Surprise 40th birthday trip-week 1

For JT's 40th birthday, I surprised him with a two week, eating through France adventure. For the first part of JT's 40th birthday surprise, we spent a week at LeCalabesh Cooking school (and yes! I cooked with him) in the Loire Valley of France.  This was a fantastic place.  Not only did we have cooking classes, but we went on a lot of day trips to explore the area.  We have arrived at our hotel for the week and are just relaxing in the courtyard before having dinner with our hosts.

 

 The cooking school is inside of our hosts' house.  It was such a beautiful place!

JT and Chef became fast friends.

Making macaroons one day.

  

  

Today we went to the goat farm, where the world's best goat cheese is made.  The farm is for sale and JT did not want to leave without buying that farm!!

  

  

Making the goat cheese. Looks so easy...

One day, we were playing with sugar-JT was, by far, the best at this!

The desert we made.

There were sunflower fields everywhere in full bloom, so we had to get some photos there!

 

 One day, we did a little history tour and visited the home of five queens of France.  It was such a beautiful place and made JT and I want to learn the history of France.

  

After that, we toured the caves of the Loire Valley, which is where they store their wines and we did some wine tasting!

  

We toured another Chateau, where the French princes were raised and where Leonardo DiVinci is buried.

  

This is the throne room, where the kings of France held court.

 

On the last day of school, we had a little graduation ceremony. Here we are with our host chefs. 

This is our whole class.

James' Birthday-really early!!

James really wanted a friend birthday this year.  Since we will be gone the whole month of August, we had to do it before the big trip. One candle refused to stay lit, so James accepted another year of being eleven:)

After dinner, cake, and presents, it was off for some bowling!