Monet's Garden...and the children loved it

What started out as a bad day, you know the sort,  a pre-teenager who stamped her feet and moaned and groaned about going to a "stupid" garden, a ten year old who'd rather read Harry Potter 5 and also tried the silent treatment to get his own way. And there was Marie-Kate, well she wanted to go and along with her positive attitude we managed to get the other two in the car.

One hour later (30 minutes drive and 30 minute queue) here they are, and look Gaby is smiling. Ok Alexis looks grumpy, but Alexis is a very serious boy so this look is typical for him.

The garden was spectacular and the children found many plants that they loved.

 We never visited the house, we live fairly close and will be visited again for sure this September. 

I just love this bamboo fence and the plants too, not sure what plant it is though...

There were lots of people, but the atmosphere was calm, no pushing like at Versailles, just no stress.  The village was pretty too, there were lots of places to eat and not all were the tourist trap cafés you tend to get in popular places (like in the south of France in Moustiers Sainte Marie for example)  There was even a place to buy plants and once again, really good value.  Oh yes, and the ice-creams were yummy, especially the melon flavour.

Gaby even bought a plant, not such a stupid garden after all.

Long holiday weekend, what we'll be doing

 The weather hasn't been that great lately, but that's what I expected when we moved up from the sunny south of France.  However, last year was our first full year here and strangely enough it was as hot here, if not hotter north of the Seine that in Sanary (from end of March till July), so yes this year is a little tough.
As it's a long holiday weekend and the younger children have no school today (they worked a Wednesday instead) they and Alain are doing le pont, in other words having a long weekend without any work obligations.
So as soon as I manage to get up (hard one) we are going to Giverny, to visit Claude Monet's gardens, which aren't far from here.

Photo from Made by Jenni

Then after much negotiations, Alain is going to set to work to build a tree platform a bit like this one, minus the slide and the roof. 
Then in between starting and perhaps finishing the above something rare is going to occur tonight, Oliver is having a couple of friends over (he hoped that we were going away for the weekend). Last time he invited four friends over to hang out, we ended up with twenty five kids here, most sleeping over, one sick, a few a bit drunk and one white rug (Mr H's) ruined due the one who didn't make it to the bathroom.   Anyway, I'm a bit worried, is history going to repeat itself?   One thing with have agreed on is that they hang out in the basement, I even cleaned it last night, they have sofas, and chairs, a tv and an xbox and we won't be far away incase of problems...Oliver has promised that there will be just four plus him and no girls....


I'll also be finishing the deck.
And Alain going to find a builder (or three) to get a price for redoing the front wall of the house which is ugly, but not as ugly as the garden wall!
Oh yes, he's promised to phone his maman too:) lazy boy


News just in, Charlotte wants to know if we are going out tomorrow around 14h, because she wants to invite her new friend...boyfriend here.  sixteen and this is her third one, as long as he's nice, that's all that matters. I doubt we'll be out though, but maybe in the garden, if the weather holds up, then she has peace and quiet in the house.