Finally Family

I was thinking about crediting our visit from cousin Andrew Ritchie and girlfriend Silvia as the first family visit, but it occured to me, that in fact, Jeremy Allen was our first family guest, and we forgot to post his visit. So here is a quick two in one family visits Paris update.

First Jeremy, travelling through with work, from site visits in Rome and Tunisa to scout film locations came by for dinner. We enjoyed a great evening of lively discussions, and wonderful family memories, and yes, the "Allens do know best"... yours truly included. In the end we drank lots of red wine (a Jeremy signature) and my head was tight the next day. He stayed over. Thanks for coming Jeremy. It was really great.

As mentioned above, our second family visit was from Andrew & Silvia. They came for the weekend. We saw lots together including the huge Waterlillies (Nymphéas) at the "Musée de l'Orangerie " It's a perfect sized art exhibit for me (less than 1hr) with works from Cézanne, Matisse, Modigliani, Picasso, Renoir and of course Monet. We squeezed a lot into a short weekend including a dinner at a local restaurant Les Cocottes where even French President Nicolas Sarkozy has been known to dine. Paris is even better when you can share it with family.

Sorry for the small picture...I pinched it from Andrew's Facebook

Une Tradition, S'il Vous Plait

Lately we've been actively trying to supplement the girls French, as we have realized that a Montessori (Bilingual as it may be), with its philosophy of choice, where the child can choose to speak to the English or the French teacher, is not necessarily the best place to learn French.

One of the small things we have added into our routine, is sending the girls in to buy our daily Tradition (our prefered type of baguette). The girls go into the boulangerie all on their own, wait in the queue (sometimes for 10min), order and pay.

The women behind the counter just melt everytime our little anglo angels order "Une tradition s'il vous plait..... merci... au revoir." The girls walk out empowered with their coveted bread in hand and quite often an extra treat.