Castles and Crepes

Today, while the little boys went off to school and our guests caught up on some sleep, Quincy and Tabitha and I went shopping. It is one of only 2 times per year that the French stores are allowed to have sales. They progressively mark things down until the clear out the last season items and bring in the new ones. Quincy and Tabitha have both grown so much lately that they are drastically short on suitable things to wear. We will soon be without a washer and dryer for a month so I felt it was time to stock up! We did quite well and were home in time to share lunch with the boys and with our guests. After taking the boys back to school and taking Quincy to a friend's house, Adam, Natalie, Debbie, Tabitha and I drove out to the little city of Josselin.





Josselin is home to a beautiful castle which is still owned privately by a duke and his family and is actually still lived in by the family. They open the downstairs to tours in the afternoons but the upstairs still remains as private quarters. They do allow the immense dining room to be toured despite the fact that it is their daily eating room. Hard to imagine. Anyway, we took an English tour of the castle and then spent some time in the little riverside city of Josselin. There is a beautiful church where Adam, Natalie, and Debbie admired views from the top of the bell tower while Tabitha and I made some purchases at the English book shop. After everyone was home again in the evening, we headed out on foot to our favorite creperie in the old town of Vannes. We introduced the Webers to proper galettes and dessert crepes. We came home stuffed and tired.
It was again crazy hot today with the temperatures actually in the low 90's!

Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious

This is the time of school programs as Max and Calvin finish up their school year. I thought you might enjoy seeing the French 2nd grade version of a song from Mary Poppins. Our little Max played a starring role.
Max and Calvin continue to have school until Thursday, so today, there were just three of us available to explore Brittany with Debbie and her kids. We started out the morning in Carnac where we checked out the thousands of megalithes and the few dolmens that are located there. Fascinating!

We then drove over to Auray where we walked around the old town of Auray (St Goustan) and ate lunch in a little port side creperie.




The weather was unbelievably almost 90 degrees and sunny today so by mid-afternoon, we were ready for a break from the sun so we headed home. Tabitha took off for a friend's house where she was surprised with a going-away party by her very best friends.

She had a wonderful time but even I had tears in my eyes as I watched her say good-bye to all of those fantastic girls.

Eighty-Four Degrees!!?

Unbelievably enough, it was 84 degrees here today! I have never experienced a day that warm in our part of France. We loved it! We took full advantage of the weather after Mass. Max had a small ceremony at church this morning to receive a little wooden cross to celebrate his First Communion preparation.

After Mass, the parents were served champagne and the kids were given orange juice and encouraged to share cups because there "weren't enough for everyone". We then headed home and loaded up the car and headed out to La Trinité-sur-Mer. We spent this gorgeous, hot day in the company of and at the holiday home of my friend, Valerie.

The kids swam for hours in the pool and played soccer while the adults visited and drank champagne.

We then all ate mountains of fantastic grilled meats and seafood, and relaxed.

At the end of the afternoon, we took leave of Valerie and headed down to the main port of La Trinité-sur-Mer. We took a walk along the port, admiring the hundreds of sailboats that were moored there.

A fantastic day with again some sad undertones as this may be the last time I spend with Valerie before we move back to the States.... She has been a wonderful friend and companion...

New Round of Guests

I came home from my cooking school last night at about 1 a.m., eager to be back with my family and to welcome our next round of guests. After a miserable trip of plane delays, missed trains and traipsing through Paris with mountains of luggage, my sister-in-law, niece and nephew arrived in Vannes. We are thrilled to have them and got busy right away this morning, showing them our little city in France. We walked all over the huge Saturday morning outdoor market before coming home for lunch and then heading out again. We then walked all over the old city, through the gardens of the city ramparts,

along the city port and out to the Gulf of Morbihan before taking a little ride on the city tourist train which gave us a 30 minute tour in English of the main parts of the city.

