Weekend of Friends 19-20 August

Side note added today 8/27: The first week of school is over and went pretty well. Having a routine is amazing! Randy is recovering from being sick. I have been driving in France, like I did in Mechanicsville, even with a broken rear window wiper.(Alison Blanco)

The weekend (8/19) started off with the French initiation of cleaning the house and yard. Inside cleaning consisted of vacuuming and mopping tile floors, cleaning bathrooms, straightening up bedrooms and living spaces, and putting our personal belongings in their personal spots. Sounds pretty similar to home. The downstairs to our French home shown below.

The yard cleaning was slightly different. It consisted of skimming and vacuuming the pool, poop duty, recycling of cardboard and plastic, glass separately, not to forget composting food scraps, hanging wet laundry, folding dry laundry, walking to the boulangerie for baguettes and chocolate croissants, AND filling up the hole Cody enjoys digging in the yard. Once all the chores were done the kids had their daily allotted 30 minutes of electronic time.

At some point Mazie was in her room with the windows open and heard English being spoken on the street. It was amazing to her. Then she realized she knew the voices speaking. Leaping and shouting down the stairs, “The Fosters, The Fosters are here!” We surprised the kids by not telling them our family friends from Barcelona were coming for the weekend!

What a wondrous weekend it was, watching all the kids laugh, play, catch up and just be kids, ages 9-14. Also wondrous, was our adult time with JJ and Susan. The chores finally made sense to our kids because we needed to get ready for friends. Our activities included swimming, walking to the boulangerie, walking trails by vineyards, nerf gun battle, movies, an adventure walking alongside an aqueduct, and eating at our 2 favorite (and only ones we have experienced) restaurants La Guinguette du Massillan and La Terrazza.