27 January – 5 February 2020
The main event for this week (if not the year or the decade) was undoubtedly (particularly if you’re Ellie) her actual 10th birthday. I guess most people only ever add a digit to their age once in their life, so it is quite important.
On the eve of her birthday we put Jessie and Sena to bed early and just hung out with Ellie for a while, enjoying the last of her time as a 9 year old. We spoke of our time together as a baby, when it was just the three of us and, of course, Bonnie. We tried to make her dance on Anthony’s lap the way she used to as a 6 week old (she’s much heavier now, but still has a very similar range of motion thanks to all the gymnastics).
She agonised over whether to go to school on her birthday or whether she should stay at home and spend the day with us. After much soul searching she decided she’d go to school so her friends could make a fuss of her on the actual day, and would keep the day with us as a ‘day in lieu’. Sorted.
So, in fact, her actual birthday was remarkably like any other day. Up, presents (OK, not entirely normal), rollerblading, bus then school, gymnastics, home, dinner and cake (also not an everyday thing). With lots of happy birthday singing in between (in multiple languages of course).
Outside of the Festival of Ellie and our travel-heavy agenda and Anthony’s training for the upcoming Ironman we have been trying to slow things down a bit this year and make sure we savour our time here. So far, at best, we have been only partially successful. Despite having reduced (Liz) and/or dropped (Anthony) French lessons, we still seem to be very successful at filling up our days eg travelling to the bus stop, the never ending devoir/homework train and cooking.
On Thursday this week, however, we actually got it right. A quick bike ride in the morning, a fantastic lunch at ‘Entre Midi et Deux’ (favourite brasserie) and then we could be seen sitting in the Place de Precheurs in Aix trying to (really badly) sketch our building. All the time thinking ‘how lucky are we?’ It was a really wonderful afternoon.
On Friday it was time to repack the ski gear and head back to Risoul for another weekend – this time staying on the snow at the Snowchill Hotel with another 2 families – Otis and Elizabeth with their 3 kids and Nir and Naomi and their 2 kids. Sena was beside herself with excitement at the prospect of skiing with one of her best friends, Florence.
We arrived Friday evening in time for a quick drink in the bar before bed. On Saturday we bundled Jessie and Ellie into ski school for the morning (this time very successfully) and Sena spent the morning with Liz and Bonnie whilst Anthony boarded with Otis and Elizabeth. In the afternoon, Ellie and Jessie donned snowboards whilst Sena hit the slopes, showing that she is in fact far more capable on skis than her sisters on a board.
We had a nice ‘team’ dinner at the hotel on Saturday night and were back into ski school on Sunday morning. The highlight of the weekend was on Sunday, however, after ski school when Otis and Anthony took 5 of the girls (our 3 plus their Florence and Isadora, who had been skiing with Ellie all weekend) on a couple of runs together, and Sena and Florence could be seen navigating the green runs together hand in hand.
The smiles were more than enough payback for all the money and tears we have invested thus far in Sena’s skiing!
Thankfully, the return trip this week was significantly less dramatic that the previous week with no one feeling the need to throw up in the back of the car!
This week felt like a short one as Anthony was to head out to Zurich on Thursday for the much anticipated boys boarding weekend where we would wind back the decades and hit Laax for 3 days of fresh powder boarding.
The beginning of the week was dominated by ever mounting stress from Ellie’s impending first regional gym comp in France (not to mention the logistics to get her there), all set to the repetitive and off-key sound track of Anthony stumbling his was through the first baby steps of learning piano (2 weeks in and it’s a miracle that this has not lead directly to divorce proceedings).
The other big event for the week was the unveiling of the (albeit highly belated) school reports for last term. This was the first ‘formal’ report cards we had received for the girls and we (eventually) took the time to sit and go through them in some detail with them. Lots of focus on the ‘effort’ column and comments rather than just the marks. Overall, it turns out that school seems to like our children almost as much as we do, and their efforts to integrate and succeed in their new school has been both acknowledged and rewarded. We have asked a lot of them over the last 6 months and, by all accounts, they are swimming, not sinking.
Which I guess is far better than the alternative.
Joseph Family Adventure 