The king lived to be 90 years old, had 3 wives and 7 children. Not sure how long people lived in the castle for, but it eventually became ruins. So in 1975 the castle was bought and in 1991 renovations started and were completed in 1998. It was the 2nd most expensive renovation project France has done- 18 million euros. So the castle is beautiful on the outside and pretty neat on the inside. One of the turrets was missing the top 1/3 of it I would say and they turned it into a theatre area where they left some of the orignal stone exposed.
The rest of the castle is set up as an art exhibit. So the different rooms you walk in don't say much about the castle, just the art. But the castle is neat to see. The views from the top of the castle are amazing.
Just a few little towns around the area.
From here we drove to another castle about 10 min. away.
This was our tour guide.
She found us in the first room and just meowed and followed or lead us around the whole time. It was so funny.
After we left we tried to find a place to eat. We saw one restaurant opened in town and tried to eat there but they said they were full. So we just headed back and of course saw nothing else in the other little towns either. Crazy!
2 of the kids fell asleep in the car on the way back. Not sure how they were comfortable.
Monday I wasn't feeling too well. I spent the afternoon curlded up on the couch, so Amber got to watch Nick Jr. in French and practice her counting, un, deux, trois. She was doing quite well with it!
I was just thinking the other day how I miss lemonade. They don't have any here. So when I finished using the lemon over the fish I made some lemonade with the lemon and it was quite tasty!
Tuesday Jason dropped the kids off at school today. It is a good thing the 3yr. old knows the routine and what to do with her stuff at school since Jason had no idea! As soon as they left for school the electician showed up. The owner was having the 3 undercoutner lights fixed, since right now only one works. He came in, looked at the lights, mumbled something, turned to me and said some things in French that ended in 2 weeks. I said "ok, I guess I see you in 2 weeks!"
Jacob had some stomach cramps before school. He went to school and by 9:30 was back home. He rested on the couch and watched some TV. By 11:30 he was starving since he didn't eat too much for breakfast and he asked " So when is lunch. I am starving?" Gee Jacob are we feeling better? He gobbled up his lunch and asked what was for dessert. I told him that when we come home sick from school we normally don't eat dessert since we aren't feeling well. So all of a sudden he felt better!
After I picked Amber up from school one of her friends, her mom and brother came over for lunch today. We had a nice time with them.
Sean went over to a friend's house after school so then since Jacob was already home I didn't have to go back to school.
Wednesday I had to go back downtown with the relocation agent and do more paperwork. We got the certificate I need to take to the car registry place as well.
After I picked Amber up from school 4 of the preschool moms and kids went to McDonalds for lunch., It was nice. They have a small inside play area upstairs that is perfect for that age group. There was no parking spaces left in the McDonalds lot so I had to park down the street a bit and walk over.
After we left lunch Amber was exhausted and fell asleep in the car. I woke her up to stop at home for a bit and then we went to pick up the boys from RE. On the way home from that she fell asleep again. I woke her up to get her out of the car and she was so whiny and she just layed on the basement floor where we come in from the garage and said she was too tired to walk up the stairs. I already had my hands full so I said fine and told her to come upstairs in a minute. and went upstairs, started getting the boys unpacked, and ready for their homework, got them started on their homework, started making cornbread for dinner. Next thing I know it is like 45 min. later and I am wondering why I haven't seen Amber. We start looking for her upstairs thinking she must have gone upstairs to watch TV or play. We can't find her upstairs. Sean goes back to the basement and there she is sound asleep on the floor where we first came in! Too funny! So I wake her up and she now comes upstairs not happy!
Today was the online signup for the boys winter sports. Unfortunatley for Sean it is exactly the same thing as the fall choices. So we will see if he can get in the ball sports again I guess. Jacob will start basketball soon and that will be 2 days a week.
Here everyone wears scarves. Men wear them to work and all day, children wear them to school, and women have them on all the time. So tonight Amber asked me if she had any scarves she could wear to school. I asked her why. "Well my neck gets cold at school" Too funny. She also listed some of her friends that then have scarves that they wear at recess.
Thursday was so so foggy. It is usually foggy at night here, but even at 9am it was still super foggy out. Here pediatricians give prescriptions for Vit. D supplements for children since in the winter there is just not much sunlight. They also recommend fluoride supplements too.
