Home is where the heart is

Home Is Where the Heart Is has taken on a real life application, as we are living the life of gypsies traveling from one place to the next. We are currently at my dad's home. He and his wife Barbara (Babs) have a beautiful and spacious home in Castle Rock, Colorado. We've been here for 8 days and will be here through the end of the week.

While we were in France my dad was diagnosed with cancer. He was given the wide prognosis of 2-20 years. His wife has MS and has kept its deteriorating qualities at bay through self-care and a positive attitude. Their optimism and love of life and learning is an inspiration. We are determined to spend as much time as possible with them so that the girls can benefit from my dad's wonderful creativity, humor, optimism, and character. He created "Grandpa & Babs Camp" which started off with a Welcome Food Extravaganza. He is an amazing chef and made about 8 dishes which were then rated by the girls from "Ugh, spit it out!" to "Bingo Bango, I MUST learn how to cook that!"

Previous tastes were spit out in the "spit out bowl", but here Ceci gave it a "Whew, finally something I can stand"

Adele is having a hard time even getting it in for a try...

My dad gave the first (and last) of an intended series of golf lessons. Tennie took it pretty seriously and did pretty well, so well she didn't think she needed any more lessons. Adele didn't hit the ball on the first try so she didn't think it was worth continuing, and Ceci just plain lost interest.

My dad's backyard was the perfect place for a beginning lesson

Tennie waiting for instruction. Look at the beautiful view of Colorado's rolling hills and prairies!

We took a day to drive through Parker, Colorado where I grew up. It has grown a lot, but there were still some of the same buildings. I was surprised how much I remembered and recognized. When I was 10 my parents divorced and my brothers and I moved to St. George with my mom. It was really fun to step back in time.

The house I lived in as a young girl...it looks exactly the same as it did 30 years ago!

The girls have been introduced to Wii. They spend hours creating mii...much more fun than the actual games...

Adele's first mii

Tennie and Ceci put on a circus one day. We had tickets with assigned seating. The player on my dad's piano played perfect circus tunes. The circus included several acts...it was full of typical Davis girl creativity.

The first act wasn't quite ready when announced so Tennie began to play the part of a tap-dancing clown.

Ceci did some magic tricks with cards

and did some dancing

The person in seat #2 was called out of the audience. My dad played up the part with gusto.

A tumbling act

Adele was called out of the audience to dance

We have been eating well, sleeping comfortably, hearing a lot of afternoon thunderstorms, playing with their dogs (Ella has three legs and a lot of energy, and Charlie is old, feeble, deaf and missing an eye), going to a nearby park to get out energy, watching a lot of movies in an ideal home theatre (Geoff and I are in the middle of the HBO John Adams series...AWESOME!!!), playing cards, charades and learning backgammon, planting flower pots, taking naps, getting organized for another year of homeschooling, catching up on this blog (at last!) and spending a lot of good time with my dad and Babs. Good times. And now, I'm current on this blog!

To the mountains of Colorado

From St. George we drove in a caravan with my mom through the beautiful deserts of Utah and the gorgeous mountains of Colorado to my brother Nate's home. He lives up in the mountains where we often joke that the only way to reach him is through old fashion smoke signals. He lives across the street from a healthy river with a spectacular view of Scraggy Mountain.

Ol' Scraggy

He and his girlfriend live in a small home with so much resourcefulness built into it that we marvelled at both their ingenuity and simplicity. They have three huge labs that entertained the girls all day.

Their uncle Nate is a little different compared to what they are used to. They loved him after about 5 minutes of checking him out from the safety of the inside our van. He provided all sorts of new experiences, and was their wrestling and rough house punching bag for hours on end. His girlfriend Kim is an incredible chef! We ate like royalty breakfast, lunch and dinner! She can make a masterpiece out of nothing...seriously, a culinary artist. None of us had met her before and we all loved her on our first encounter. She is hard-working, industrious, artistic in the kitchen and on canvas, natural, and wonderfully content with what she has.

The front yard. Nate brought out his BB guns, set up some cans and everyone practiced their shot. My mom's brother Brett Garn and his wife Cindy showed up on this particular afternoon. They were in Colorado touring around and heard we were there. What a fun surprise.

Kim had several hummingbird feeders that were always well-attended. Tennie was hoping one would land on her finger...they got pretty close!

We went to the only little cafe in the nearest town of Deckers, Colorado.

