I decided that the boys need to help me more with getting meals ready especially on the weekends. When they are busy with school work or have friends over that is fine. I feel like I am always in the kitchen, preparing, cooking and doing dishes. And here my kitchen is a little room, while everyone else is in the family room. So I had the boys do some helping last week with meals and today Jacob was in charge of getting the egg salad ready to make, so peeling the eggs and chopping them up. It helped me.
Monday was hard to get everyone up and moving back to school! I ran to get some errands done and then back home to finish the laundry and just put the clothes away and clean things up with everyone out of the house!
Before school pickup I left early to go to the English bookstore. I even looked up their hours on their business card b/c a lot of places are closed here on Mondays. So I drive over there and they changed their hours and are now closed on Mondays- ugh! So I just drove to school but I was totally early. Thank goodness one of my friends was too and so we just sat and chatted about our breaks so it worked out ok.
After school Jacob showed up with a friend and asked if he could come over and play so he had a play date. The boys all went to the new park. It opened but the area around it isn't really done yet. It was sprinkling on and off a bit and wasn't too warm.
It was a little before 7 pm when Jacob's friend got picked up. I was getting a little worried maybe they forgot he was here!
Tonight was online registration for a safety town program back at home that I was signing Amber up for with her friend. It took me 45 min. to get on the website, then once on I waited 45 more min. in an electronic line before I could register! I was so annoyed. Thank goodness I got the spot I wanted and they will be in the same class together so we can carpool too.
Tuesday I got Jason's cake made. We are celebrating his b'day tonight since we are going away for the weekend that way he can enjoy his cake before we leave. My friend had asked me what he had requested for a cake and I told her that I hadn't even asked him! I had found a recipe last summer that had oreos, cool whip, and chocolate pudding in it and those are all his favorites so I was making that. After school Jacob had track, Sean math and Amber and I hung out with friends at school. Then took Sean to tennis. Later back to school for Jacob and back to tennis! Tonight we celebrated Jason's birthday! Lordy, Lordy look who's 40!
He loved the cake. Amber really didn't care for it too much. He enjoyed his presents especially about the weekend away without the kids! I had written down what we were doing and it started out by saying Sat. morning drop the kids off and then run! (: Jacob looked so confused when we told them we were going away for the weekend. He was like, well who is going to take care of us? We told him he was in charge this weekend, ha! He was like I am not even 12. I can't stay here by myself! Of course not. Amber was jumping up and down when she found out she was going to her friend's house and then the boys are both going over to one of Sean's friends. When this boy comes over here all 3 boys play so well together so it worked out fine. Tonight I baked some blueberry muffins for tea at a friend's house tomorrow.
Wednesday after drop off I went to a friend's house for tea with another friend. I brought my blueberry muffins. I also brought my computer over there and we all looked at everyone's pictures from their trips. Here everyone goes to neat places for break so it is nice to see/hear about other places. This Easter break I had some friends go skiing, one to Greece, one home to Norway, one did a Mediterranean cruise, and some stayed here or just did a few day trips to places close by.
We had a nice time and ended up staying until after 11am! We decided on a couple of girls days and a weekend trip! So when I came home I emailed Jason the dates so he could be home with the kids and then told him we were going to take a trip in the fall too! He emailed me back that I couldn't go to her house anymore, too funny!
Amber went home with my friend for lunch and then she brought the girls back for ballet. Amber was telling her friend what we had gotten for her brother for his b'day b/c it will be this weekend while she is at their house. The mom was telling her not to tell the brother and talk quiet so he can't hear them and this is what Amber says, "I just have so many things in my head I can't keep them all in!" Ok too funny!
I got myself and Amber all packed for the weekend. The boys were in charge of packing themselves. Then after ballet we waited for the boys to finish RE and headed home.
Thursday and other days too I did a lot of work on downloading all the pictures and working on the blog from the Dubai trip. It takes a long time to write the blog, then once the pictures are downloaded I have to add them in the right spots in the blog. The cleaning lady came today and she did a good job getting everything cleaned how I had asked. I gave her a bag of clothes for her boys and some chocolates too.