We then rode some crazy bikes in a little bike fair going on in town,

and watched thousands of ultra-marathoners run through town on their 177 km run around the gulf. This evening, the kids were struggling a bit with jet-lag,

so we left them at home with a movie and our kids before taking Debbie out for some fantastic French cuisine and a view of the port. Welcome to France, Webers!

We Have a Home!!!

Thanks to my parents for driving all the way down to Batesville to sign the papers for us and to Josh for managing everything from our end, we are now the proud owners of the "pretty" house! Hurray!!! It's been a long time coming but we are thrilled. Can't wait to actually step foot inside it.
I am still loving every minute of my cooking class. Making elderflower cordial, grilled langoustine and lobster bisque and caramelized strawberries over poppyseed ice cream. Incredible!! During my afternoon breaks, I have been exploring the countryside around here and today discovered the breathtakingly beautiful Emerald Coast. Wow!!! I was close enough to a British channel island that my radio switched to BBC in my car and my cell phone changed to the UK time zone. Bizarre!!

Cooking School

I am having an incredible time at my cooking school. It is truly in rural France. I had chickens outside my bedroom window when I woke up this morning but it was so quiet and peaceful, I loved it. We have made some amazing food from gazpacho, to panna cota, to remoulade sauce, to salmon fish cakes to asian turkey breast. I have eaten and eaten and eaten so more, all accompanied by excellent wine. The class is entirely hands on so I am thrilled that I will be able to replicate everything at home. The chef is fantastic and everyone speaks English! This little village of about 15 people is 50% anglo-saxon. I sort of forget that I am still in France! We are now having a 3 hour break between eating lunch and preparing dinner. Last night, we finished at 11:30 p.m. I'm heading into the little medieval city of Dinan to do some walking and exploring before dinner. What a great experience!

Happy Father's Day

With three very important people in my life having lost their fathers this year, Father's Day seems to be pretty darn important. We can't take those dads for granted and we need to make sure that we know that we love them and are grateful for all that they have done. Thanks to my dad for being a super dad to me and thanks to Josh for being a super dad to our kids! We love you!
After allowing Josh to sleep in today and then making him a big pancake breakfast, we decided to spend the afternoon at the beach. We drove out to Séné, the little seaside village where we lived when we first moved to France. We rarely visit Séné anymore even though it's only about 15-20 minutes away. We were feeling nostalgic today, however, and were eager to see our first French house again before we leave France.





We planted ourselves on the beach within walking distance of our old house and enjoyed watching the tide come in. Coco and the kids played in the sand and the water while Josh and I watched the boaters enjoy the windy conditions and take their boats out in the gulf. We then all walked over to our old house and through our old neighborhood. Lots of time and experiences have passed between now and our time in that house. We had great sunsets there and an excellent proximity to the beach, however, our move into the city was definitely a good one and certainly enabled us to live more of the European experience that we had dreamed of.
Tomorrow morning, I will leave for my intensive 5 day cooking school program. I am very excited to expand my repertoire of French food and to gain experience in cooking with fresh seafood. It should be very fun. As I have been cooking and preparing food for Josh and the kids to eat in my absence, I am struck with the many differences between France and America that center just around food. A few small examples... Last week, it was impossible to get eggs in the city because the distributors were on strike for some reason or another. I went to several stores on Thursday, looking for celery. Unbelievably, something so basic was nowhere to be found. French people don't seem to use celery as much as we do so maybe no one else noted. However, I had to substitute leeks into my red beans and rice and into my chicken and dumplings because of the celery shortage. The butter here not only tastes so much better but also contains more milkfat and less water than American butter. I have had to modify my baking recipes to make up for these differences. We'll have to see what other discoveries I make next week....

