Sean and Westie visit!!

These photos are from our day on Ile de Ré with Uncle Sean and Westie. We climbed on church ruins, chased chickens, explored bushy sand dunes, and saw a real rainbow. All on their first day here.

happy easter!

Today the kids and I made little easter baskets, hoping that the Easter Bunny will make the transatlantic voyage to visit us and leave a few surprises. We don't have much faith in the French flying bell. (in case you weren't aware, in France apparently the church bells leave the church, FLY to Rome and return to France with chocolates which they hide for the children. right.)In France they only get chocolates- no marshmallow peeps, no jellybeans, no dyed eggs, no baskets. Thankfully the Cincinnati Easter Bunny sent jellybeans which makes the holiday for me. For me, Easter without jellybeans is like Christmas without presents. It's all about digging down through the easter grass to fish out each tiny jewel-colored treasure and gorging on pure sugar before breakfast. Tomorrow we are joining some Anglophones for an easter brunch and I may even take the kids to church next door- since we have been watching it from outside for almost seven months now, I figure Easter should be the perfect time to check it out inside. We observed a bit of their Palm Sunday service last weekend- it started outside with all the people holding what looked like branches cut from regular old bushes (unlike the actual palm fronds that we had in church in the States).

a few random photos

Here is a picture of me and some friends at the last "slam" as well as a couple of the kids at the beach where we went to see the ship that had gotten stuck.

still sick

miette has been sick off and on, has fever again and i think i am getting it too. we are going to try and stay home tomorrow, not going to school and work... hope we kick this soon. otherwise nothing big to report, just hoping we can rest and get better. spring fever....

ship on the beach

Today the kids and I went with a friend and her son to Les Sables d'Olonne, a city an hour or so from here, to see a freighter that ran aground Monday after serious storms. Here's a link if you are interested in seeing a photo:

http://fr.news.yahoo.com/ap/20080311/img/pwl-france-stormy-weather-9-2da75ebf98300.html

Apparently it got pushed off course from high winds and got stuck on the beach there, very close to the wall that separates the beach from the road. No one was hurt and the ship is totally intact. We drove to check it out and the area was swarming with onlookers watching the progress of the bulldozers trying to dig away the sand to make a passageway for it back into the ocean when the tide comes up again. It is pretty surreal, seeing this huge ship just stuck like a beached whale in the middle of a big beach, right next the center of town.

I was also thanking Michel Crépeau (former mayor of La Rochelle) for his preservation efforts here after visiting this beach side town. The entire beach front of Les Sables d'Olonne is looming with monstrous high rise buildings and looks awful. The city center on the port here in La Rochelle has been totally preserved and has only the old small stone buildings, and retains a strong feeling of history as well a an aesthetic congruity. It also lends a sense of openness and accessibility to downtown, a place for sitting, walking and exploring. Ah, how I love this town.

of sickness and death (don't worry)

Miette has been on the couch asleep and breathing noisily with a fever of 103.4 since 6:30 PM this evening. She just had a visit with the school nurse (who comes into all the classes for a check-up on their hearing, sight, teeth, growth, etc.) a few days ago and Julian had his visit today and oddly enough, I was just thinking how lucky I was to have kids that rarely get sick... I guess I forgot to touch wood.

It was interesting getting the reports back from the nurses though! Miette said the nurse told her she was "une jolie petite fille parfaite" and on Julian's form she (a different nurse) wrote "adorable petit garçon". My perfect pretty little girl and adorable little boy. And neither of them have any problems with hearing, sight, or any cavities. Julian's nurse even evaluated their language development and graphic skills (they see if they can draw a complete person)! They send home a little booklet with information on where a 4 year old should be development-wise. These are nice things about the french system....

On an unrelated note, I made mexican food for lunch with my friends S and C and it was so good to have some great people with whom I could share some of my favorite food that I miss so much here in France. Jaffrey's refried black beans, guacamole, and homemade salsa.... And as somehow our post-lunch conversation meandered over to the subject of death, in the thick of the discussion, we noticed a hearse pulling up to the church that we see from my balcony, and people starting to flood in for a funeral. We scrambled to touch wood then...

music, food, and the anatomy of a face

I have been enjoying so much new music this year and thought I'd share this one that my friend Niina put on a mix for me. It is called "le vent nous emportera" and here is the link to the video

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xliwq_noir-desir-le-vent-nous-portera_music.
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On an unrelated note, Julian asked me this morning why our noses are below our eyes.
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and Miette is cooking these days. I am letting her get creative in the kitchen and I don't oversee anything- only constraints are that she clean up after herself. Her friend Apolline was over for one of these cooking adventures and they planned and prepared a whole menu which was actually quite good! She named the dishes "Fleur de pommier" "Pomme d'Amour" "Creme Brulee". the first dish had fromage frais (a kind of fresh cheese, soft and slightly sour) spread on a plate and overlaid with almonds and fresh chopped apples and pears. The Pomme d'Amour was a combination of nutella, honey, cinnamon, nutmeg and sliced apples to dip in it and "Creme Brulée" was a beverage made of milk, spices, cinnamon, and chocolate. Then she cooked dinner all by herself (only asking me to heat it on the stove after everything was done). There was a soup (of olives, carrots, and red peppers), bread, and cinnamon stuffed prunes with almonds and jam for dessert. I was skeptical of the soup but it was really tasty. I think she may have a future in the restaurant business.....