Two friends and I went out to lunch. It was a healthy little place. They only have a few things on their menu. So I had gotten there maybe at 11:50 and I saw the board with the menu and then sat down. My 2 friends came and must not have seen the board. So the lady comes to take our order and she is speaking English and is telling us about their main salad for today and I said I would have the cod special that is on the board and my other 2 friends said the same. So when our food comes it is the bean salad she was telling us about and I said I thought we ordered the cod. She said that was yesterday's menu. I said but it is on the board, she says well it isn't now! Ok like when we had asked for cod at the table why didn't she mention this! This is the customer service we have here!!!
Today I was at school to pick up Amber and then she had a friend over. After school we drove to the Conservatory which is just around the corner to see about snow white ballet tickets, but I guess the lady that sells tickets has been out sick this week so they said we could call or try back later, ok thanks!
Then I had to be back at school at 4:30 to pick up Sean from Bball. Then back at school again at 5:30 to pick up Jacob from track. Then back at 6:30 for guitar, geesh!
Friday morning I met a friend at a cafe. It was nice to catch up! Then tennis which felt good since it had been 3 weeks since I last played due to vacation. Then baked 2 batches of cookies to give to my friends that are watching the kids this weekend. After school Amber and Sean had friends over.
Sat. morning we got up and got everyone ready for the weekend!
I first took the boys and dropped them off at one of Sean's friend's house. The 3 of the boys play so well together and they live close by. So that was around 8 am. The boys were both excited to for a full weekend sleepover. They went to the pool with them today, indoors, and then went with them to a friend's house for dinner and playing at the park. So they had a good day!
After dropping the boys off we loaded up Amber's bike and drove her to her friend's house. She was so excited! She has spent the night here before for a sleepover so I knew she would be fine. They had a great day of playing, bike riding, visiting a park and another friend's house so a busy day for her too!
After we dropped off Amber, Jason and I drove about 2 1/2 hours to Epernay, France. It is in the Champagne region of France.
We had never been before and not really a place for kids since it is just visiting Champagne houses and tasting. We got into town, not really too big of a town and they were having a market set up.
This stone piece was really cool looking and old and out of place. It is just in the middle of town. I believe it was an entrance area to a church from the 1500's.
So we parked in the center of town and walked around and had lunch at a nice brasserie. These are all over Europe. They open early in the morning for people to go in and have their coffees and teas and breads. Then they offer a small bar like menu for meals but then offer starting at noon a meal. So I had a sandwich and Jason had their chicken meal of the day. The sun had come out and it was on a busy street and we sat by the window so it was very nice. From here we drove down the street and tried to check into the hotel. It was around 1pm but the room wasn't ready. I had booked us at a cute bread and breakfast at the end of the Champagne street so we could just walk to everything. The house was beautiful. This is the back of the house. So that room coming off the back is kind of like a sun room and that is where they serve breakfast. You can't really see it too well but here they also have an inground pool.
This is a picture of the side of the house, and the bar is to the left and then the parking lot. When we pulled in, 3 of the cars in the lot, you can see 2 of them, where a Porsche, Ferrari and a Aston Martin all from the UK. Long drive!
Inside the bar. Jason loved the bar.
The front of the house.
It was a formal house of the family of one of the champagne houses that is next store. But when no one lived in it for at least 20 years it became very much in ruins. So someone bought it and restored it. Beautiful house maybe originally built in the 1800's. The pictures on the wall were from the year 1900. This place has about 15 rooms in it.
So since the room wasn't ready we started walking down the street since we had a tour scheduled for 2 pm at the famous Moet and Chandon champagne house. These places were all closed from 12-2. The street was so nice and clean. It was a brick paved street and nice stone wide sidewalks. Not many people out. Beautiful old estate houses all down the street and there were maybe 4 Champagne houses on the street.
