And by darnedest I mean cutest. Things that make you want to just smother them with love. This morning, after breakfast, I told Bastien he could go and play if he wanted to. He says ‘ok, I’ll play with me cars and you.’ ‘Me?’, I ask with incredulity. And here’s the best part ‘yes, because I love you’. Everybody with me now: AWWWWWW! And later when he disappeared upstairs, I went up to find him in his bed. He said he was tired, which was fine because he’s sick. I’m not sure why, but I felt the need to mention that after Christmas I was going back to Canada. His response was ‘after Canada you have to come back, alright’, said with all the assurance of someone who knows he is going to get his way. I don’t quite have the language skills yet to explain myself in regards to me going home so I don’t know why I mentioned it, but I did and his response was heartwarming.

As you can see I spent this afternoon working on missed post #2, now I’m all caught up. Yeah! I also spent a lot of time on Twitter, searching out people I know, following them, etc. I updated my profile as well and I must say, although the purple was great, it’s so fresh and clean now, like my blog. Much better. A friend from university tweeted me asking if I wanted to go get ice cream. I was so excited and had a good laugh. It’s a little inside joke of ours. I think it goes back to my first year…his third? We used the ice cream excuse to leave the Music Lounge in the hopes of escaping the incessant ramblings of one student. We all know how much I can ramble, so if I thought this other person was going overboard that’s saying something. ‘Incessant ramblings’ is a polite way to say ‘she only talked about herself and tried to always come up with something she did that was better than something you did’. Maybe not the nicest thing I’ve ever done, but there were still other people in the lounge and I got a friend out of the deal! Unexpected comebacks of old inside jokes make the day more fun ^_^.

So apart from that, playing with the boys a bit after Adeline and Sylvain got home, and making dinner, I didn’t do much today. Oh wait! I did some laundry and vacuumed my room. See, the day wasn’t a total waste online, I did a few productive things. I’m going to leave off there because the last 4 or 5 posts have been extremely long. See you tomorrow!

Heyo! Finally here is missed post #2. I was tired and lazy that night so I only jotted down point form notes, but hey, it’s something. Here goes… So Saturday was hot. Hot, hot, hot. It was also extraordinarily windy. So the weather kind of evened itself out into something quite comfortable at the park, but a little much at the actual beach.

I can’t even remember what we did in the morning, but after lunch and before going to the beach we played a game of Malarkey. I have no idea if that’s how it’s actually spelled, and I’m not even sure if that’s what it’s called. That’s what I remember, but we all know I don’t have the most reliable memory! Nico said it’s the cheapest game he’s ever got; he paid €2 for a long pole of wood, cut it up and used a marker to write numbers on it. So there are 12 numbered short columns of wood that you have to hit with a non-numbered column. The numbered pieces start out all clumped together. As the game goes on they get spread further and further apart. You have to stand them back up where they land, and at the beginning sometimes someone will wail on them so they go flying. The goal is to get exactly 50 points. If you go over, you get launched back to 25. If you only knock down one piece, you get as many points as that piece is worth (numbered). If you knock down more than one – for example, 5 – you would get 5 points. I lost. I was close to coming in 3rd (even closer because Claire had to go back to 25), but I missed a couple of times and she caught up to me. *sigh* Also, If you miss the wood altogether you lose that turn. If you miss it a second time you’re on thin ice. I believe if you miss a third time you lose…but if you hit some before you miss a third time you get a clean slate.

We also played a game called Zero (which I also lost). I came so close so many times to having fewer points (the goal is to get 0 points each round), but I was always shafted. It was still fun though.

So, the beach. It was about 1km or so from CenterParcs to the beach and on the way there Bastien fell and scrapped his knee pretty bad. So, Greg went to the pharmacy to get band-aids and something to clean it with, and the rest of us continued on. Once we crossed to roads we came up to a huge flight of stairs. And we had Sylvain in the stroller. Nico and I carried him up, and then carried him down the hill of sand to where we eventually stopped. Mind you, we didn’t go all the way down. Bastien was so great with me while we were there, I had a lot of fun. I tried flying a kite, but it was SO windy and I kept messing up (it was one of those kites with two handles). Eventually I just gave up I got so frustrated.

  So, because Greg wasn’t there Bastien wanted to look for him. And of course he had to pick up every stick he could find on the way. I helped him ‘look’ for his Dad, and eventually put him on my shoulders because there were a lot of little sticks that he didn’t like stepping on with bare feet. He also spent some time burying Adeline’s and my feet. And Freddy, I let him bury Freddy. He had fun burying things.

Once Greg got there he took Bastien down to the water. We just stuck our feet in (it was pretty cold, but that makes sense based on location and time of year…not that I know anything about currents of water temperature). There were some pretty cool waves and Bastien seemed to enjoy himself. Going back was a challenge also. Claire and Nico had already left and Greg had brought the bike with him, so we had the stroller, bags, and a bike to take back. I pushed the bike and with the seat on the back for Bastien it was a lot harder than I thought it would be.

Despite the wind, I enjoyed myself. I guess the extreme wind there is a normal thing. On our way back we also saw a group of people on horses. And alas, we did not take a horse-ridden jaunt across the beach. Someday I’ll do that ^_^.

On our way back from the beach we stopped at the main building so Bastien could play in the kid play area for a while . That was when we played Zero. I think this was also when we went swimming. I’m getting a little mixed up in my time-lines here. Bastien kept trying to push me under, he thought it was quite the joke. I took him to the deep-end and despite a life jacket he was a little afraid. I was holding on to him the entire time, but he wanted to ride on my back, so I let him. Sylvain also had a blast in the pool. He was in his own little flotation device that let him sit up and kick his legs. We spent a lot of time just pushing his back and forth between us. He like the waves as well (the main pool was also a wave pool from time to time). Bastien really liked the slide as well. There were two, but the other one was too big/fast for him. He also really enjoyed the crocodile in the kiddie pool.

This might be a little random, but as we were walking to the beach I saw dog poop along the walk way. This made me think of a blog I’ve subscribed to (it’s really funny!). You may be asking, ‘why would dog poop make you think of a blog?!?!’. Well, I think it was the first post of hers that I read where she talked about people not picking up after their dogs and how frustrating it is. The story is unfortunate for her, but funny for us, which is I’m sure why she shared it. She wants everyone to laugh, what a great goal! Laughing is awesome. So, if you’re interested in checking out that post or other’s of  Lafemmeroar, go ahead, you will definitely be entertained.