I ran to the store today for some ingredients to get ready to do some baking for Thanksgiving, and we will start making some Christmas cookies too! I also found a Gingerbread house so we will have to do this soon too! I was happy to figure out what was sour cream today. And I found cottage cheese too! I bought some stuff I am hoping is whipping cream. We will see this weekend! We have already been enjoying the Christmas CD's I bought. When I bought them I had to make sure they were in English! Even Sean asks if I can play the CD's.
For preschool we, room parents, are trying to get everyone to give their gifts for the teachers from their countries so we can make a basket for the teachers. Also the preschool teachers want the room parents to get some foods- oranges, choc. and a biscuit, ready so they can give them to the children on St. Nickolas Day.
Sean's already made a picture and a note for his teacher and they are putting all of these in a book to give to her. Sean lost his snack box at school today-ugh!
At Amber's gymnastics class today they had Bob the Builder painted/drawn on the glass with which you watch the children though. And the guy that speaks the better English there came up to me and asked me how do I say in English that one thing they had painted. It was a shovel!
After school Jacob went to a friend's house today.
Friday I had coffee with the preschool parents and then finished all my christmas shopping at this little strip mall about 20 min. from school. They also have a store I would say is similiar to Home Goods at home, but a lot smaller. So I got some Christmas decorations as well. This mall area has the only all toy store I have seen here. Not quite the same as Toys R Us! I miss that store! Otherwise toys are just sold at the big grocery stores.
Funny story: My one friend here is from a country in South America. She called a butcher here and asked if he could get her a bigger turkey then what they normally sell everyday for Thanksgiving for her. He starts talking to her and finds out where she is from and then tells her, "You know that the turkey will be dead, right?" Too funny! Where she is from you buy the live turkey a few days or so before you are going to have it and it runs around the garden and is like the family pet. Then the cook and the maid get the turkey drunk and then off with its head and so then it has that reflex that it runs around, yuck. So this butcher must have had people come pick up their turkeys and be upset that they were already dead! Anyway she totally starts laughing on the phone when he says that and she told him yes she prefers the turkey dead!
Jason called Pizza Hut tonight and was able to order pizza for pickup- you never know here. So he brought that home for dinner.
Sean had one of his friends spend the night. This little boy is so polite. He asked if he could help me clean up after dinner! So sweet.
Saturday Amber had a b'day party to go to right away in the morning, and she was so excited! 2 girls from preschool were having a joint party at an indoor climby area. Amber had fun. The party was for 2 1/2 hours, but after 2 hours Amber was ready to go. It was around lunch and they did cake, but Amber was ready for lunch. Imagine that! We came home and had lunch and then Jason left with Sean for his b'day party he was attending. His was 3 hours long at the boy's house. They lived about 1/2 hour away from here. That is a lot of driving time to and from school for them!
While they were gone, Jacob, Amber and I started on our Christmas cookies, yes I know it is early but we have some other things going on the next few weekends, so why not! The cookies were just butter cookies with sprinkles, but they don't have any red or green sprinkles here. Put that on my home list to buy next time! So the cookies are multi sprinkled. They turned out good.
The next thing we made was one of my favorite Thanksgiving dishes. It is made with cranberries, sugar, whipping cream, mini marshallows and pineapple. I wasn't planning on making it b/c I didn't think they would have fresh cranberries here, so I was excited when I found them. The problem was the whipping cream. It doesn't translate here, so I bought what I thought was whipping cream but it was too runny. You are suppose to whip the whipping cream and that is what holds the ingred. together. Thank goodness I was not going to bring this to Thanksgiving, it was just for us to eat. So I will have to work on figuring out a different cream to use next time. The recipe calls for crushed pineapple which they don't have here, so I had to blend up the pineapple and it was still pretty chuncky, and same for the cranberries. You grind them up. But I only have a wimpy blender here and so the cranberries are pretty chuncky too. So we will see how we end up liking it, but it looks a little runny.
After Sean and Jason got back from the party we waited until 6:30 pm and went to try a new restaurant that is just up the street a bit from our house. That is normally the earliest a restaurant would be open here if that. So I tried looking it up online to try and make a reservation but I couldn't find that restaurant at that address, so we didn't make one. When we get there and of course he asks if I have a reservation and I tell him no, I think he might have signed and made a face. He said he would have to see. So we wait a few minutes and luckily we got a table. The place isn't too big and the rest of the tables in our room were all reserved. It was a Chinese restuarant but a little more upscale, but still good prices. I had duck which was very good and even the kids were eating it. Then we ordered a chicken pineapple dish and a spicier chicken dish. Good food and nice way to end our day!
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