Is It That Obvious?

Today, while the boys and I were walking to school, some construction workers called out to us. They yelled, "Hey, man. How are you doing?" in accented English. Our heads whipped around in disbelief because we weren't even talking. Hadn't been since more than a block away. I was even wearing the skirt and tall boots that are the French woman's uniform! How did they know that we were American? Why were they speaking to us in English? Turns out that they had heard us the day before and wondered why we were living in France. They thought it was great and were thrilled to share their few sentences of English with us.
My friend, Sabine, came over this afternoon so that we could exchange some cooking techniques and recipes. I taught her to make "American" lasagna as she and her children do not like the French version which calls for Béchamel sauce while she taught me how to make Cake aux Carambar.

Carambars are an absolutely amazing candy that we have all come to love during our lives here. We cannot keep them in the house because none of us can refrain from eating them when they are here. The kids love the fruit flavors but Josh and I think the original caramel flavor is the way to go. The cake uses melted Carambars for it's flavor and was absolutely delicious! I'm not sure how we will survive when these little yummies are no longer easily available to us!

Anyway, Sabine and I had a wonderful time cooking together. We were met time and again with the largest problem of "translating" recipes being simply converting the amounts. Sabine doesn't own any measuring cups or spoons as they are not used, where as I am just finally adapting to weighing out all of my measurements on my kitchen scale.
Quincy qualified in the butterfly to swim in a national swim meet in Paris! We will all be heading to Paris for the weekend to watch him swim. Congrats, Q!

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No Corn to be Found

Corn is something that is rarely eaten in France. Most people consider it to be "feed" for animals and not something for human consumption. Now, I have been able to find frozen corn and even occasionally some frozen corn on the cob in the past.... But, I have wanted to make some corn chowder lately and I cannot find it anywhere! I have looked in every store that I can think of and even asked our "Schwan's" man (who is a woman) and she just kind of chuckled and said, "No, no, not here. I know it is common in the States but not in France." I really don't want to use canned corn.... Why is that available?
Our city of Vannes is roughly 100,000 people. A nice size and after having lived in Batesville, IN for 4 1/2 years, I am hard-pressed to call it "small" as so many Parisians do. However, because everyone walks most places that they go, it begins to seem as though it is much smaller than it is. When you are walking, you truly have the opportunity to recognize and talk to people that you meet versus just waving as you drive past. When you are walking, you tend to shop just in your neighborhood stores versus hitting the big box chains on the outskirts of town so... the butcher, baker, and cheese shop guys get to know you. When you are walking, you see the same people everywhere that you go because they are making the same rounds that you are. I can now no longer "run" my errands without at least seeing 1-2 people that I know. It makes me feel good and as though I am very much a part of the community.
A couple pictures of our community today...

Concert de Piano

Calvin has been taking one music theory class and one piano lesson each week since September. Tonight, was a concert of all the students of his teacher. After just blogging last night about French inefficiency, I have never seen such an efficient concert in my life. The concert was held in a beautiful old chapel that had been converted into a concert hall.


On stage, two pianos were set up so that while one person was playing the next person could be getting ready to play. When one song ended, the next song began almost immediately with the teacher just running back and forth between the two. In just over 90 minutes, 54 students each played a piece, some quite long and beautiful. You can watch Calvin for yourself on this video. He was quite proud, as were we! Calvin was accompanied by his teacher, Madame Le Pipec.

French Speed Ahead!

Josh often complains that the French seem to do things at a snail's pace and things that should take minimal time to accomplish, take large amounts of time. I don't run into this too often but it became perfectly clear to me today. It has been more than 5 1/2 months since the owners of our house had 3 of the big trees in our backyard cut down. They then proceeded to stack some the wood, swearing that they would be back soon to cut up and stack the rest. Today, they came back and cut up and stacked the rest. When I complained about this to several people, they just looked at me, shrugged and said "ah, it's not so long". Anyway, we are thrilled to have the big dangerous pieces of wood finally out the yard but now our yard is torn up, muddy and covered in sawdust.
We had a busy day today. I got to pretend that I was the one going to work while Josh ran the kids around. Tabitha had horse-back riding, Quincy went to the beach with a couple of friends and then had a basketball game, Max had a basketball game followed by having a friend come over to play, and Calvin had dress rehearsal for his first piano recital tomorrow. While they were doing all of this, I went to the factory of my friend Isabelle. Isabelle and her husband own Elenore-Deco. This factory and store is a place where they make paint and then have their sales reps throw home parties (similar to Pampered Chef) to re-finish furniture, walls, even kitchen cabinets. I love the style they create in homes because it is very, very French. French country chic. I see it in almost every home that I have seen in France and would love to be able to take this style home with me. So... Isabelle offered to show me their products and let me learn how they create their finishes. Great fun!!

