Our Trip Part 2: Villefranche(Nice), France

Note: I didn't have time to get all the pictures from this day put on here, but I will come back and add them. We are moving tomorrow and it may be a couple of weeks before we can get the computer on line out there in the wild country so until then...

This was my favorite day of the entire trip! Marv was up and ready early Sunday morning. I on the other hand was sleeping off the nausea pills that got me through the night. He was taking pictures of the coast of France before we could even make out any buildings. The French Riviera was hoped to be one of the best ports because I remember from my childhood seeing a painting that my Grandma Curbo did of the brightly colored buildings there. She never got to visit, but somehow I felt a full circle moment when I got to see the actual buildings that she thought enough of to paint.

We didn't have to get off the boat until a little later that day since our tour wasn't until the afternoon, so we were able to eat breakfast on the boat and then leisurely get on the smaller boat to be taken to shore. I enjoyed taking pictures that day of other boats, houses, and every day scenes from life in France! It was a beautiful Fall day, and helped make the pictures and experience even more perfect!

Neither of us have ever traveled abroad, or knew French, so we were a little nervous. We soon realized that people are so friendly, and most could at least speak broken English. The accents were so fun to listen to! I think it puts a neat spin on our language when spiced up with a french accent. Some words would get lost in translation though, and that would always give us a good laugh when words were misused....more on that later.

We had the most fun going up and down stairs taking us all through the village. I tried and capture some neat things that caught my eye like...

1. EVERYONE hangs their laundry out on their balcony to dry. I loved the colors of laundry blowing in the breeze, and just the realness of everyone has dirty laundry and here it is out in the world for everyone to see.

2. Two well-worn ladies having a morning chat before starting the day at her market.

3. Fishermen gathering up their nets from the morning fishing trip. It all most seemed fake it was so real to see this every day life of the French.

4. Cafes galore...love the easiness of the way people start their day. So simple and unhurried! They know how to enjoy their food, family, and life!!!

We later took our first tour. We got on a tour bus with other people from our cruise and were taken around to see the sights from higher up. We passed by several celebrities homes like Tina Turner, and saw the unbelievable wealth of Monaco, and a neat mid-evil village of Eze. We were able to get off the bus at Eze and take a walking tour of this amazing little village up on a hill. This of course meant many steep hills and steps to climb, but well worth it. At the top we found a cafe and ordered a cappachino, and found a few neat items. As we headed back down the hill to the bus we saw an ambulance rushing up the hill, and later learned that a lady from our group had fallen coming down the steep steps. Our guide came back to the bus late after getting her sent to the hospital to inform us that she had been kilt (killed), but was going to go to hospital to get pickters (x-rays) to make her better. Wow these hospitals over here in France are something else if you can get pictures to bring you back to life!!! We realized that she meant injured instead of killed and that she probably just cracked her tailbone!

The whole time we had to keep pinching ourselves and reminding each other that we were actually in France and not Epcot!!! I could have spent an entire week in this wonderful land. The pebble beaches, bright blue water, brilliantly painted buildings and easiness of this bay was intoxicating to my senses. I will be back someday, but if not for sure I will follow in my grandma Curbo's footsteps and try and paint the scenes that I witness that perfect day in Villefranche!

Our Trip Part 1: Sights of Barcelona Spain/Cruise ship life

Marv and I were given the amazing opportunity to take a nine day trip to see some of the most beautiful parts of the world in the Mediterranean Sea on a cruise ship. Neither of us had ever been on a cruise before, so we were both excited. I forgot to mention that this trip was F*R*E*E! I'm so thankful to our friends and family who made this possible by loving on our kids while we were gone and encouraged us to go.


Our trip started out on a plane from DFW to Newark for 3+ hours and then heading straight to get on another plane for 10+ hours we got off in Barcelona, Spain. There was bad weather on the east coast so that created delays, etc...but we were thankful to finally get back on ground after such a long flight. I had never been on a plane that long! I must say it compares a little bit to child birth with the swollen ankles and calves for me.

We were able to have a quick breakfast provided by David Weekly(provider of the trip) and then Marv and I exchanged some American money for some Euro($1.50 for 1 Euro-not a bargin!) and jumped in a taxi to head to see the Sagrada Familia Antoni Gaudi Cathedral in Barcelona Spain. Our taxi driver spoke no english at all so we pointed to it on a map and prayed that we would get there for a price we could afford! It was beautiful to gaze at ,but it was so crowded we had to be on the look out for pickey pockets as our guide called them. She spoke english pretty well, but gave us our first taste of many tour guides we had that whole week.

