This over one thousand year old monastery is steeped in history since its birth on the apex of a giant rock, the conquests of William the Conqueror, the Hundred Years War to the French Revolution. It is an engineering feat of its time, and the tides of the immense bay that cradles it have lured many in and kept countless away. We, unfortunately, visited Mont St. Michel on a day when there was no tide…it would have been something to see the tide moving in at 12 miles an hour, the speed of a galloping horse.
For the past six months, we’ve been holding our breath in the anticipation of our trip.
Three years of being away is simply too long, we’ve concluded. It is difficult to put into words the flooding emotions when we are finally here, surrounded by so much beauty. So, cheers to thirty days of no work, no blaring alarm at 5:30 a.m., just fun, just us, just France, Germany and Austria.
In this first post of our trip, we drove from Angers with our family to the chateau de Villandry, the last large chateau built in the Loire Valley during the Renaissance. The English-style gardens surrounding the chateau made us wish that our thumbs were greener.
Minh Chau’s paella and a glass of wine…
a perfect dinner…
ingredients: mussels, shrimps, chicken, chorizo, Spanish rice, peas, onions, garlic, saffron, thyme, cumin, oregano, smoked paprika, pepper, lemon, parsley, chicken stock
cooking time: 1h 30min
For Minh Chau’s birthday, we took an extended weekend trip to get some much needed rest and relaxation at Glendeven Inn in Mendocino. Mendocino is a charming seaside town about 3 hours north of San Francisco. We spent the weekend sleeping, reading, hiking and playing with llamas =) It was unbelievably calming to listen to the ocean crashing as we fell asleep, waking up to the blue ocean and delicious hot breakfast waiting at our front door.
Since we got married in 2004, we have felt each year has represented a new milestone in our life, and goals. We have just recently settled in our new house after impatiently watching it being built for a year. We love that it is located in the heart of the Silicon Valley because we can now spend precious time together after work instead of being stuck in traffic. It is a joy to relax on Saturday mornings by browsing the bustling Sunnyvale Farmer’s market for fresh fruits and vegetables, and dining at all the ethnic restaurants in Downtown Mountain View. San Francisco is now only about half an hour from us so we get to visit it much more frequently. This foggy city will always have a special place in our hearts since it is where we had our first trip together 5 years ago. How time flies!
We have just moved to our new house in Sunnyvale. It is a new construction, and we actually bought it in May 2007 before it was built. We will post pictures after unpacking is done 
Even though we’ve been living in the Bay Area for three years, we never had a chance to visit Stanford University. Since Minh Chau is taking a course on East Asia at Stanford, we came to explore the beautiful campus.
Halfmoon Bay Pumpkin Festival
La Jolla Beach in San Diego