The Streits

Geoff recently took a trip to Wales for work. While he was gone, Olivia asked me "Is Daddy still in Dolphin?"

At Teddy Bear Picnic day at school

Like most little girls her age, Olivia is into Disney princesses. A bit surprising considering she hasn't actually watched any of the movies (she's not into movies and we don't watch much tv around here) but she's got enough princess books, music and her princess play castle that she knows enough about them. Well, recently she started insisting I call her Cinderella (her favorite princess). The other night as I kissed her goodnight, it went something like this:

Me: "I love you, Olivia."

Olivia: "No, I'm Cinderella."

Me: "Oh ok. I love you, Cinderella."

Olivia: "I love you, Belle."

Apparently, my name is no longer Mommy.

Back when we first moved to London, we complied a list of destinations we hoped to visit during our time in London. Here is the list and the progress we've made in 20 months:

Ireland - Not yet
Italy - Coming this fall
Switzerland - Not yet
Portugal - Yes!
Greece - Yes!
Scotland - Not yet
Germany - Yes!
Spain - Yes!
Croatia - Yes!
France - Yes!
Other (Turkey, Austria, Czech Republic) - Yes!

Baked into the "France" destination listed was not only Paris but also Nice/French Riviera. So with an open weekend in our schedules last month, we booked the flights and hotel and off we went to the beautiful Cote d'Azur in Southern France.

Enjoying the Mediterranean Sea in Nice

Making friends with the locals

After discovering her love of eating sand in Greece, this girlie was disappointed the beach in Nice was comprised of pebbles

After a morning spent at the beach, we loaded up in our rental car for a drive along the French Riviera coastline. It was absolutely beautiful. Blue water, picturesque French towns and cliffs hugging the coastline. What more could you possibly want? Seeing the beauty and diversity of the world God has created never, never gets old.

We headed east along the coast driving through Monaco before reaching the town of Menton, the last town in France before reaching the Italy border. (Italy is about 20 miles away from Nice.) We got out of the car to explore Menton because most importantly, we had spotted a playground for the girls to play at for awhile.

Menton, France

Thankfully for you, this picture is not zoomed in to show the LARGE men in speedos I had to walk by to get this shot

Everybody is happy when there's a playground involved

View near the playground

After leaving Menton, we headed back in the direction of Nice with a plan to stop in Monte Carlo on our way back. However, Ashton wanted to remind us that traveling with children is challenging/frustrating/difficult and decided the best way to do that was by getting carsick right before we got to Monte Carlo. After pulling off the road and getting her cleaned up the best we could with wet wipes (it's not like we left our hotel in Nice prepared to deal with a child getting sick all over herself and her car seat), our plans had to change and we decided to nix stopping in Monte Carlo. Oh well...so it goes. We continued our drive back to Nice with Olivia loudly and frequently proclaiming "It smells like throw up back here!"

While driving, we remembered our concierge at the hotel had mentioned an alternative route back to Nice via a little village in the mountains called Eze. When we got to Eze, Ashton seemed to be feeling ok and we were in need of some dinner, so we stopped. Oh my goodness. I loved this little medieval village set up high on the hilltop. It had a very quaint French charm to it with restaurants, shops and art galleries down cobblestone paths that wound around the village. Throw in views of the Mediterranean Sea down below and the mountains surrounding it and you couldn't ask for anything more. However, after finishing dinner there, a storm was starting to blow in and it was getting late so we headed back to Nice without seeing too much of the village.

Someone might of had some chocolate ice cream after her dinner

The next day in Nice was more of the same: breakfast followed by the beach. The water was warm (after the initial bite) and the waves were calm.

Around lunch, clouds started to roll in so we packed up our beach gear and decided to make a return trip down the road back to Eze Village so that we could explore it a little bit more.

Hazy views on the drive there

Back in the village

Her first popsicle

These girls are just the sweetest (most of the time :) )

At the highest point of the village was a random garden filled with cacti. You had to pay a small admissions fee to get into the garden, but the views of the sea from up there were definitely worth the price.

We love the French Riviera!

Between our time spent down at the beach and car drives, we didn't have much time left to actually seeing the city of Nice. But what we did see was pretty...all that beautiful French architecture style but in bold, bright colors.