Lounges-Sur-Mer

Friday found us at a D-Day site - Lounges-Sur-Mer. Here there are four big 150mm cannons (you can only see three of them in this picture) placed in concrete bunkers by the Germans to cover the beaches of France from an Allied invasion. Hundreds of tons of bombs were dropped here before sending in Allied troops on D-Day, but the concrete was so well reinforced, none of the bunkers or guns were hurt. However, the German soldiers were so frightened and shell shocked by the bombings they couldn't man the guns, so the shelling did help the D-Day invasion, just not in the way the Allies intended.

Brennan was obviously impressed with the shell holes still in the ground from those bombs!! Really impressed, he wasn't faking at all.

Amazingly, those German guns are still there. Still in the bunkers where they were that June 6th, 1944 - D-Day. The people of Normandy were so grateful to the Allied troops for liberating them from Nazi rule they have preserved many sites like this one as a tribute to the brave men who fought here.


I was surprised that you could walk through the bunkers. Nothing was roped off, you could just go right in and look around and touch things. That would never happen here.


This was pretty incredible, too. It is a map of the Normandy beaches and surrounding areas made out of concrete. I was surprised at how detailed it was.


This is a direction finder casemat. It was huge and consisted of several stories. The big guns were so far from the beach they couldn't see what they were shooting at, so this casemat, placed near the beach, contained men who would watch to see where the shells were hitting and then would radio back to tell the men manning the cannons which way to adjust their guns so they could hit their targets.


This is from inside a casemat looking out. The Germans were masters at reinforcing concrete. These are in pretty perfect shape, especially considering they had been through a pretty major D-Day invasion.

The boys climbing around on the casemat.


This is a picture of Gold beach way off in the distance. If you look closely you can just barely see some kind of permanent structures out in the ocean placed there by the Germans to stop ships from coming in. This was my attempt at a creative shot. Because I was here - on vacation in France with three boys and THEY wanted to visit World War II sites, which I wasn't all that excited about. But being here . . . well, it won me over. There is certainly a patriotic spirit here. It swelled my heart.

Great To Be Home!!

It only took ten and a half hours on an airplane and four hours in a car to get me home yesterday, but I am so happy to be here in my own house, in my own town, in a place where I can talk and someone will understand what I am saying. . .

Here we are at the Eiffel Tower. Drew and Brennan in this shot looking especially chummy.


And I am with Drew and Brennan in this one, although you can't really see us. We landed in Paris on Thursday, Feb. 19th at 11:30 am France time, which was 3:00 am our time and we were tired, jet lagged and hungry, so we didn't hang around Paris long, just enough to see the Big Tower and hit the Musee d'Orsay to look at some great art. Then we were off to Normandy.

We had a great time, saw some amazing things and mingled with some wonderful people - each one of whom has a story. And I will chronicle some of those in the coming days, but for now I'm lost in laundry, the mail is stacked over my head, and the Prom is on Saturday and I have suit pants to hem and a dress to alter . . . is vacation worth it?

All For the Love of a Blanket

Because I didn't pull my camera out until Porter was the target for the marshmallow war, I didn't get pictures of Chase being shot and eating last week's marshmallows. I did, however, get pictures of him trying desperately to get his beloved blanket, Dee Dee out from under Drew's head while Drew was using it as a pillow. Not one of my kids were attached to any of the many, many blankets I made for them, so I think it's just cute that Chase loves his little blanket so much. A blanket that my Sister-in-Law, Tiffany made, by the way, still not one that I made . . but I'm not bitter.


He finally gave up trying to get Drew off his blanket and just cuddled with the little corner he could get to. Isn't he just too cute!

The Hunger Games . . .

. . is the title of another great book. If you want a fast read that you just can't put down, this book is it. I would put it in the Young Adult fantasy genera - but, anyway . . .

