First Day

Wow! What a first day. Here's how we started it: with breakfast from the boulangerie in our awesome kitchen. Due to having to return the rental car and buy kid car seats for the Josselin car, we found ourselves completely in the flow of everyday life, driving to Rennes (an hour away) and shopping at the Carrefour (think big, huge, Target filled with cool French stuff). I had mapped everything out ahead of time, but it was still all kind of unbelievable. We made our way to the parking lot of the Alma Shopping Center (huge huge huge, contains the Carrefour) after the Rennes airport rental car drop-off and, noticing the time (1:30 p.m.), jumped into the first restaurant we saw. So this is a restaurant off the parking lot of a shopping center - not the most promising, right? Wrong! It was swell! It's clearly a chain, but it was swell nonetheless: welcoming to kids (I still think of that as rare anywhere but Italy) and yummy and great. We were thus able to gird our loins for car seat shopping, which actually was very easy, and then made our way home to revel in _being_ home. Dear Oliver made us swear we would "do something medieval" tomorrow - no problem! To the castle! Sweet Iris asked if we could take a walk _every_ night (upon returning from shopping for dinner) - indeed we can! Eleanor wanted to know when she could meet Henry II so she could (and I quote) "scold" him for tearing down the castle here in town. In the 12th century. Hmmm. Amazing how a house becomes a home after you have breakfast in it, after you bathe your children in it. We are definitely home. More tomorrow - less modern, more medieval!