Old Friends and Birthday whatnot

 A few weeks ago on a Friday night, we had the pleasure of a visit from Craig & Doug.  The girls enjoyed attacking Doug before the 4 of us left them in the capable hands of our babysitter Hippolyte and went out for dinner.

2 nights ago my daughters got to meet our friend Peter Henry - who used to work with me here in Nice in 2003-2004. Thomas has seen him more recently as Peter has spent the past 3 summers in France leading bike tours. But I haven't seen him since I was expecting Estelle! We celebrated by an 8 p.m. dip in the sea wearing Thomas' bathing suit.

It was refreshing!

So great to catch up with Peter again!

And not to be forgotten, on my bday Wednesday:  look at this lovely cake Thomas bought at Lac chocolatier - it's called Perle.  So good.

 I'd like to note that I have since had my roots dyed. 

Sunday was also Eliott's birthday party, up in a park.  Fransiska & Arnaud did a pretty great job developing a series of challenges and tests, all around the theme of finding and slaying an evil dragon.
There was 1 King (Crowned on left, Arnaud, Eliott's dad) and 2 Knights - Lud -Eva & Louise's dad, and that's Thomas far right, standing.
 
They had some great ideas.

First challenge for the little Knights:  slay the other Big knight with your jousting plunger....

Fransiska and Arnaud have recently done some huge additions/renovations in their flat by purchasing what had been the concierge apartment (now becoming a thing of the past, or of luxury in some buildings) on the other side of the wall.  This means they've got a lot of cardboard lying around.  And plungers, I guess?

This knight would spin around once you hit him, and if you got hit with his bath poof, you were considered "dead".  Here's Knight Thomas giving it his best shot.

Eliott's buddies from his school, with our friend Loup with the curly hair.

Next challenge:  Attack the Knights, 2 by 2.

Eva and Estelle have a go at their dads.

Next challenge:  Go find the shield needed to protect them from the dragon.  These things were all spread out in this big public park, by Fransiska (see her in the distance holding Basile?)....

Eva found the shield in the tree....

Here's the King Arnaud explaining a few thing about the shield:

 
Next step, off to find King Arthur's rock to each retrieve a sword.

 Eliott has his sword.

 They had to answer questions to get pieces of a puzzle that spelled the next clue (which was the merry-go-round -"manege" nearby!)

So the next step was 2 rides for everybody to DragonLand, and the way to get there was on the merry-go-round (manege).

 

 Estelle & Eva

 And finally, the ultimate challenge in Dragon Land: blindfolded and armed with their shield, they had to pin the sword on the dragon.

Once the Dragon had been slayed, everyone got their reward:  candy kabobs and a dragon tooth necklace which you can sort of see around Estelle's neck.

 What else would someone from Holland make but...Dutch Apple Pie with a 6 on it!  Yummy yummy!

 Thomas had his hands full with Louise & Lena.  We were in an olive grove.

Then we ate cake and opened presents and raced to our cars before the skies opened up.

And finally, here's Estelle with Frederique, her piano teacher. One more lesson to go next week.