It was only two short years ago when we first met the LeNoble family from Annecy, France. Virginie, Jacques, Zoe and Juline were spending three weeks in Beijing, China. We just happened to stay at the same awesome hutong.
Our families both had two daughters and we decided it would be great to go out into the city together. We visited the circus with them, as well as enjoyed Peking Duck. When it was time to say goodbye, we exchanged contact information in hopes that our paths might cross in the future.
The following year, Virginie set up a house swap in Vancouver for three months. The family moved to Canada’s West Coast and enjoyed the beautiful mountains and water. After school let out, the family travelled across the country and once again we had the opportunity to meet up. It was great to reconnect and share adventure travel stories when they came to Toronto.
By the end of their stay, Virginie asked us if we would be interested in doing a “daughter exchange” the following summer. The focus would be on helping both sets of children with each others’ language. We agreed that it would be a great language learning opportunity for everyone.
To prepare the girls for their experience, each week the kids made short videos about themselves and shared it via the Internet. Our girls’ videos were in French, and the Lenoble girls’ videos were in English. This went on for months and was a lot of fun for all involved. Here’s an example below:
So this past summer, Mikhaila and Zoe, sans us for the first time, boarded an airplane and flew to France to meet the LeNoble family and live two weeks full of adventure. The next few blog posts will be all about their epic trip.
Question to consider – will the parents survive when their kids travel half way around the world without them?
Who knew that our original trip would allow us to meet so many amazing people who would continue to impact our lives? It goes to show you the power of travel!
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