We painted and I learned for more than 4 hours this afternoon. I love the looks that we were able to create and I am hoping to do more of this. Isabelle said that their business is currently booming as people are refinishing the cabinets and furniture that they currently have versus buying new in this economy.

While painting, we had a grand time discussing my observations of the French way of life versus the American way. Isabelle has 5 children who have participated in exchange programs in the U.S. and Germany. She has never been to the U.S. but loves to hear about it.
Don't worry, I made Josh a big pot of red beans and rice to express my appreciation for my "time off" today!

Don Du Sang

There are signs posted all over town today with those words blazing across the top. I have seen this before so I wasn't fooled this time but in the past, I thought there was some kind of big martial arts festival going on. Imagine my surprise when I discovered that they are actually advertising a blood drive!

The kids had to take my picture tonight while I was cooking. I was actually frying something and as this has only occurred a handful of times in their entire lives, they felt it was picture-worthy. Josh talked me into making him some hot wings. Not a common food in France but something Josh was craving. They were certainly yummy!
I actually felt like I put in some real work today. A friend asked me if I would help her with a power point presentation. She sells booth space for food service trade shows and needed to do a presentation in English for a trade show in Shanghai. Her English is excellent but although it is usually technically correct, it if often not how you would hear a native English speaker talk. She wanted her presentation to sound as though she were "native". We had a good time and I have to admit to truly enjoying getting the opportunity to correct so many of the common errors that I hear almost daily.

Proud Heritage

As I'm sure that I have told you before, we live in the city of Vannes, in the department (like county) of Morbihan, and in the region of Brittany (like state). Our region is extremely proud of it's heritage and of it's people. Brittany was settled by Celtic people and even existed independently as a Duchy until the 1532 when it was incorporated into France. The incorporation occurred due to the marriage of Anne of Brittany to two successive kings of France. Because of it's Celtic heritage, Brittany even had it's own language, called Breton. To this day, about one quarter of the population can speak Breton and almost all street signs are written in both French and Breton. At Max's birthday party, after singing Happy Birthday in both French and English, one child offered to also sing it in Breton. There is a school in Vannes that is taught in a bilingual format, French and Breton. We have been told that the Breton language is regaining in popularity after drastically diminishing in our generation. Today, I was on a quest to find a French flag. I found any number of Brittany (Bretagne) flags but not a single French flag.

This immediately reminded me of our days of living in Texas. Texas was always much more proud of being Texas than it was of being American. While running my errands, I again noticed how many houses have small plaques on them with the word "Ty" followed by a name. Now, my first thought when I see the word "Ty" is always of Ty Pennington from Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. A show that I have dearly missed since moving here....

(My niece took this picture of Ty while the show was being filmed in her neighborhood last summer). But, I didn't really thinking that people all over Brittany were naming their houses after Ty Pennington, so today, I looked it up. "Ty" is actually the Breton word for "house". So, as in the example of this house, the little plaque says Ty Juliette so it must be Juliette's house.

I love this! Why don't we name our houses?
Max has started writing a book. He does this in a small journal when he has free time at school and in the evenings. He informed me last night that he is writing in French however as it is much easier for him to write in French and he knows how to spell all of the words.

Swim Meet

Quincy and Tabitha spent from 9 a.m until 7 p.m. at a regional swim meet in Quimper today. Tabitha came home with a silver medal and Quincy with a bronze. Tabitha has now qualified for two events at the national school meet in Castres at the end of May. Quincy does not know his qualification status yet.
I managed to car pool with one of Max's friends today for his catechism class. Anytime, someone can call me and we can actually exchange critical information without mistakes, I am pretty darn proud of myself!