We only had a couple of hours before we had to board the ship so I was snapping pictures the whole way to the port in the tour bus. I was a little nervous about the whole sea sick thing, and tried to be prepared. I think until you do it you just never know how your body will react. I've had some vertigo type issues, and get car sick if I try and read. There was lot's of advice, patches, and drugs available to help with any real rough days at sea. For the most part just getting started out on the waters the first night was sending me to bed...well and I was so pooped from not getting any sleep the night before spent packing. Marvin on the other hand was out on the balcony yelling to me to come here...you gotta see this Tiff...it's so cool! Just sitting up on the bed was enough to make me want to jump overboard, so I just let him give me the play by play of how we were pulling out of port at Spain(same one that Christopher Colombus left from to find America) and heading out into the wild blue sea.

Once on board we got a quick snack...wow the food is amazing and available 24/7! I forgot to pack my wheelbarrow so I was good about the amount of food I ate ,and we walked alot! We then headed to our cabin and began to unpack. We found a plate of fruit (fiber would keep us going on this fast paced trip!) As a reward for getting unpacked we decided to grab a quick nap. Not long into the nap we hear the command that it is time to grab your life jackets and be counted on deck! So we headed with absolutely everyone else on the ship to our assigned deck for a muster drill I thought they kept saying Mustard drill, but anyhow... I was so sleep deprived by this point that I felt as if I was in a deep fog, but Marv led me, put on my life jacket and propped me up against a wall until it was all over. I finally got a little more sleep and took a nausea pill to help ease my stomach. We showered and headed to our assigned dinner time and table at 9:15. We sat with a lively group, all from the group of around 100 people who were on this same trip thanks to David Weekly homes. Many were feeling great and decided to stay out later that night, but Marv and I did the old folk thing and headed to bed!

I will try and post on each day and include pictures over the next week. If you ever get a chance to take a cruise I can highly recommend the Royal Caribbean Cruise line and this specific cruise ship...Voyager of the Seas with Captain Frank. (Marv does a great impersonation of him!)

Buongiorno!

Blue Ridge here we come

Here are just a few pictures of the boys helping knock out a wall, Daddy ripping out the old a/c ducts in the master bedroom, and our new friend and neigbor's dog Henry the hounddog! Julia is standing in her room, and asked me if I could tell she was smiling from ear to ear about all the room she is going to have. Even with the mask on I could see that gleam in her eyes and knew she was just about to burst!

The demo is finally done and we are entering into the fix up stage of this house project. As always this is taking about three times longer than we had hoped, but now that all the yucky stuff is out of there we can start making it look like home. It is a little bit like building a new house; just with the old shell already being there. We are picking out cabinets, floors, sinks, faucets, doors, rearranging some of the rooms the way we would like, and adding on a gameroom/schoolroom and garage.

The neighbors out there are already being so kind, friendly, and helpful. It's gonna be weird for this country/wanna be city girl to get back out to the country, but I'm up for it. Marv and the kids on the other hand can not wait, and squeal with excitement when it's time to get our "Blue Ridge" clothes on and take the trip to the dirt road and fresh air. It only takes about 10 seconds after the car is put into park to find the kids off exploring and running through the field looking for critters and anything else exciting. There is nothing like being cooped up for these past 6 years surrounded by concrete and neighbors, and then getting to have 10 acres to do with as we please. Marv has great plans for barns, animals, hay, and more animals. I will be happy with this move, and know that my country heart will come back in time.

Y'all come visit us in Blue Ridge. We hope to be in by Christmas! Also would you say a prayer that our house here in Frisco would sell, or at least lease! Not the best time to try and sell a house, but we know God is in the details.

Pedro, Huck, and Julia Roberts

What fun to have all three of these amazing, well-known super stars come visit our humble abode on halloween!

We just had too much fun hanging out with friends, passing out candy, beggin' for candy, and sneaking candy. We usually go to our church fall festival, but got a taste of getting to be out with our neighbors last year and decided to try it again this year! My kids had never been trick or treating for real as of last year, and we realized that it was an opportunity to get out and see families that we haven't seen in a while since we are now homeschooling.


