Haircuts and Friendship Bracelets

It is the first day of June!  The girls still have more than a month of school to go, but summer is definitely here.  We have all been needing haircuts for a long time. Pierre bought himself some fabulous French clippers to keep his look together.  Wednesday was the girls' turn.  Lillian and Sylvia were very patient.  The coiffeur and coiffeuse insisted on blowdrying their hair and neither girl much liked it.  As much as I insisted that they stop, they had to continue until their vision was realized. Lillian and Sylvia want to do their own hair and with the new haircuts this is almost possible. 

With their new dos, we went to the sewing store and picked up some embroidery floss.  In a bookcase, Lillian found a friendship bracelet craft book and has been insisting that we give it a try.  Thanks to Book Fair and Valerie's eagle eye, we have lots of good craft books.  Let's just say that we are still working on obtaining a finished product that looks like the ones in the book.

Lilian chose, red, orange and yellow

Sylvia's choices
Sylvia lost her first tooth yesterday.  She refuses to let me take a photo.

Aux Merveilleux de Fred

When we first arrived in Paris, the girls and  I were exploring a pedestrian shopping street, when we were stopped in our tracks by what was going on in one of the windows.  Someone was whipping an enormous bowl of delicious looking frothy white stuff.  They were very skillful with their whipping and we were very curious.  We peered into the shop and saw amazing looking meringues.  I'm not sure why I didn't buy any then, but I must have had a good reason.  This Friday I returned to Aux Merveilleux de Fred and purchased some decadent meringues.  Their own website gives a much better description.
David Lebovitz has a Paris food blog and he, too, likes this place.  Click on his name to read what he had to say about the meringues.

Best Friday pastry yet.  Mine was coffee flavored--mmm.

Happy Birthday, Pepe!

Pepe, have a fabulous day!  We are thinking about you!  Much love from Paris!

Happy

Birthday

Pepe

Lillian's card

Sylvia's card

Parc Monceau

Last weekend we took the metro to Parc Monceau.  The weather was beautiful and the park was hopping.  This park was once owned by the Duke of Chartres.  He wanted his garden to be a "pays d'illusions" so he built something to represent lots of different countries.  There are pagodas, pyramids, roman ruins, etc.  During the Revolution, the duke lost his land and after much back and forth, the city of Paris bought it in 1860.  Monet and other artists painted here.  It is a lovely park.

Not bad for an entrance

The girls enjoyed scooting.  Lillian and I battled a few weeks ago about wearing helmets.  Rarely do you see anyone wearing a helmet on a bike and never on a scooter.  I insisted and there were tears.  While at Parc Monceau, Sylvia was run over by a big girl learning to rollerblade and I was grateful I had put my foot down.  Sylvia was fine.  The girl and her mother were both horrified and very apologetic.

Lots of lovely gardens and lots of people running loops.  Most French runners seem to head to the big parks to run.  During our park outings there are always lots of people running laps round and round.

This was our favorite statue

You can even play on the grass here.  In many Parisian parks, you must stay off of the grass.  It was a treat for our girls to be able to run and play in the grass.

Tree climber

Racer

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Bananagrams and Pancakes

Sometimes bad days happen even if you are in Paris.  This week I have been a little under the weather and there have been more tantrums and tears than usual--both  for me and for the girls.  So, Friday night rolled around and it was time to let loose.  What says fun more than Bananagrams?



Sylvia does not like to play "winning and losing games."  She does not like to lose.  She does like to be a "helper" while games are played.



Here the girls are checking Pierre's words to make sure they are all correct.

Here are Pierre's winning words.  I would feel a little better about losing if his game didn't hinge around the word "hooter."  Pierre kept telling the girls that a hooter was "one who hoots" and then he would start cracking up. 
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/hooter

Lillian did a great job.  She said she learned the word "cunning" from reading Harry Potter.

Saturday means pancakes.  We are still enjoying our stash of Canadian maple syrup. 

I happened upon an American store called "Thanksgiving" last week.  I went inside out of curiosity and was horrified.  The woman in front of me bought a 10 Euro bag of Reese's peanut butter cups.  The walls were stacked with strawberry marshmallow Fluff, mac and cheese, Pop Tarts...and you will pay through the nose for this junk.  I did buy some canned pumpkin to make pumpkin bread and some brown sugar.  I had purchased some Vergeoise, which is a good French substitute, but it was even more expensive than the brown sugar at the American store.

We just purchased our tickets to meet up with the Rock clan this summer to celebrate my parents' 50th wedding anniversary.  I am very excited to see everyone!

Onward and upward.  Happy Saturday!

Carnaval de Passy

Sylvia's school had a big parade today.  Her class dressed as "indians."  No one here has any idea that one shouldn't say "Indian" or that dressing-up as Native Americans/Canadians is not done.  A friend of mine said that they went to a French ski resort this winter and the theme there was "Les Sauvages."

Sylvia got to hold her friend's hand the whole time.  This is our new Argentinian friend. 

Police Escort



Two drummers led the way through the streets and around the block



Sylvia's teacher is in the blue jean jacket.  She has a different teacher on Thursdays.


The parade filed into the courtyard of Lillian's school and back to their classrooms.





Sunny Weekend

The sun shone.  Here is a backwards recap of our weekend:

 MMM!  Crepes.  After a long play at Le Jardin du Luxembourg, we needed some fuel.  The Crepe is delicious, relatively cheap, and makes girls happy.  You can choose lots of different things to go inside your crepe.




You can pay 2 Euros and 50 Centiemes and play, play, play.  If you are an adult, you can pay to go in the fence, or you  can stay on the outside for free, pull up a chair and bask in the sun.  The girls could stay here for hours.

This is a bit like a zip line, but faster and with curves.  2 or 3 kids at a time would hang on--it would never be considered safe enough for a North American park.  Lillian went on it "about 14 times."



The girls had a great time chasing the boats around the fountain and checking out the baby ducks.

Saturday, we went to our nearest market and went shopping.  The girls were holding hands and running ahead checking out everything.  It is about three blocks long and everything is there: meat, fish, bread, wallets, scarves, pastries, crepes, produce, flowers, nuts, dried fruit, spices...  I didn't get any good pictures and had to steal this one.  We had a Canadian family friend for dinner and were able to pick up most of what we needed right here.

Lillian and I went to the American Library to pick up books we had requested.  On the way home I said, "You must be getting hungry and thirsty."  Lillian replied, "And I need to read.  If I go too long without reading I get grumpy."  As you can see, I have disturbed her reading.



I spent Friday finishing up the darn curtains.  I spent a lot of time ironing and was looking forward to a nice, cool glass of white wine.  I bought this one because it was cheap, an award winner, and had a great name.  Unfortunately, I didn't know that "moelleux" does not mean smooth in wine-speak, but sickly, sweet dessert wine.  Yuck!



Friday pastries!  Lunettes (glasses) and a milles feuilles.  Sadly, the glass of wine was poured down the sink.