France, Part 1
Well, I am not real sure where to even begin in telling you about our holiday to France, so I shall start at the beginning. It was quite a trip- we came home a day early but I'll get to that later.
The day before we left I had decided I had had enough of Addison's mullet so we chopped it. She was amazingly, surprisingly wonderful and sat so still. She looks precious in her new bob.
We left our house around 4:45am the Saturday before Easter. The sun was just coming up and it was such a beautiful drive into England and over to Folkstone where we drove our van onto a train to cross the English channel. Once you drive your car on, then thirty minutes later you arrive in Calais, France. Easy!
It's hard to picture here, but this is as we were driving onto the train. It's double-decker so we got put on top. I didn't panic like I thought I would, even though we've done this before. It's just crazy to think we are in a car, on a train, under water. Eek!
As you drive on the train at the back you have to drive through it until you can't drive anymore. They put about 3 or 4 cars in each carriage and then shut a huge metal door behind you. More eek! But look how cool my photography skills are! (There is room for you to get out of your car and there is a toilet if you need one)
So, from the time we left our house until we got to our holiday place, near Bayeux, Normandy it was about 9 hours. It was a good drive, all the girls were great! Yes, off to a good start! (This is where I should have known it was all about to go south!)
When you shop at Tesco (like we do) you earn points that you can use toward different purchases or merchandise. We cashed ours in to use at this holiday place - so essentially no money was lost. Now, in my head I knew we would be staying in a caravan park- that's just a fancy word for mobile home here in the UK. So I knew, but I guess that didn't really sink in till I saw our place.
Hahahaha! All I can say is that it was brand new and it was clean. Oh and it was tiny. We were told to bring our own towels and bedding. Well I brought our bath towels and sheets but didn't really think about duvet covers or pillow cases or kitchen towels. See, this hadn't really "sunk" in yet. So, once we unpacked we had to make do. Here is Marc's pillow. The girls had similar looking ones.
Once we got semi-unpacked we headed to the nearest grocery store to get food. Again, I had packed a few things but I wasn't really thinking I would be cooking all week. We needed some basics, so off we went. Three tired, and by this time cranky, hungry kids walk into a tiny French store with a husband who speaks French but was having trouble "getting it out" made for a very stressful situation. They only had a few things we needed so we found another store and this time I just sent him in for whatever he could find and I would sit in the car with the girls. It's less stressful on him that way and thankfully he got what we needed. Although Cerys will tell you she can speak French easily! She can say "Bonjour" and "Merci"
Here's the kitchen. We had a lovely deck outside that was half covered, so we could open the sliding doors in the kitchen and living room and the girls were able to run around on the deck. It was gated too so I could trust Addie out there. The first night was so warm and nice we ate outside, but the rest of the time was quite chilly so we ate inside.
The big girls shared a room- as you can see that was the only walking space. We had a tiny bathroom with a toilet and then another shower room off our bedroom with a sink and shower. The "living room" bench turned into a double bed as well that we tried for one night, and put Addison is our room. Nothing worked. If you are my friend then you are sick of me talking about how Addison didn't sleep- but here I go again!
Addison has had these, what we think now, are night terrors. It started back in December/January when Marc was in the States. She would wake up screaming and kicking uncontrollably and would not be consoled. It was few and far between so we didn't think much of it. The past month or so they became more frequent, even last week before our holiday she was up 3 times that week screaming. So, the first night in our caravan was horrendous, as were all the rest of them. We had her in a room by herself thinking that would help her sleep while we slept on the pull out bench in the living room. I ended up in the bedroom with her half of the night, Marc the other half of the night. It was miserable. No one slept. So, the next night we thought we could nip that in the bud and just push the small bed against a wall and squeeze her pack and play in with us and she would feel better knowing I can reach her.
Nope.
She was screaming every hour, till about 4am. It was very scary to us. She was inconsolable, screaming, kicking and looked scared. We were trying to wake her, turn the light on, get on to her...everything! We have never felt so clueless! After reading about night terrors (thank you Google) they say the worst thing you can do is wake them. Brilliant. Parent of the Year right here baby!
So as you can see, we were off to a fabulous start...