The Little Things

Tuesday was Gideon’s 4^th birthday. I woke up and ran over to one of our boulangeries to grab some pain au chocolat and croissants for breakfast. At breakfast he opened a present (a French soccer jersey outfit) which he wore proudly the rest of the day! (Daddy and Pierce also wore competing soccer jerseys.) Then we raced to the metro and rode to the Eiffel tower. We bought our tickets. The boys were CHAMPS climbing up all the stairs. Pierce even climbed a significant number of the stairs between level 1 and level 2. It was fun to meet people in line and climbing up from all over the world (Canada, Australia, Central America, etc). After climbing back down we went and played at the nearby playground and Gideon made a friend with a kid from New Jersey who was in Paris on vacation. He LOVED having someone to play with who spoke English!

Later that day we went to a local soccer court and Gideon opened another present (a new soccer ball). He looked SOOO good in his little jersey running around kicking and scoring!! It was awesome. After playing there for a while we went home for dinner and cake and ice cream. The cake situation taught me a lot about differences baking here than in the states. (ie. We have no measuring cups or spoons… (so I just had to guess), our oven doesn’t tell you when it’s preheated and you have to kind of eyeball the temperature which is in Celsius, We only really had one cake pan (brioche bread pan), It took me forever to find baking powder at the store because they come in small packets rather than the usual little can, food coloring only seems to come in packets of 3 and is a little funky, I couldn’t find cream cheese, Anyway… all that to say… it was a little rough… but it could have been a whole lot worse! Haha. His cake was supposed to look like the magic treehouse, but the top was too heavy, and the icing kept melting off because it was in the mid-80’s in our apartment with no AC. But it tasted delicious, and Gideon loved it! We opened a few more gifts including a pedal bike with Gideon was SUPER excited about.

The next day Benjin picked up a rental car and we all packed up for our tour of Northern France. Over the course of 3 days we went to Rouen (a gorgeous town where Joan of Arc was burned at the stake), Etretat (a seaside city with unbelievable coastline), the Dday beaches (Omaha, British cemetery, American cemetery and Pont du hoc), and Mont Saint-Michel.

 

 

The highlight of the trip was our picnic dinner on the gorgeous cliffs above Etretat. The low light was Benjin running all around a random town trying to get cash from ATMs (but our cards wouldn’t work) and eventually begging money off a random guy in a bar so that we could pay for a galette dinner that we tragically didn’t even end up having…. (ps. We did pay back the kind French gentleman who gave us the money). But we also got to spend a great night camping in the backyard of our new friend Fred's house and we got to explore the amazing Saint Georges de Boscherville Abbey (which had super cool Celtic looking carvings) as well as the lovely Château du Taillis where we ate an sunbaked apple that was incredible and as a result, Gideon asked if we could plant a warm apple tree too! Despite all the amazing places we went, the boy’s highlight was “eating salty crackers in the car” haha. I guess it’s the little things!

I guess we learned that a lot this week. Little things like baking soda and teaspoons can make a BIG difference. As can little things like having a kid speak English at the park, little things like picnics in perfect weather on a beautiful coastline, and little things like salty crackers when you’ve been strapped in the back seat for hours!

So, let's enjoy the little things!

Love, La Famille Facer