This past Christmas we held a White Elephant contest. Each of us tried to come up with something that cost the least amount of money while being the most sought after gift. This is one of the gifts Dave won - a marshmallow shooting gun. Dave is gun guy. He loves guns of any size, shape, or ammunition type, so when Kenny pulled out this marshmallow shooting gun, he was all over trying to end up with it, and he won! Last weekend when things quieted down somewhat, the boys pulled out the marshmallow gun and put it to the test.


Porter and Chase loved it because, although Drew was shooting at them . . . and that was a little scary . . .


When it was over, there was a marshmallow to eat! And Porter just sucked his right up off the floor - a floor that had just been mopped, or we would never have allowed him to suck marshmallows off it ;)


It was fun for everyone. The shooter, the shoo tees, and those of us watching and laughing. Thanks for the great gift, Kenny. We are still working on getting Dave to wear his "fifth pocket" around, though.

The Days Are Just Packed . . .

is the title of one of our favorite Calvin and Hobbs books. I am starting to see a theme here in my titles, by the way. It must be a carry over from my 50 books year last year, although Calvin and Hobbs wasn't one of the 50 books I read.
We had an overwhelmingly, over the top, fun weekend - in fact, it was so overwhelming I didn't pull out my camera until Sunday afternoon when most of the fun people were gone and things were starting to settle back down. My nephew, Tristan was baptized on Saturday so we jaunted off to Huntington while Drew headed in the opposite direction for one last snowboarding weekend at Telluride. Brennan stayed in Moab to hang with his friends who were home from college to hear his homecoming talk. On the way to Huntington we got a call from Brennan telling us that Drew had hit a deer on HIS way to Telluride, so instead of hanging with his friends, Brennan would spend the day hooking up trailers, gathering tie downs and traveling to Paradox to rescue Drew. When Drew hit the deer, in Drew's words, "the antlers just fell right off" so he, considering them sheds at that point, gathered them up and brought them home.

The only three point buck this family has killed in years and Drew got him with our Tundra - and Dave is short one work truck :( But the boys are O.K., and that is what is important - or so I keep telling Dave.

Brennan did a wonderful job reporting at High Council and in Sacrament Meeting and the support of friends and family was heartwarming. We had a breakfast bar afterward and all basked in the glow of Brennan and his missionary spirit.

My sisters drug me away for a quick "sisters" picture. Here we are, the three Johnson sisters. And yes, I am the only non red head. I always have been. The only non red head. Because I'm unique. And I'm O.K. with that, believe it or not.

Our thoughts were also with Dave's niece, Lisa and those family members who stayed to support her as she was giving her farewell talk before heading to the MTC and a mission in Japan. As Dave's Mom said, apparently in this family when we bring one missionary home, we have to send another one out. Good luck Lisa. My goodness, the days are just packed!

We're Goin' To France

Yes, it's official. The plane tickets are bought, there's no backing out now. It was always a plan in the works that when Brennan returned from his mission we would go back to France with Bren as our guide/translator, and since he has talked non stop about returning since he unboarded the airplane a week ago, we decided to go now. RIGHT now. We will leave in two weeks! February 18th and return on March 4th - my Dad and Dave's Mom's birthdays. Wow. I'm a little panicked.


We HAVE been saving money for the trip. In this Eiffel Tower piggy bank that was supposed to be full after two years. Don't worry, those are mostly quarters. We'll be fine. I think.

Ten Minutes From Normal . . .

. . . is the title of a book about Karen Hughes, former counselor to former President Bush. I liked the book, but the best thing about it is the title - it so fully describes my life. We aren't normal in this household, but we can see it from here and are perpetually about ten minutes away. Brennan is further - I'd say 20 minutes from normal for him - but considering that he was about a day away from normal last week, he's doing well.

He spent the weekend getting reacquainted with Aiden, working with Dave, and creating a Facebook account with which he found every friend he's ever had between here and France in about 3.5 minutes. Now, I'm wondering, are we getting closer? Is THAT normal?