The Final Countdown and Birthday Cake for Breakfast

This week marked the beginning of the end--of the summer that is. After spending two care-free weeks in Spain we returned to real life and tried to enjoy our last week of freedom. However, school preparations soon began niggling our conscience so off we went to gather the dreaded "fournitures," better known to you as school supplies.

In France, the school supply lists are intense. They include a massive quantity of incredibly specific items. For example a red A4 notebook with 96 pages and 5x5 squares. Everything must be covered in new plastic to keep it from deteriorating. Instead of pages being threaded into binders with holes in the page, everything is placed inside a plastic sheet protector known as a plastic pocket. Needless to say we usually end up with stacks of paper and the pockets to put them in. Our first year here, someone was kind enough to walk us through the supplies. Now, on our third year, we have our system down.

Armed with our lists, four sacks and a scanner we began our game of school-supply hide-n-seek. I nobly waited by the cart while each child found things they needed so I could scan the item and place it in the correct bag. I received more than a few odd looks as I waited--a family our size is unusual. I just smiled. We finished in less than an hour. Hopefully, we won't need anything else.

Tuesday afternoon the girls and I headed to the coiffuse for a bit of pampering. Four haircuts later and looking fabulous, we headed into the centre ville to pick up our school-bus passes at the town hall. Unfortunately, I neglected to bring individual mugshots to put on the passes. I laughed when the woman sitting in the office told me, "It's the same as last year." Frankly, I'm lucky I understood what she was saying then, let alone the procedure from last year. Sometimes it's hard to always appear less than intelligent. But again, I just smile.

Ellie finished her run at the village vacation school with an African dance class. They painted her face red with a big black eye on her forehead. This is her scary face.

Friday I took a hike in the hills in our village with J & E and some other friends. There are several marked trails, so we thought it would be no problem. It was super hot. Despite us following a map, we ended up on a farming plateau with nothing but a signpost pointing to other destinations instead of the chateau we were aiming for. Our exhaustion and dwindling water supply convinced us to turn around instead of continue. We never made it to the castle, but we did get granitas (slushies).

The most important thing by far we did this week was celebrate Anna's birthday. We started with breakfast in bed--crepes with peaches and whipped cream. This was followed by a chaser of birthday Rice Crispy treats (her birthday cake of choice).  We spent the day at Lac d'Esparron peddling around on a pedalo (a paddle boat with a slide). We jumped off some low cliffs, had a picnic and swam while soaking up the sun.












Anna finished the day with a trip to Aix-en-Provence where her dad helped her pick out her birthday present--a guitar. (She has played non-stop every since.) It was a great day and a great week.

Fingers crossed the first week of school will be as good.

Meredith