Time Alone

As the kids get older, we find ourselves with more and more freedom. Today, Calvin and Max each had a separate birthday party to go to all afternoon. I love the French way of doing birthday parties. They are so low maintenance, none of this crazy themed stuff jammed packed with goodie bags and jumping castles like they do in the States. The invitations are often hand-written, passed out the day before and just consist of the kids getting together for a few snacks and playing together. Quincy then left to drive to Nantes with his friend Hugo and his family for an afternoon touring the Harry Potter train. This train is traveling around France and is all decked out inside with various scenes from the movies. This is to promote the newest movie which will soon be released. Hugo is a huge Harry Potter fan so they waited in line for 2 hours, drove 2 hours round-trip and spent 10 minutes inside the train. Still pretty cool in Quincy and Hugo's eyes. Just when we were preparing Tabitha to spend the afternoon with just her parents and to go for a long hike, Tabitha's friend, Audrey called to invite her over to her house for a swim. Tabitha jumped at the chance to not go on a hike with us, for some reason.


So, Josh, Coco, and I headed over to the port and walked along the gulf for a couple of hours. Wonderfully relaxing...

A Different Rhythm

As I get busier and busier with closing the French chapter of our lives, I have less and less time to spend with the many friends that I have made in France. Today, I just had to take the opportunity to spend the day with a couple of the people that have made our time here so great. After running some errands this morning, I had my two best French friends, Valerie and Sabine, over for coffee. We had our usual good time, talking and laughing, comparing American reality television shows to anything that is available on French television. Our mood quickly turned somber though when we realized that due to hectic schedules, this may very well be the last time that the three of us can get together before I leave. These women have helped me through absolutely every phase of our French lives and have become dear and trusted friends in the process. I will miss them terribly...

After coffee, I headed out to Sene to have lunch with two of my English speaking friends, Katy and Karen. These are two women that I wish I would have met earlier in our time over here, not only because I enjoy their company so much but also because they love to read (English) books as much as I do! We had a wonderful lunch and a great time.
After bouncing so quickly from chatting with my French friends, to chatting with my UK friends, to chatting on the phone with an American friend, I was reminded once again of the huge communication differences... We were speaking English in all three situations but it was not just the accents that varied. There is a certain rhythm and cadence to each culture, and even though the words might be the same, the manner of speaking is quite different. The use of facial expressions and hand gestures is also quite different and I find myself sort of changing my whole persona in each situation. I wonder which of these mannerisms I will continue to use when back on my home soil?





I received copies of the many pictures that Leah took while here visiting. I will include some of those tonight as well....

Smart Kids

Our kids are pretty incredible.... They have all handled our international experience with amazing flexibility, hard work and very little complaints. I was reminded of all of that today when the mail came. Tabitha's final report card came in the mail (yes, they still have one more week of school but the grades are already out). She got the highest grades in her class once again and each teacher's comments were filled with "excellent", "great work", "wonderful student", etc, etc. After school today, Josh and I went in to a parent/teacher conference with Max's teacher. This was to review the school year as well as to see his results for the national exam that all French 2nd graders completed. His teacher could not stop telling us what a "wonderful student" he is with "an amazing capacity for French". "Polite", "intelligent", "hard working", and the "model student" were recurring themes. She then showed us his results from the national exam. He scored well above the average in the French written and comprehension portions. And, he missed only one question total on the Math portion. Hurray!!

Our Guests are Gone

Well, we were very sad to say good-bye to our guests today. Leah and Donna left by train to Paris at about 4 this afternoon after a morning of shopping at the market and stocking up on caramels and macarons. We hated to see them go and can only hope that their return to the U.S. is uneventful. Thanks for coming!



Everything continues to wind down for us. Today was Max's last basketball practice, as well as Quincy's last drum lesson and Calvin's last piano lesson. Quincy spent the afternoon at a friend's house while I took Calvin to the final competition for the Prévention Routière. He qualified to be one of 40 participants in the city finals out of the 6700 kids who participated. He had to take a written test followed by riding a bike through an obstacle course and then riding on simulated roads to demonstrate road safety. Unfortunately, he got a bike that was too big for him and he fell over in the obstacle course. This caused him to get 37th place. He didn't get hurt though and didn't mind too much. He was awarded a nice backpack filled with safety stuff and got to eat snacks and drink Coke all afternoon. Not bad at all. We are proud of him!