My brother is loved by everyone on the mountain. A large picture of him hangs in the little general store...a funny Christmas card picture from a few years ago.

He just finished this beautiful water feature in Deckers. This is where his artistic genius shines!

Nate took Tennie on a uni-loader ride...she loved the wheelie!

Nate bought the girls a helicopter that shoots up 100 feet. None of us were quite strong enough to get it to go so whenever someone gave it a try the rest of us went running to avoid injury.

The hill next to Nate's house had beautiful views of the river and valley. Here are Geoff and Tennie on a little explore.

Nate loaded us and some tubes in the truck. The girls loved the lawlessness of riding in the back...

We choose a calm stretch of the river, and it was pretty fun after our feet and rear ends were numb...

The highlight was the spontaneous decision Nate and Kim made to get married while we were there. In 24 hours they pulled together a beautiful, front yard wedding with lanterns and candles and wild flowers. They had a generous amount of food, and a large gathering of mountain friends and family to celebrate with them. A pastor named Spike married them. Adele and Ceci were the flower girls (with some leftover flowers after their march, Ceci simply dumped the basket at their feet) and Tennie held the rings. It was a casual, spirited and memorable event.


We loved getting a peek into their happy lives in the mountains. And they might be sorry they ever entertained us so well...we'll be back as often as possible!

The first few weeks back

We've been home for a little over a month now. We didn't feel overly emotional coming home, although Tennie displayed some nice drama by kissing the airport floor. We knew it would be nice to be around family, and to return to some basic conveniences, but we also knew our simple lifestyle would be difficult to maintain, we would miss the absence of consumerism, and the distance from the political and economic situations here. Almost instantly upon our return it felt like our life in France was a dream, like we visited a place and had adventures only to come back and re-enter life at exactly the same moment we left it. Only we feel and see things differently. People think they know all about our year in France because they've kept up on this blog, but the depth of our personal and family transformations, and experiences, were rarely conducive to this public blog. Since back I've noticed that people smile, that people in stores are helpful and try to make our experience pleasant, that a lot of people are obese, that carpet feels really good, that people are always on their cell phones, that American washing machines are huge and quick, that I used a lot of body language the first few days, that we were (are) resistant to scheduling things on a calendar (we went and bought one), that people really want us to get a cell phone and call us (we're resisting that, too), that our skin is drying out, that we go to the store more, that people drive slow, and that we do more in one day than we did in a week.

We first went to Geoff's parents in Auburn, California. We allowed our bodies to adjust to the new time zone, the girls played in their yard and felt the freedom of large, open spaces with grass, and we reconnected with our cute little dog Kipper who has mellowed a little. We drove to Medford, Oregon to visit Geoff's 87-year-old grandmother. Whenever we drove from Washington to Northern California we stayed the night with her, and the girls were excited to see her and visit her little, calm house. I didn't take any pictures during these weeks. I was too disoriented and disorganized. We then drove to Salt Lake City, Utah and stayed with Geoff's sister Emily and her family in their new home. We celebrated July 4th with a lot of Geoff's siblings and my brother Mitch and his wife JoAnn (this was the first time Geoff and the girls had met her). We had several birthday gatherings and a bridal shower for Geoff's sister Brittany. We gathered with a group of friends (the Studderts, Stockwells, Hendershots, and Larsens) for dinner one night. We had Sunday dinner at my uncle Ralph and aunt Bonnie's home with many of my cousins and their children. We went to the mission farewell of my cousin's son Ralph. We went to the temple as often as possible, and took the girls to the Oquirrh Mountain temple open house.



Life was moving so much faster than what we were accustomed to, but it was wonderful to have so much time to spend with family and friends. We feel that this free summer to see our favorite people in an unhurried way is a great blessing, and an easier transition into reality!

We drove to St. George, Utah to spend a few days with my mom. We took the girls to the Tuacahn Amphitheatre to see Footloose which was really fun. While there we ran into a French missionary who served some time in our Nice ward about four months ago. She is from Northern France and was visiting a missionary companion in Utah for a few weeks. This unexpected meeting was really strange for me. Our two lives intersected and I found myself homesick for France, wanting to say that we would drive up and visit her sometime...but knowing we wouldn't. The first pang of nostalgia.