As you can see from the pictures each child has their own style, and don't mind acting a little as well! Jacob ,my favorite middle child in the world, came up with his own costume. He even climbed up in the tree to find his fishin' pole. I did splurge and spend two bucks on that hat, but other than that he was trying to save his poor ole parents a buck. Julia wanted so bad to be Hannah Montana, but with just getting back from our trip we didn't start looking until Oct. 30th. She was happy with this get up though as she loves to be glamed up. I'm surprised and happy about the way her hair turned out. She looked beautiful and very much like a miniature Julia Roberts! And then there is that first born of mine with the deep man voice that still scares me when I hear it coming from the back yard and think there is a man out there playing with my kiddos! He is in the phase of not going all out, but still wanting to have fun being someone else for a night. We came across this Pedro wig, mustache, and bolo tie kit and just had to have it, since Jeffrey does a mean Pedro impersonation! I kept telling him he didn't need to worry about wearing the stache since he has been growing his own, but dad finally took care of that and helped him shave for the first time the other night! (more on that later)

I'm so thankful that it is now my favorite time of year November through January is all about celebrations of our Lord and spending time with family and friends! I have so much to share about our trip, how the house is going in Blue Ridge, and life in general...hopefully I can find some time to get these posted soon!

Crazy but fun times

Well I just finished writing out my lesson plans for the next few weeks, and looking back on the last four weeks of school! I can't believe how fast time has flown through all that I feel like I've endured lately. Here's a catch up of what the last few weeks have involved...

I finally got over my hives around Sept. 21st so that's all most two weeks of hives! My wart is finally gone (without surgery Praise God for that) and now I have another one popping up on my right foot, but am having the foot doc take care of it the same way, so it's not painful at all yet! The first couple of weeks was spent either in pain, or doped up on Benadryl to keep from itching. Somehow we were able to still get some great learning and fun times in despite my body falling apart! There is just no time for momma's to stop and heal!

We also have several very exciting things going on around the Jolly house...we closed last Friday on a fixer-upper home on 10 acres in Blue Ridge, Texas! That's right we are moving! We put our home here in Frisco on the market Saturday and hope to sell it quickly, but not too quickly before the house is ready to be occupied in the country or we might be moving in with friends and family. I will have to devote an entire blog on this little project that Marvin found some other time, but he has had his eye on it since March and everything just finally fell into place. It's a blessing from God, and we are looking forward to getting out to the country and stretch out and experience having animals, stars, and beautiful sunsets. For those of you who know me well, you know that I have been digging in my heels for the last few years on moving to the country, but God and Marv finally showed me that it is time for many changes. I will miss the suburbs and warm concrete streets and sidewalks. Landscaping and near by friends, stores, restaurants, etc.

On top of homeschooling, hives, buying and redoing a fixer-upper, putting our house on the market, and studying for my real estate final exam...Marv found out during the first week of school that he earned through work a free trip for two on a 7 night Mediterranean Cruise! I just don't think I can take anymore excitement and big stressful type events going on in our life, but this one I think I can handle! My sweet family and friends are going to be taking turns with our kiddos during this time, or it wouldn't be possible to go! I'll make sure and blog on our adventures once we get back.

If you would have told me a year ago that I would be homeschooling, moving to the country, and taking a trip out of the US I wouldn't have believed you for one second! It is so neat to see how through good and bad times God can be faithful in preparing us for the amazing journey of life that he allows us to live each moment of each day.

Hives and Homeschoolin'

Well we made it through our first official week of homeschooling. The kids are waking us up at 6:45 when we over sleep ready to go! I never ever in a million years thought that homeschooling could be this fun, much less doable. You see I was always one of the ones that just said I could NEVER EVER to it cause I couldn't do the higher level teaching, have enough patience, or discipline. I was sooooo wrong! The curriculum that I am using (a hodge podge of things) is just amazing! It has been so wonderful to add a family bible study into our schedule, and now we can learn about anything and everything that interest us when it comes to science, history, and art. I was telling Kim what I did for science the first day and she told me I should blog about it, so here goes along with our schedule...

7:00 Family Bible Study (we are doing Matthew right now through BSF)
7:45 Breakfast
8:15 Dress/chores
9:00 Calendar/Weather
9:30 Boys do Math while Julia does Language
10:30 Boys do Language while Julia does Math
11:30 Science/History M,W,F and Art/Music T/Th
12:30 Lunch...if I can get them to stop long enough!
1:30 Finish any school work/chores if needed
FREE TIME

Okay so this is my big plan, but these crazy kids of mine have gone of the deep end and usually don't want to quit! I never would have thought that would happen!