Escargot and Cold Soup

Sorry that I didn't post anything last night.... Donna took the 4 adults out for a wonderful French meal at a fantastic restaurant on the port while the kids stayed home and ate pizza and watched movie. We all had a great time! Once we figured out that our amuse-bouche was a cold soup and not a little cup of salad dressing, we enjoyed the rest of our meal immensely.
Leah and Donna have been so lucky with the weather since they arrived. It has been almost 80 degrees and quite sunny each day. Very unusual but very welcome around here. We drove out to Carnac in the morning to see the huge congregation of megalithes that are present there. An impressive sight that leaves you with more questions than answers as to why this 6000 year old "temple" was created, but amazing nonetheless.


We then drove back into Vannes to join my friend, Valerie, for coffee and an introduction to a real French home. We joined the kids for lunch at home before driving off in the opposite direction to see the beautiful "petite city of character" of Rochefort-en-Terre.



We were able to eat some yummy kouign aman,

do some shopping, see a beautiful old church, and visit the sight of the town's castle that was restored and owned by an American painter named Alfred Klots.


Wonderful day! I have included links to many of the things we saw yesterday so make sure to click on the underlined parts and check them out.
On a sad note, the kids had their last tutoring session with our wonderful French tutor, Edith. She has been such a part of our lives for the past two years, we sure hated to see the last of her. I'm afraid that this is just the beginning of many good-byes to parts of our French lives...

Le Mont-Saint-Michel

After staying up late to make cupcakes for Calvin to take to school today for his birthday and then getting up early to use the very last of our American frosting to ice said cupcakes, Calvin dropped the box of cupcakes all over the street on the way to school this morning. He was so bummed, it just broke my heart! While we both scooped up cupcakes as fast as we could, I quickly reassured him that we could make more tonight and he could take them tomorrow. Poor guy! (He has since decided that he would just rather take candy like the other kids do)
After the cupcake fiasco, Leah, Donna and I headed north to Le Mont-Saint-Michel for the day. For the first time ever, the sky was actually sort of blue and the temperature was barely cold at all. We had a great time exploring the shops, the narrow streets and the monstrous abbey even though we didn't have time for the quick sand hike. What a fascinating place. I truly cannot get enough of it.
Calvin called my cell phone this morning from school to tell me that he was selected for the city finals of the street safety class on Wednesday. He needed to know if he would be able to attend the final competition as he was the only child selected from his school, based on his excellent results from an early safety competition. He was quite excited to be chosen and of course, we will make sure that he can attend on Wednesday. This partially made up for the cupcakes.
Grades are finished for the year for Quincy and Taba's grade levels even though they still have several more weeks of school. So, today, Quincy and his class spent the day at a lake with big cliffs near by. They all took turns on rock climbing courses on these cliffs and had a great time.
Max spent the day with his class at a huge park filled with jumping castles, trampolines, bike courses and pedal cars. He was exhausted but had a great time.
Tabitha went to school as usual...
Josh went to work as usual...

Calvin is Ten!

Today was Calvin's 10th birthday. Hard to believe that the little baby that gave us so many health scares could be the big, healthy ten year old that he is now. He woke us all up early by singing "Happy Birthday to me" at the top of his voice as he descended the stairs to eat his breakfast. He then opened his family gifts before getting ready for his party. He had a great time with a group of his best friends, running around in the backyard and eating cake and ice cream.
While Josh oversaw the party, Leah, Donna, and I headed out to the little village and big castle of Suscinio to take a 10 km hike. Once again, we have had unusually warm weather with sunny skies and temperatures in the 80's. We actually got hot on our hike!





We walked through some beautiful countryside, some big pine forests, along some salt marshes, and through some little villages before emerging at the ocean. We then finished our hike along a long sandy trail which opened to one beautiful sight after the next. Just gorgeous.
We found a great little creperie for a late lunch before heading over to the town of Sarzeau for their annual, Arts in the Street Expo. The art show was fantastic with lots of local artists working in every medium. Leah and I both came home with oil paintings for our homes.