Cleaning Lady

After a quick bike ride this morning to run some errands and to enjoy some more of the blooming flowers around town, I came home and surrendered to the cold that I have been struggling to fight off for days. I took it easy all afternoon and am managing to feel a bit better this evening. I did do a little more cooking this afternoon to further stock our freezer. While running around in my apron, the electric meter reader came to the door. They only seem to read our meter about twice a year and just have you pay an average each month. You do have to make up any difference at the end of the year. Anyway, as I was showing this guy to our basement and explaining to him about my limited French abilities, I realized that he thought I was the housekeeper. Everyone that I know has a housekeeper for at the minimum of a couple of hours per week. While talking to my friends about this, I discovered that the government actually gives people a stipend to help pay for a housekeeper! Can you imagine?

Cooking School

Mommy gets to go to "overnight camp"! Actually, it's not like camp at all (thank goodness!), but I do get to go away for 5 days. I found out today that I got a spot in an intensive five day cooking school in northern France! I will go in late June and I cannot wait! Those of you who know me well, know that cooking is my true passion, and learning as much as I can about French cooking has always been my goal. Fortunately, these classes will be taught all in English so I shouldn't miss a thing. When asked how I will be able to manage this with the kids, I just respond that I have a great husband who is fortunately, ruled more by his stomach than anything else! In celebration today, I spent the afternoon baking and cooking. Loading up the freezer for our upcoming guests and creating a huge dinner for the family.... We had a huge bowl of pasta con pesce, with a side of homemade thyme and goat cheese bread. Topped off with homemade citron tarts for dessert, we are all going to bed fat and happy!

While walking Coco this afternoon, I was stopped by a friendly neighbor and invited into his immaculate garden for some cuttings from his mimosa. They are just gorgeous and have filled our house with their beautiful scent. All of the French seem to be so proud of their mimosa but I was told just recently that they grow profusely and will take over your garden and your house if not cut back often. Maybe that's why everyone is so eager to share?

Tabitha went to a party this weekend with some of her close girlfriends. They were hosting a party to surprise Meghan. Meghan is the other 12 year old American girl who has been here since July. She will go home to the U.S. at the end of this month and I know that her French friends will certainly miss her.

It's That Time of Year Again

When Tabitha arrived home from a long sleepover at a friend's house, we were finally all six under one roof again. We took the opportunity to just be lazy today and to enjoy all being together. Josh did have to get out and the mow the grass for the first time this spring, however.

Calvin is Back!

Calvin is finally home from his skiing trip to the Pyrenees. He had a wonderful time and is filled with all sorts of stories to tell. They skied every day and when they weren't skiing, the explored a little village at the base of the mountain. They were so close to the border of Spain that he said the heard lots of Spanish and even the French was heavily accented. Max could not be more thrilled to have his big brother home again...

Josh and I enjoyed a rare Saturday afternoon without kids. Max was at a friend's house, Tabitha was at a friend's house, and Quincy was reffing a basketball game for little kids. The weather was gorgeous so after working in our yard a bit, Josh and I did a little browsing at some antiques stores that I discovered recently.

Travel Agent

As our time left in France gets shorter and shorter, the requests for visits are increasing. I have been having a good time helping our upcoming guests plan their trips. Booking hotels, train tickets, Paris pastry cooking classes, Mont St Michel bay hikes, etc is certainly fun! I just hope that I don't get who is doing what all mixed up! Josh and I have also discovered that the kids (and Josh) have three long weekends coming up so we have to get busy planning some trips then, to not waste any valuable time. We are all taking a rented houseboat cruise on the Anjou River in April. What do I need to do for that? Just pack a map and some food, I think.
We were thrilled to get a postcard from Calvin today. Sounds like he is having a great time. I was a bit concerned yesterday when I checked their trip blog. The only picture posted was this one....

Since I have a hard time accurately reading all of the text, I could only hope that it didn't say that one nine-year old boy was consumed by these fellas!
Fortunately, I actually saw Calvin in person in a picture that was posted today so I am assuming he survived whatever bear encounter occurred.

In doing my travel planning around France, I really have a hard time deciding what are the most important sights that anyone should see when they only have a short time in this country. There are just so many choices. Along those same lines, several French people have asked me lately where they should go in the U.S. if they only have a couple of weeks for a once in a lifetime trip. Of course, I tell them INDIANA! Just kidding. But, where should I tell them? Why don't you all help me out? I equate our part of France with the Seattle, Portland, San Francisco regions. So, something very different than that, so they can truly feel as though they are in a foreign land. The Southwest is what first comes to mind... Any suggestions?