We got to the one at the end of the street where I had booked the tour for 2pm. We go inside the Moet and Chandon house and she tells me that the tour at 2 pm is only in French but there is an English one at 3pm. So I was a bit annoyed but we took the 3pm one. I had prebooked all of this and they gave me a receipt with a tour for 2pm in English. So since we had an hour we walked back up to another Champagne place where you could do the tour or just the tastings. We really one wanted to do one tour b/c how different can they be? So we sat and did a tasting. You got 3 small glasses for 5 euros, not bad. Then Jason tried 2 more bigger glasses of another brand they had. I thought they were all ok. We bought some Champagne and a nice Champagne bucket to chill it in. It was a little bar area where we did the tasting. It was neat. 2-3 other couples came in too and everyone was speaking English.
After this we headed back down to where we were doing our tour. It was an hour long, in English! This company has a huge amount of property here with houses across the street too. Everything so beautiful. Their cellars were 28 kilometers long, crazy!
Our tour guide telling us this barrel was a gift from Napoleon.
Halls in their cellars.
They had to be under the city and she had said they had also bought cellars from other houses so they must have torn down the walls between them. So we learned how Champagne is made and saw lots of bottles at different stages of the process. Their champagne was very smooth tasting and this is b/c they have smaller bubbles in their champagne. I do wish these places would have some pretzels or something to cleanse the pallet with b/c after awhile they all start tasting alike! This is the company that makes that really expensive champagne, Dom Perignon.
The last year they made it was 2003, b/c that was the last year they had really excellent grapes. So they had that brand of champagne for sale in their shop for 140 euros, so that would be about $182! Needless to say we didn't buy any of that! After the tour we tried 2 champagnes, one was their regular Imperial, and one was their Rose Imperial, so it is a rose color. They add a red wine to it to give it a pink color. We bought 2 bottles of the Rose one. One to give to each of my friends for watching the kids for us. After this tour we went to the Champagne house that had a huge property just off the main street and a big tower.
We didn't want to do another tour, so we bought a ticket to see the Champagne museum, the tower and you get a glass of champagne with that. The museum was neat.
We weren't sure what this was. Maybe an old post office? Love the old stairs in the second picture.
We climbed up all the stairs to the top as far as they let you go and had a good view of the town and surrounding area.
Then back down and got our sample.
Here is where their wine tour started, through the barrel and down the stairs!
This wine has one more gram of sugar in it then the others, so 10 grams and I liked it better. It was sweeter. They give you the Brut to sample, but since I like the sweeter one we then tried the Demi-Sec and I really liked that one, so we bought a couple bottles here too! Good thing we didn't have far too walk b/c we were getting weighted down with bottles! Also good thing I had brought a bag for us to carry most of this in! Right next to our hotel was another Champagne house but you couldn't taste unless you did the tour and we didn't want that so we left and went back to the hotel.
A picture of a barrel from their house.
I can't believe that they turn people away who are willing to pay for the tastings! We loaded all our champagne into the car and then checked in. I had gotten the Superior room. So there was a standard room and then a deluxe room which was bigger then superior. The room was awesome. It just used to be a big grand room. It had a fireplace on one side and then they added a toilet room and a big bathroom.
And the bathroom had a lovely claw footed tub and a fireplace that was probably just on the other side of the big room back in the day.
Everything was so nice and cosy looking. Before dinner we went down to the hotel bar for a drink.
It had started to rain so we had the hotel call a cab for us. I had made dinner reservations at a Grill place the hotel had recommended. Here is Jason holding the book of wine choices!
Jason loved his meal. It was a starter of sea scallops, then the main dish was a lamb with potato casserole. I normally don't care for lamb b/c it taste too lamby and it has a strong flavor, but this was wonderful. I had a grilled sea bass with a lentil salad. It was good. Then Jason's favorite Chocolate lava cake for dessert. It was a small, family run place with about 10 tables. After dinner we just walked back to the hotel. Jason had a great b'day and we had a lovely day!
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