Little visitor

This little "mésange charbonnière" (or much less eloquent "grand tit" in English) got stuck inside the patio.

I opened the doors wide, and it managed to escape.

So much (too much) school vacation

So I had to throw them outside.

Noah also liberated his inner artist.

But mainly there was a lot of this during vacation.

And another find in the garden... didn't even know we were missing a car key. Oops!

Hunting Easter eggs

Dyeing Easter Eggs

Our friends finally bought a house out near us, so we went to see them and dye Easter eggs yesterday.

I don't remember if this was a troll, or a gnome...

This one cracked, but we think it looks pretty cool that way.

Sculptor extraordinaire

Benjamin was inspired and impressed when Peggy, our hairdresser, showed us her metal sculptures a couple of years ago in the U.S. She kindly let the boys pick out some pieces from her stash so they could make their own sculptures.

It took us a while to get Benjamin's finished, because we didn't weld them like Peggy does, and finding just the right glue took some doing.

But it was worth the wait - look at this amazing desert island.

The proud artist.

Well, and Flea Markets

So we finally got a break from swim meets. While Frederic was at work, the boys and I went to a flea market in our neighboring town of Montgobert. They hold their flea market on the local castle grounds, so it's a very picturesque one.

Benjamin found "une affaire en or" (a real bargain!) with this brand-new, unopened Lego set. A rare find!

And Noah was equally excited about his free find - and quite proud of having "detected" it without a metal detector in the field where we had parked.

Then, the weather was so nice, we went out for a walk/ride through the fields. (Along the grenade path, if you've followed along.)

No grenades today (whew) but Noah found quite a few treasures, like this authentic... spoon.

He actually spent more time like this than on his bicycle. Digging for treasures.