So for Science we are doing a couple of weeks on weather. I bought this neat weather cube station at Lakeshore teacher store that allows the kids to measure wind, rain, temp, barometric pressure, etc... It's been really neat! I also asked them on the first day to write down a question in their science folders that they had about weather. Wow their little brains come up with so many questions it was hard to narrow it down to one, but they did. I had 6-8 books checked out from our city library about weather and then told them to go and research to find the answers. They each ended up writing a couple of pages on all the info they found and then shared with each other. So simple, but man did they really do alot of self teaching and self motivation on this!

Now for the hives part of the week! I have a plantar's wart on my foot and was prescribed a medication that I am obviously allergic to cause I woke up Friday morning itching like crazy and covered in hives! Needless to say after taking Benadryl I was out for the count, but we were able to get our school lessons in by the afternoon! I'm so blessed to have these three precious children who have amazed me and surprised me by their enthusiasm and love for our new homeschooling adventure!

Homeschooling Preview Week

Well we got started last week with homeschooling, and I can say this...WOW it is going to be so much fun, and so much work all at the same time! I know that with public school there are advantages and disadvantages, and it will be the same with homeschooling. I think hopefully though the advantages will far outweigh the disadvantages. While some things I am still just trying to get used to...like BEING WITH MY KIDS TWENTY-FOUR SEVEN!!! I love love love truly love being with my kids, but after a while we can all get a little ready for some alone time. One great thing we did this summer to get ready for all this togetherness is move each child into their own rooms...sooo that has really helped!

The first week was a preview week to give me a chance to see what each child retained from last year, what they were feeling about this new adventure, and prepare the room and all our supplies to make sure we were ready to get started with the real thing September 10th. One of the things I had each child do was write in their journals. They were to write about their goals for this school year...personal, spiritual, and educational goals. They were to write about their hopes for this new venture. They also were to write about ideas they had about field trips and fun trips that they would like to take. Marvin and I were so blessed by what each of them wrote I thought I would share a part of each of their writings with y'all...

Jeffrey 12 years old/7th
My goals this year are to get better in the habit of reading the bible. I would also like to get better at Math. I will get better at playing guitar also. I am trying to save money for a guitar and other stuff like tithing. Reading the bible will help me in my walk with God this year. Math is a thing that every one needs to know, because in the future it will help you in your job and with every day things like bills. I hope this year that homeschooling will help me be confident, and act better. I will enjoy being with my brother, sister, and mother all of my school days. I hope by being in their class I will learn more about their feelings and also helping them in school. (This is just a taste of the two pages that he wrote!)

Jacob 10 years old/5th

As you know, this year we're starting to home school. I'm going to have lots of fun...and set goals. Get comfortable because this is going to take a while. One of my spiritual goals is to actually pray sincerely to God. The reason? Sometimes, if I'm really tired at night, or in a bad mood, I just say the same thing EVERY NIGHT. "Dear God, Help us have a great night's sleep tonight and a good day tomorrow. In Jesus name, Amen." I mean you gotta admit it is getting kind of old. Okay, next thing, educational goals I have a couple so uh, listen up. The 1st thing is grades. They can make a big difference in school. I'm gonna try to improve my grades because last year wasn't a bunch of sugar and spice. The 2nd thing is paying attention. Sometimes I just look around, other times I day dream. Now to personal goals. The big and only thing in this category is the bass guitar. I want one so badly! (What a ham he is in his writing...I love it!)

Julia 8 yr. old/3rd

I want to learn how to cook. I want to learn how to cook ravioli, spaghetti, and pancakes. I will try to do my best on that. Next, I would like to exercise more often. Like do sit ups and other stuff. I am also ready to be on a schedule for dance, violin lessons, and school! First I think that I want to go on more field trips like to Six Flags, or Sharkarosa, that would be fun. Second, I would like to read the bible more, and learn about Peter, and Esther! Third, I would like to learn lots of history. I would like to find out about all the first ladies and Presidents. I would like to learn about the president's children and their names are. I love to learn about history and want to learn more about it! (I love that Julia wants to learn how to be a momma, and now we will have time!)

I can not begin to tell y'all how blessed and just so thankful I am by reading their first journal entries. The change I already see in each child is a gift from God and I can't wait to see how this year transpires for each of them and for us as a family!