Easter in Rennes!!!

All of us holding our designated eggs :)
My egg :-) I think Claire told her mom that I have special place in my heart for DARK chocolate. So, she got me a dark chocolate egg which was hollow in the center and there were smaller dark chocolate eggs inside. :) Marvelous! Just Marvelous!

Elizabeth and Anamaleine holding their eggs.

The Kitchen

Pictures of all the kids when they were younger.
One of the sisters rooms. She let me sleep in her room while I was in Rennes. THe bed I slept in :)

My first dinner with the family. From left to right (spelling of names might be wrong): Monsieur Courreges, Elizabeth, Marylias, Anamaleine, Therese, Me, Claire, France, Benoire and and Madame Courreges. Big family.

Claire and France's room. It leads directly to their cute backyard.

The cute backyard :)
Their house from the back.
The lounging-around-room.

HEY EVERYONE! I'm BACK!!! I lost my internet connection for a few weeks and I didn't know what to do with myself. Luckily, I was in Rennes and my family arrived shortly after so I was kept busy... but I have to thank the lucky stars (that would be Bruno, my Madame's son) for fixing the internet. I don't know for how long I'll be connected because it seems like its very On and Off-ish, but they gave me the website, user name and password to the router to try to fix it if it ever acts up again. :) I'm feelin' the trust.

Alas, where shall I begin? Well, my spring break was sensational :) I have never worked and thought soooo hard in my life! I woke up with a head ache, and went to sleep with a head ache everyday because I was hearing and speaking non-stop french. Only Claire would speak english to me but other than that, her other 8 family members didn't know english. Her 9 year old sister and I got a long very well :) She was the ONLY one in the WHOLE house (besides claire) that I could understand because.. well.. she spoke like a 9 year old, and I spoke like a 6 year old.. so we got along very well. Then again, I guess that doesn't explain why I was always playing ball with her out in the yard or playing with her and her barbies. Hm. Anyway, we got along swell :)

Claires mom prepared breakfast, lunch and dinner for us everyday. It was truly a treat :) I hadn't had home cooked meals since the first week I came to Paris. I ate my heart out and Madame was always pleased to see that I enjoyed her cooking sooo much, even if it was just pasta with a sprinkle of cheese on it. I didn't care. It was home cooked with LOVE!

Easter was great. I went to 9pm mass with them at their very pretty church and it didn't end until about 1am the next morning. When we got home from mass we all sat around the dinner table and had hot chocolate and bread while listening to Christian french music :) I was sooo tired but so happy to be there. The following morning Madame hid all the eggs for the little ones to find, and she even hid a big egg that she bought especially for me. One of the girls found it and gave it to me because I was oblivious to where my head sized egg was. heh. I'm a little rusty at Easter Egg Hunting :-)

After Easter the family and I stayed pretty much for the rest of the week on the southern Coast of Brittany in a CUTE house. We went to the beach EVERYDAY and I finally got some of my tan back. I think that was the first time that I had layed on a beach with my sweater and pants on, just sunbathing my face... it was still a little too nippy for me to take off my jacket and the ocean was WAY too cold, but that didn't stop Claire and her sisters from jumping in for a little bit. I decided to be brave too and dipped my toe in and then immediately ran back to my towel on dry ground. :)

I cought the train back to Paris alone (claire had decided to stay with her family in Rennes a little bit longer).. and when I stepped off the train, it was SPRING! The weather totally changed and it was hot and sunny! The trees had bloomed and Paris wasn't looking so gloomy any more :)

My family came to visit me in Paris but a few days later :) It was great walking to their hotel after I was done with my Grammar class, and taking them around Paris.. being their tour guide.. it made me realize how much I knew my way around Paris :) They came at THE perfect time because it was sunny and beautiful everyday (sometimes it was a tad bit TOO hot), but it's supposed to be rainy and cold right now... but for some reason it's July weather. However, when they left Paris.. this is the first time since I've been here that I've seen it rain heavy with thunder!! Usually Paris rain just spits at you, but today it poured hard and I can still hear the thunder. They brought the sun from hawaii and took it with them back to hawaii. The weather forecast says it will be rainy for the next week. Great.

All in all, I had a wonderful 2 week spring break and I'm just soo happy to have internet again :) I hope it stays like this. Ciao!