Happy Mi-Carême!

Tuesday afternoon, Max's teacher asked me if I wanted to join his class for their parade this morning. I quickly agreed, not even knowing what it was for. Max explained to me on the way home that all of the kids were to wear costumes and celebrate Carnivale. He did not want to wear a costume so he went to school without one this morning. I arrived at the school to see the entire school dressed in costume (except for 3 kids including Max) and ready to parade around the block. I remember the kids doing this last year but never really knew what it was for. I asked a friend today to explain what we were celebrating.... It is apparently Mi-Carême. This is a very under-utilized holiday in which you celebrate the middle of Lent. You are allowed to stop your Lenten sacrifices for the day and have a day of decadence! My kind of holiday! Anyway, with the gorgeous weather and the break in routine, we had a very nice parade.


Max was especially cute as he was put in a charge of a much younger child and instructed to hold his hand throughout the parade. Max took his role very seriously and hung onto his little musketeer throughout.
After the parade, my friend Sabine and I headed into town on our bikes for a little window shopping. Unfortunately, we forgot about the fact that yet another nationwide strike was going on. This was a big one with streets closed, trains not running and the post office shut down. The purpose was to protest the government's support of all workers during this economic crisis. The average French worker really does not know how good they have it....
To quote the March issue of Brit'mag, "Getting laid off in France means receiving up to 75 percent of your salary for months, even years, (often receiving more than you would gaining the minimum wage), free job training and advice, and the ability to keep your health insurance. Being unemployed is so great, in fact, that many young people purposely quit their jobs, take up the benefits and go traveling for a few months." Hmmmmm.... maybe Americans should be striking just to be treated like the French!?

High school??

Somehow, in between running kids to their various activities today, I found myself filling out the paperwork to register Quincy for high school in the fall! How can he have grown up so quickly? He will go to a small, private high school in Batesville and he is quite excited. He has the opportunity to take German, world history and world geography next year. All of which he should already have a leg up in after this European experience. Unfortunately, neither of the high schools in Batesville offer French! We will have to do private tutoring for that while I work on the board of education to get it added to the curriculum.
Without Calvin here, I had three less activities to take kids to today. It was quite relaxing and with the beautiful weather, I was enticed to walk into town to attend an art expo by a local artist. The paintings were great and I enjoyed the window shopping. I also had to take a stroll through the rampart gardens to enjoy the sights and colors of spring before heading back home.


I tried my hand at making a very traditional southwestern France dessert from a recipe entirely in French. It's going to take some practice to get it all just right but the dacquoise tasted fantastic! It just wasn't that pretty to look at.... I am finding more often than not, that many French dessert recipes call for ground almonds rather than flour!

Spring Days

We were met with another gorgeous day today so between running my errands and having the kids come home for lunch, I took Coco for a long walk and then met up with a friend for another long walk later in the afternoon. While walking near the port, we were temporarily surrounded by a bunch of early teenage kids. They were finishing up a crewing class and heading back to school. I was dismayed to hear them sprinkling English words into their teenage conversation. Because, of course, the only English words they were using were bad words. We heard lots of "shut up" and "sh*t".
Calvin seems to be doing well on his skiing trip. We are able to access their skiing blog and see pictures of the kids and read what they are doing each day. So far, the temperatures have been just below freezing, the sun is shining and the snow is supposedly perfect! I have yet to see an actual picture of Calvin so I will just have to assume that since everyone else appears to be healthy and happy, he is too.

Josh is in more central France for the next couple of days, on a business trip. We are missing him already!

Biking in Baden

Today was absolutely gorgeous!! It was in the mid-60's and sunny all day long. I heard people commenting over and over about how today was nicer than almost every day last summer. I managed to take complete advantage of the weather thanks to my non-working status! (I'm not sure that Josh will ever be able to convince me to go back to work...) After walking Max to school, I grabbed Coco and took her for a walk. I then loaded up my bike, picked up Susie and her bike, and drove to Arradon. We joined up there with the only available member of our biking group at her house. Because of the gorgeous weather and the fact that we only numbered three today, we felt flexible and free and deviated from our intended course whenever the spirit moved us. Priscille is a great lover of history and was thrilled to share her pre-French Revolution history with us whenever she could. She taught us all about the French feudal system and showed us a couple of seigneury houses.

