The Mistral Approacheth!

6/30

Today was marked by the Mistral. What is the Mistral you ask? An unbelievably powerful wind that comes whipping up through the valleys of southern France; it can do serious damage and is "the first topic of conversation in Provence." All day doors were banging shut as the Mistral came through the windows and looking outside we could see the lavender bushes and the branches on the trees dancing in the wind.

We started the day off with "pain perdu" or French Toast! Pain perdu means "lost bread." In France one eats fresh bread every day, so when bread is not used and goes stale, it was "lost." But the French found they could take the "lost bread" and use it in this dish to make it edible again. Thus, the lost bread was found. :)

Audrey, our lovely French teacher!

Homemade pizza for lunch!

Nayyirah gives Nasir an awesomesauce tattoo.

I love puzzles!

Someone's tired. :)

Astérix is a very famous cartoon for French kids; he's like their Mickey Mouse.

This is how much I love puzzles, I devoted a whole panorama to it.

This is in one of the bathrooms. You walk in and think, "Oh, mosaic..?"

No, it's all soap.

Back to the puzzle!

Art class begins!

Our lovely model!

They did paintings of mountains, of Audrey, and a piece of Audrey with a medium of their choice.

Nasir begins his painting of Audrey.

Avery's fantastic charcoal sketch.

So proud of my chilluns. :)

We had sorbet for dessert, but this was unlike any sorbet I've ever had in the States. You could really taste the fruit in it, in face there were little chunks of fruit in with the sorbet! It was delicious and sweet and tangy all at the same time.

Passion fruit, citrus, and some other fruit that I'd never heard of before, and I don't know what it's called cause it only had the French word for it on the box...