The end

We took two days to drive back to our starting point. We spent a long while cleaning out the camping car and packing all of our things up. We didn't do any sight-seeing except stopping at a quick viewpoint to see an old walled city called Carcassonne. You know you are worn out when you don't feel like stopping to explore such a cool place!

We returned the camping car to the very nice family who let us use it, then rented a car to get to Nice where we stayed our last day and a half in a resort hotel on the beach. After nearly three weeks camping we enjoyed a little bit of luxury...you know, a warm shower and a level bed!!! We spent the morning before departure doing a final pack which was quite an ordeal. We each had two suitcases and two maximum-sized carry-ons, each 50 pound exactly (thank goodness the hotel had a bathroom scale!) We spent the afternoon at the beach side pool feeling this strange feeling like we had already left our French experience behind when we left Menton nearly three weeks before, yet we were still there in familiar surroundings - the sea, the mountains, the smell of fresh pastries, the language, and that glorious sun. I was grateful for the transitional camping car trip. It saved me from what would have been an instant nostalgia.

We woke up at dawn to go to the airport. We all went on the balcony of our hotel room and looked out at the sea. As a family we said a very sincere prayer of gratitude for an unbelievably unbelievable year. The adventure of travel, the overwhelming intake of information from Roman architecture to how to ask for a quarter kilo of fresh pasta at the market, the relaxing and spectacular beauty of our surroundings, the challenges that we overcame personally and together, and the unity and love we developed over our year apart in France. As we concluded we paused briefly and there they were, the songbirds that greeted us every single morning in Menton. We had forgotten about them in the camping car, but there they were outside our hotel room singing their beautiful and familiar song. It was as if God himself was looking down at us with a smile saying, "You're welcome."

Basque country

I thought Basque country was another area of France like the Loire or Provence. It wasn't until we arrived that I learned about a unique people with their own language, architecture and food. The origins of the Basque people are still unknown, but Roman sources mention a tribe in the same area.

There isn't much diversity when it comes to house style. Basque homes are all white with deep red detail, like this one.

Here is a sample sign - French on top and Basque on the bottom.

After going to church in Pau we took a long drive through the Pyrenees which was spectacular! Deep forests with rolling hills and fields carpeted in bright green. As we drove into the mountains there was a large sign that said, "CANADIAN BORDERS". What in the? As we drove on we realized there were no fences...anywhere. The cows and horses and picnicking families shared the same open spaces.

San Sebastian, Spain

Having decided against a planned trip to Spain earlier on in the year, we took a day trip to the beach in San Sebastian since we were so close. Other than noticing different architecture, a different language (this is not the same Spanish I know!) and more naked bodies on the beach than in France it didn't feel too different. There was a surfing festival going on and the beach was loaded. Geoff went up to the booth and got a wooden board they were giving away. It was narrow, shorter than a surfboard but longer than a boogie board. Geoff asked if one could surf on it, the guy responded, "Sure!" Geoff asked if one could body surf on it, the guy said, "Oh yeah!" Geoff asked if one could skim board on it. The guy said, "Dude, it is a piece of wood...you can do anything on it!" Geoff gave it a go...and it came back to the states with us. We dug in the sand, collected a bag load of shells, played in the waves and loved a slower day at the beach.

Adele and the "piece of wood"

Dordogne Valley & Bordeaux

On our drive through the Dordogne region we passed more patchwork fields, hilltop towns and green woods. We pulled off the small road into some fields to fix some lunch and came across this quintessential French home.


Right off the side of the country road, in the middle of some farms was this megalith. We had decided not to make a detour earlier in the day to see an area loaded with megaliths and were pleasantly surprised to find this right off the road! They are believed to have been erected between 5000 BC and 3500 BC.


Bordeaux is a large city. The area where Geoff lived has deteriorated into the not-so-nice part of town. The car pollution has turned the once white buildings pretty black. The riverfront part of town has gorgeous, old architecture mixed with modern details in the street lamps and parks.

The mission home, and Geoff's apartment

Geoff remembered an amazing pastry shop near the clock tour. We searched the streets all around and eventually we found it.

A priest outside the church

During the French Revolution the revolutionaries chopped off the heads of all statues, which symbolized royalty...which they were trying to be done with.

Ahh, there is that patisserie. Looks like we were a few years too late...

This is the longest pedestrian street in Europe at 1.2 kilometers. We walked the whole stretch.

Ceci got a little slap-happy on the long stretch...

Riverfront grandeur

Bordeaux chapel