Because Brittany was not a wealthy part of the country, these were the homes of the Breton aristocracy. Priscille is a Normandy native and very proud of it, so she also took every opportunity to point out examples of just where Brittany pales in comparison to Normandy - for example, Normandy apparently possesses much better tasting oysters!

We rode through the rolling farm land from Arradon to Baden, where we then followed a path along the coast back to Arradon.


We were able to watch oyster boats at work,

stop at

Port Blanc where we could see Ile aux Moines,

see a typical French cemetery,

admire a huge castle from afar, and admire many, many beautiful houses with gorgeous views of the sea. We also made a stop at an old mill which has been turned into a beautiful little antiques shop.

We enjoyed checking out the beautiful furniture and again, getting a bit of a history lesson from Priscille. After a much longer ride than usual, we were invited into Priscille's house for a little pre-lunch aperitif and the chance to admire the many pieces of original artwork that she has hanging on her walls. She even has a painting of her family's castle! She claims that most of the French people that she knows have a castle in their family somewhere. Hers is now owned by her brother as it still always passes to the oldest male member of the family. She did tell us that most people do not want the burden of owning the family castle any more as it is very difficult and expensive to maintain. After leaving Arradon and dropping Susie off at her home, I headed home for a quick lunch. I was still not ready to leave the gorgeous weather however, so after doing a bit of work around the house,

I headed back out on foot for a long walk through the old part of town and a chance to stroll through the ramparts gardens here in Vannes. Just beautiful...

Our "Baby" is 8!!

Today was Maxwell's 8th birthday! Hard to believe.... We all had an early start today as Calvin had to meet his bus for his trip by 7:30 and Max dearly wanted him to take part in his birthday gift opening. So we all got up at 6:30 to eat breakfast together, watch Max open his gifts, and then to get Calvin out the door for his week of skiing. Calvin was so excited that he was about to bust! He met all of his classmates at the bus stop and they took off for the Pyrenees!

Max played with Legos all day long (these were the gift of choice this year) until his party guests arrived at 3 p.m.

The weather was gorgeous, sunny and warm, so we were fortunate enough to have Max and his 8 friends play outside almost the entire time. They also enjoyed candy, chips, and cake and ice cream. Where Quincy always wants his birthday to be as American as possible, Max only wants French things. He did agree to let me make a small lemon cake but he also wanted a fruit tart from the boulangerie to share with his friends. It was really great to see Max kiss each of his friends on the cheek (boys and girls) after opening their gift. This is the appropriate and accepted form of "thank-you" when given something. I did not see Quincy do this last week!

It is always entertaining for us to have French people over. They are so polite and spend so much time greeting everyone in the room and then saying good-bye 9 different ways when they leave! Especially funny when they are just coming in to drop their child off for a party..... They have to great everyone in the room with the cheek kiss, participate in 2 minutes of small talk but then say good-bye to everyone again with a cheek kiss! They not only say "good-bye", they also say "Good end of the afternoon", "see you tomorrow", and usually "see you later", and of course, "thank you"! This is all repeated when they pick their child up after the party!! Whew!

A Camping Success

Josh, Calvin and Maxwell seemed to have a great time last night on their camping adventure. They drove down to Le Croisic where they found a wonderful little camp ground within walking distance of the rocky coast.




They pitched their tent among all of the campers and more permanent trailers and spent a pleasant evening exploring the campground, eating their dinner, and climbing trees. The weather cooperated by not getting much colder than 50 degrees last night so they slept well before hiking over to the coast.

They then spent the morning climbing all over the rocky coast and checking out the little port of Le Croisic.


On their drive back home this afternoon, they stopped off in La Roche-Bernard where they enjoyed discovering an old cannon and some beautiful views from the curvy switchback road.


Tabitha was gone for most of the day today too. She went with a group of friends to participate in the rousing activity of paintball. This was the first time that she had ever done this and thought it was great fun. Quincy was very jealous to not be invited along, but he had a basketball game to play instead. I spent the afternoon and evening helping Calvin to pack his bags so that he is completely prepared for his skiing trip. He leaves tomorrow morning and won't be back until Saturday evening! Hope our 9-year old comes back in one piece!!
We had a great time at the Saturday morning farmer's market today also. It is open year-round but it is really getting busy now that spring has arrived! We came home with our usual array of breads, cheeses and some delicious fruits. The pineapple and strawberries were excellent today!