Live Laugh Love

Mountain biking is well... amazing. I love it to pieces💗. It brings me so much joy that it's hard to explain...and pretty strange.   Over the past 20 months I have experienced the steep learning curve of learning how to ride a mountain bike. With every ride there is something new to learn, to practice, or to try doing again.  I cherish my solo rides, love and learn so much riding with Jeff (who also started learning when I did!), and love the unfamiliarity that comes with riding with new groups and with the kids. I have enjoyed taking official lessons with three different coaches in the region and also love learning from friends.  Here are a few photos from riding around the region over the past year. 💕

I could write about our transition from life in France to living back in Victoria...about my struggle, about loving mountain biking, about our beautiful kids finding their way with their friends and life here again, about Jeff and I carving out more time to spend together. Maybe I will one day.. but right now I'm just going to post about flowers.  I appreciate nature so much more now... I have always loved flowers but I feel like I have slowed down a bit. Life is now never too busy to stop and smell the flowers - unless I'm trying to get a QOM. 😜 Almost every day I head outside to take flower photos in the yard :)  So there ya go...here are some flower photos.  Favorites: Peonies, irises, poppies, wisteria. lavender

Biking in France was a dream...💕💗💖💕 I want to get on the very smooth road bike and ride effortlessly up to La Roque-Alric right now… lift the bike above my head to fit through the bushes without scratching it (because it was way too fancy) and sit at the viewpoint for a little while. To look at the Dentelles (the lacy mountain range by our town), to think, to listen to music, to listen to the birds, maybe have a little cry if I need to, or even read my book. I always wanted to eat a pain au chocolate up there but never did it... Something about putting a lovely pastry in the back of my biking jersey didn’t appeal to me.   I wish I had though; I could have washed the jersey easily but will never get back the chance to eat the pastry there.   Well...not for a long while at least. Out on the beautiful little roads without cars, the most beautiful shade of blue sky, perfect puffy white clouds floating in the sky, with Ventoux always watching me as I glided bet

Merci à toutes les personnes qui nous ont souri.  À  toutes les personnes qui ont fait un  effort pour nous parler.  À  toutes les personnes qui nous ont acceptés  dans leur communauté.  Nous te remercions du fond du coeur 💕 From the moment we arrived in Beaumes-de-Venise we knew that the people that lived there would have an impact on our experience. We didn't know how much of an impact of course until time went on, but judging by our first trip to the grocery store U Express we quickly realized how sweet this French town's inhabitants were. If you're from Beaumes or have been there, I'm pretty sure you know what/whom I am speaking of.  As the days went on I slowly began to build connections, to give and receive more bonjours and bisous, to feel more comfortable attempting to use my limited knowledge of the French language. It took a while... maybe a month and a half? I remember the first mom from school that struck up a converstaion and it will c