December already?!

How is it already December? Apparently the last time we posted was in July...how time flies. Since then we've:

•  Been to Croatia (both of us) and Portugal (just myself) with my sister Vicki (see her pics on Facebook because the pics were all on her camera)
• Celebrated Alex's birthday
• Gone home to get married (photos here)
• Watched my good friends Dani and Bradley tie the knot <3
• Gone on a weeklong cruise with my Dad (to Montenegro and the Greek islands) followed by a weekend in Venice and a week back in France touring around Normandy
• Settled back into life in France (Alex is still postdoc-ing, I'm teaching English, babysitting and editing part-time)
• Went to see the ballet Swan Lake in Caen
• Alex went to Geneva for a day and South Africa for 10 days for a conference!
• I went to Tours (in the centre of France) for a weekend to visit a friend
• And we are now getting into the holiday spirit (by that I mean we each bought ourself an advent calendar and are stuffing ourselves with chocolate)

Since I don't want to bore you with a recap of all the events above, here are are random selection of photos that capture these events, plus a few others thrown in for good measure.

 Alex's birthday in Caen:

Our trip with my Dad:

  

Alex looking cool in Venice

Palace in St Marco's Square, Venice 

Venetian masks

View of Venice from the ship

 

Montenegro

Ken in stunning Montenegro

Our giant cruise ship in a small bay in Montenegro

My dad nerding out in front of an old synagogue

Some pics from the Acropolis in Athens

 

The happy newly weds ;)

 

Windmills in Mykonos

Beautiful Mykonos

Me holding the cruise ship

Hanging out in a cave in Argostoli, Greece

...and climbing out of one

Father- and son-in-law enjoying the countryside outside a winery in Argostoli, Greece

  

Alex enjoying some spanakopita and Greek beer

Cute towel animal on the cruise ship

Us on the cruise with our Hawaiian dinner mates, Summer & Chase

Ken hanging out in Venice

Tourists wearing plastic bag boots in Saint Marco's Square, Venice

Us (above and below) in front of some Venetian canals

Ken at the Chateau de Caen 

Canadian flag in France

One of the many picturesque towns Ken visited in Normandy

Ken (above) and Samantha (below) visiting the cliffs of Étretat

View of Étretat from above

A small Normandy port town called Honfleurs

Samantha in Honfleurs

The stunning Mount Saint Michel, about an hour and a half from Caen

Us at Mount Saint Michel 

My dad's parting message

Some random photos:

We collected and roasted nuts (les noix) off the sidewalk one week in Oct when they all fell off the trees. We felt weird doing it, but there are no squirrels here! I am still eating them in December.

To continue the collection of images of weird French, ham- and cheese-flavoured snacks 

Alex and Hawaï are best friends

I thought we could grease the pizza pan with "oil" from the jar of roasted red peppers we were using. Turns out it is just sugar water and it literally glued our pizza to the pan. Although we had to eat our pizza in shreds, it was delicious.

I colour French cats when I'm bored

Tours, France

A limestone cave outside Tours with moulded objects being petrified 

Hanging out with my friend Alda in Tours

Us at Swan Lake

  

A few photos from Alex's trip to South Africa:

South African penguins!

How cute are they!?

Tired after climbing to the top of a mountain

The gorgeous view

A South African Dassie

Amazing scenery

Exploring the most south-western point of the most southern part of Africa! 

Mountain selfie

Well hello there Mr. Lion!

Lion sanctuary!

Enjoying some more beautiful scenery

Flowers burnt in a forest fire

Cool South African trees 

Yep, that's a wild ostrich

Conference selfie

And lastly...

Awkward selfie at an electronica-lights parade in Caen that featured illuminated fish and sea horses followed by Santa Claus. Don't ask.

We have thousands of other photos from the last few months, but I felt this was more than enough. Now it's time to start planning our holiday trip to Budapest & Vienna, where we will spend Christmas and New Years (a honeymoon of sorts, since the first trip we took after getting married was with-and courtesy of-my father)! By the way, in case you're starting to think our life is really cool, when we're not travelling we're usually hanging out in our apartment in Caen and missing all of you. So don't be too envious!!

Happy December!