Vacation - and a little Olympic Fever

I'll confess to just having punched Mac's arm in my excitement at seeing another Swiss do wonderful things in downhill skiing, so I'd best confess to having a bit of Olympic fever. Lucky us that the Winter Olympics coincide perfectly with the school vacation. The kids were happy to fall into bed early, so Mac and I have settled in for an evening of Olympics and Mont-Saint-Michel planning. Vive les vacances - long live vacation!

If those Wednesdays away from school bemused me with their existential freedom, so far I'm doing pretty well with two weeks off in February (unheard of!). Mac and I keep thinking we'll carve out a couple of hours a day to work each, but the hours slip seamlessly by: we've decided to do some French stuff (interactive CDs, workbooks, reading, etc.) every morning with the kids (uptight and geeky, I know, but each kid found something he or she wanted to do and we had fun). Mac and I speak French with them pretty steadily throughout the day, and there's no doubt they're understanding a great deal. What surprised me was how both Oliver and Iris are starting to play with phrases (today from Oliver: "Je n'aime pas les bisous, mais j'aime les bijous" - I don't like kisses, but I like jewels - leave it to Oliver to do a play on words! and then from Iris tonight: "Le beau lapin est un bijou pour moi" - the beautiful bunny [her beloved bell bunny] is a jewel for me - she asked me for each word and then put the sentence together) - Eleanor just repeats entire phrases and songs flawlessly. I couldn't resist a Barbapapa video at the store the other day, so we've had a lot of funky, hippie love music playing (all good). So, yes, French with the kids in the morning, then somehow it's lunchtime, then reading gobs of Asterix chez les Bretons (written by the same author who wrote Le Petit Nicolas - cool!) while hoping Eleanor will nod off (never happened), then an outing to the lists (much merriment this afternoon, as captured by great good luck in the great photo of Iris and her dad above), then a spot of grocery shopping to prepare for our departure, then dinner, bath, piouff to bed and here we are!

As the Olympic coverage stated in celebrating the two French medals of the day: "Tu feel good!" ("You feel good!")