Playing Outside, Mommy French, and English for Beginners

All of these are what I am doing this week. We were so happy last week to see the sun for many days in a row. The boys especially were thrilled to go outside and ride their bikes, play hide n seek with Denis (this consists of Etienne telling Denis where to hide and then counting random numbers in no specific order before he says "je t'ai trouve!" like he's so surprised to find him), fill the scooter handles with pebbles (see above picture), roll the balls down the hill in the backyard and make mama run down to get them, hide under the big willow tree in the vacant lot next to ours, scrape their knees, have a snack outside, and much more.

Tomorrow night I start my English for Beginners and Mommy French classes at CERN. I think I only have 3 students for the first one and about 8 or 9 for the second. But these are students who actually WANT to be in class and have surrounding motivation and occasions to practice their second language. I won't even have to call their parents or give detentions. I'm just writing my lesson plans now and having so much fun. I forgot that I really do enjoy teaching.

This coming weekend we look forward to our friends Brice, Cecile, Roman, and Clarisse visiting from Grenoble. We met them in San Diego and now we are all back in France reminiscing and trying not to complain too much about missing the sun, the beach, the ocean, etc. And the following weekend Nina (my mom) comes to visit for a week. The boys think she is bringing Jake the dog with her on the plane but I keep telling them he can't fly for that long.

March 11 proved to be a triply-good day- Etienne turned 3 1/2, my childhood friend Heidi had a baby boy, Samuel, in Chicago and my college friend Katie also had a baby boy, Charles, in Minnesota, on that day. So fun to see the baby pics and remember those first days holding a newborn. Also, my nephew, Carson will be 5 this week. How time flies.