Thomas got some new polo shirts for work and some lovely hand-made crafts from Estelle from her nanny and daycare. I can't even show you a picture of the handprint in hardened playdough painted blue because now it is at Thomas' office!
He took Estelle to the beach for some playtime in the morning.
Then I baked yet another cake. After lunch and naps we headed to Cimiez - a neighborhood of Nice that is goes up and away from the sea. Home to Queen Victoria's unspeakably huge mansion, the national Matisse Museum, Roman arena ruins where the summer Jazz festival is held, and a big park full of olive trees. This olive grove played home to Elliot's belated birthday party. Unfortunately his Dad is still somewhere off the coast of Angola. But we had a fantastic time with lots of other
toddlers - most notably Pauline and her parents.
Hmm, can you guess which cake is mine?
Elliot enjoyed surveying the cakes. He just picked off a lot of sprinkles.
Pied Piper Philippe, Pauline's Papa, rounding up the troops who kept trying to make a break for the nearby merry-go-round.
Sylvianne, Pauline's mom, had the right ticket with the bubbles.
Here's a little bubble video:
Meanwhile, disaster is probably about to strike for the Hexagon (this is how people here refer to France). Tonight France plays Italy in the last match in their group of the first round of the Euro Cup (did you catch that?). These two teams, who met just 2 years ago in the final match of the World Cup, are now scrapping it out in what I can only term a back-alley do-or-die encounter just to stay alive for the next round. Both teams, having been crushed by Holland (much to the glee of Elliot's mother) are in a position to be elimated if Holland loses to Romania (unlikely). So assuming Holland beats Romania (for those interested, Oana says she could care less, the players make too much money and they don't give any to her, so she doesn't care one bit), then who wins (France or Italy) advances to the next round and plays Spain on Sunday. They go from being the best in the world 2 years ago to being like 2 guys playing craps in Guys and Dolls. It is WILD. As Thomas likes to say 'Anything can happen".
