Monday musings

Who would have guessed that one of the cooking skills I would have perfected in France was the making of homemade tortillas? But after great success making pastry dough with Laura's recipes and food processor, I decided to try my tortilla recipe with the food processor... and it's been great. I even found whole wheat flour -- and so we have been enjoying wonderful, hearty tortillas at least once a week. Here was last night's dinner (which included Livie asking why I am always taking pictures of food. Just to remember it, I guess, I replied.)

The dinner discussion included an update on our plans for the week ahead. At some point early in the trip, one of the girls asked us "What country are we in again?" and we have tried since then to give them enough notice about trips and plans, but not too much (since a week can seem like a REALLY long time to a child). So we talked last night about leaving for England Sunday, and how this would be their last week in school. Jack made pretend crying noises -- but when asked if he was really sad about leaving, he said quite plainly, yes). So Livie tried to reassure him.

"But the good thing is," she told him, "at least we won't have to speak French anymore!"

Jack has no trouble speaking French these days. And he literally skips when he walks to the school bus. Here he is on this morning's walk (and yes, that is SUNSHINE you are seeing in the photo -- we had a few minutes of it this morning before the clouds came back).

When we took the girls to school, we asked if we could get a photo with all of their teachers (Maitresse Maud won't be there on Friday... pretty impressive thinking ahead, eh?). This was clearly our idea. Liv was tired of having her picture taken. We absolutely love these teachers -- Sandrine, Maud, and Veronique -- and our girls were so very lucky to have had the chance to be in their classrooms.

John and I then drove into Beaune for a last morning date at our favorite cafe. As always, the owner knew what we wanted when we walked in.

Now we are in the middle of packing madness. In one sense, I liked organizing, decluttering, sorting, and cleaning, so this is kind of a weirdly fun process (for me. Not for John. Given the choice he would save every last bit of paper, every receipt, every everything). We have made great progress and should be in pretty good shape to actually leave on time on Sunday morning.

It's been fun to look back over some of the correspondence and letters we wrote in preparation for coming. I remember the relief I had when Laura said there was a second toilet in the basement here... because at that time, we had two 3.5 year old girls who did not have much capacity to wait for a potty. Today, those nearly 5-year-olds are happily past that stage. I also have enjoyed seeing all of the letters and paperwork for enrolling the kids in school -- there is no stress surrounding that now, just a lot of pleasant memories. The same is true with all of the details and ticket stubs from our epic trip here - again, looking at it just brought up  fairly pleasant memories -- and a few laughs, too.

Our trip to England is, of course, threatened by volcanic ash, and our trip back home is threatened by a strike (by British Airways) and the volcano, too, I suppose. So there is certainly no guarantee that stress and worry won't be in our future. But we'll just keep trying to laugh through it -- and of course, I'll be coming here to tell the stories.

And one last picture -- John saw this sign this morning and thought it summed up life here pretty well: Burgundy -- the art and the enjoyment of life.