Wow!!  As predicted, this was a very busy week.
 
The company changed our plans a lot during the week, so we were never sure what was really going on.  We went on the assumption that the movers were coming on Friday, and we were leaving for vacation on Saturday and returning to Grand Rapids the day after we returned from our vacation.  That turns out to be close to the truth.  We will be in a hotel in Toulouse for a week after our vacation while Dave finishes up some things on the project.  Then we leave for home.
 
Tuesday afternoon, Dave's parents arrived and we spent a quiet night letting them relax and get some sleep.  Wednesday we packed up the house some and then were invited to tea at Andrew's tutor's home.  We enjoyed ourselves very much at the tea (they fed us the whole time) and regretted rushing off (after three and a half hours) to pick up Dave for our dinner reservations.  We went to the Fondue place that we had been to the previous week.  Dave's parents agreed, it really is a wonderful meal.  We are currently trying to figure out a way to open one in Grand Rapids.
 
Thursday was spent doing laundry all day (really) as we were moving to a hotel downtown that night.  It seemed that the movers really were coming the next day.  Getting to the hotel turned out to be a problem though.  There were thousands of people on the capitol square protesting one of the candidates that made it to the second round of elections (rightly so, he is a terrible man).  The protests were peaceful however, due to the fact that there isn't really any opposition.  No one seems to like this man (he has been compare to Hitler).  The problem for us was that we thought it would be nice to spend our last nights in Toulouse at a hotel on the capitol square.  We could not get there.  Police turned us away from every approach.  We went and had dinner and finally got to the hotel at about 10:00 (the protests went until about 2:00am).  The room was very hot, the boys were cranky, and it was noisy outside, so Michael was screaming.  The staff was very helpful though, and brought us two fans and juice and fruit to cool the boys off.
 
The next morning, Dave and I left early to meet with the movers, while Dave's parents and the boys had baths (the boys) and breakfast at the hotel.  The movers packed up our air shipment in about an hour and then said goodbye.  We  told them no.  They still had to pack up the rest of the house for storage.  They said they weren't doing it today.  It turns out that the company had changed our plans and the house wasn't being stored until Tuesday.  Now what??  Well, our relocation agent will pack up for us on Tuesday and we just hope that all goes well.  In the meantime, this gave us the afternoon off, so Dave's Parents, Dave, and Andrew went to Albi to see the cathedral there while Michael took a much needed nap.  We went to dinner and then to bed to prepare for our trip the next day.
 
I think that I will close here to keep all of the trip information together.  Enjoy your week!  We will think of you while we are touring France.