we made sure Jimmy got that one! In good French style, the meal and conversation ended up lasting four hours or so and finally we realized it was late and we had to go to bed to prepare for our big day on Sunday.

Jenny, me, Jimmy at Mont-Saint-Michel.

Sunday, we woke early and piled into the rental car to head up to Mont-Saint-Michel. Our goal was to get there around 9:30 when the abbey opened and before all the busloads of tourists arrived. We met the goal pretty well. I won't repeat everything about Mont-Saint-Michel since it was my third trip and Lisa's fourth trip there other than to say that, unlike our last visit, this time we got to walk outside on the seaward side of the abbey to see the fortification walls, which was pretty cool.

The American Cemetery

After Mont-Saint-Michel, we got back in the car, ate our packed lunch on the road, and drove to the Omaha Beach D-Day site, about an hour or so away. Lisa had been there before, but I had not. The military cemetery and museum there are actually on US soil. The French government gave to the US in perpetuity as thanks for helping to liberate them from the Nazis. (Despite this, though, all the employees are French!) The museum was very interesting with lots of information about the

Walking down to Omaha Beach

D-Day planning and execution. Because it was cold and windy, we didn't walk far into the cemetery proper, but it was still an impressive sight to see the neat rows of white crosses in well-manicured grass. We also walked down to the beach itself, although there's not much to see except a beach. The hike back up the hillside was a bit tough and I can't imagine what it would have been like trying to make that climb carrying 70 pounds of gear and being shot at by German soldiers.

The next goal was to get to the city of Caen for Jimmy and Jenny to return the rental car and make their ferry to England. Along the way, we stopped at Arromanches to see what's left of the artificial port built by the Allies (see our previous blog entry on Normandy for this) and we also had quite a time trying to get gas. We made it to Caen shortly before Jimmy and Jenny's bus to the ferry terminal was scheduled to leave, the last one of the night. However, the rental car office was closed (it was a Sunday night) and the sign on the door gave almost no instructions on how to drop off a car after-hours. It just said to talk to someone in the train
station across the street. By the time we did and figured out where to move the car, Jimmy and Jenny's bus

The train from Caen to Rennes is semi-direct. That's an understatement.

had left (although the ferry itself didn't leave for another five hours. Lisa and I were taking the last train to Rennes, but that, too, didn't leave for another hour or so. That meant we all got to spend some time hanging out at the train station (watching, along with everyone else, a couple of teenage boys get thoroughly searched by about eight policemen!) and saying a more leisurely good-bye. Finally, we put Jimmy and Jenny in a taxi to the ferry terminal and Lisa and I got on the train home.

It was a lovely weekend and a lot of fun to be able to show friends around the area where we live. We're looking forward to the many other visitors we have coming in March and April!

Christmas Travels

In this entry, we present to you our Christmas travels in pictures.  We left Rennes on a Thursday for Paris.  We went from Paris to Copenhagen Friday.  That same day, we flew to DC.  Chris picked us up, and then we all had dinner with Laura before Chris very kindly drove us to Beaver.  Saturday, we drove to both La Salle-Peru and Freeport to spend Christmas with the Wenzels.  Tuesday, we drove to Caseville for Christmas with the Sniders.  Friday, we drove to Beaver for Christmas with the Bevevinos.  After that, we parted ways for a week, with me going back to Cesson (through New York, Dublin, and Paris) and Aaron going back to Illinois and Michigan before heading out to Philadelphia, then DC, then Iceland, then Paris, then Rennes, then Cesson!  We were quite literally world travelers over the holiday season!

Grab bag with the extended Wenzel clan.

The Wenzel clan and their partners.

At Aaron's childhood home with Matt.

Drunk people doing yoga in Caseville.

Riley and Grandpa Snider.

Us at the Snider family Christmas table.

Aunt Chris and Grandma Snider.

Aaron's mom and Aunt Chris.

Sugar beets and processing plant in Michigan.

Fourth annual Shugert cousin dinner.

Pepsi, posing for her picture.

Grandma Bevevino at the Christmas Eve dinner table.

Lisa's mom putting the last ornament on the tree Christmas day.

At Grandma Bevevino's house on Christmas day.

Someone is VERY happy about her cookies.

Bevevino-Shugert Christmas dinner with new additions to the family.

PS.  Stay tuned for holiday recipes on Two-Burner Meals.  Here are three preview pictures of some future featured recipes!

Grandma Snider's Cinnamon Apples and Cinnamon Rolls.

Shugert Orange Cookies.

Plum Pudding with Hard Sauce.