Great bargain

In France, there are two period of sales. One summer sale and one winter sale. Each lasts about a few weeks. I tend to shop at the last week as there are real bargains. Of course, there is less choice and sizes left.
At Decathlon, I looked at the end of the series area and found a few great bargains. Sports pants at 1€. At home, I removed the price tag and the original price was 9.95€. Then it was reduced to 6€. After that, at 5€ and finally at 1€. That's a 90% discount.  I like bargains like this.

Activties for this year

After two months of summer holiday, the start of the school term also means the start of after school activities. 

Last year, the boys joined kids' gym every tuesday after school. On top of that, A1 had tennis on wed morning. They also had chinese lesson on sunday afternoon.

This year, we scrapped chinese lesson. It was not useful for the boys and I was disappointed with the program.

A2 wants to be at the kids' gym on tuesday so the boys would continue that. He would join A1 for tennis lesson too though not in the same lesson. And on wed afternoon, there is karate. 

Karate started two weeks ago. The boys had fun. With school on wed morning and birthday celebrations in the afternoon, by the time the boys reached karate lesson, they were exhausted. A2 slept in the car yesterday on the way there and he missed his lesson.

We just received the schedule for the tennis lesson. A1's would be on wed at 2pm and A2's on Saturday at 11am. We are going to request for A1's to be on saturday too. I would like the boys to catch a nap before karate lesson on wed. I do not want to rush around bringing and fetching the boys for their activities.

As for wed nap, it is complicated this month. They had been invited to four birthdays since school started and three were on wed afternoons. August and September birthday kids are having their birthday party now that school starts and they can invite their friends.

Speaking of which, I am preparing for A2's birthday party. We are reasonable this time. He is inviting six friends over. Seb and I should be able to handle eight kids.

As for myself, I shall continue with gym STEP. I also start to take piano lesson from a neighbour. I stopped my lessons when I had A1. I would like to brush up my skill. Today was my first lesson and my teacher said I had potential. That word is so french. I shall take that as a compliment.

A new school year

Yipee. The two long months of school holiday is over. The boys started school on tuesday and were excited to see their friends. This year, they have school on Wednesday morning as well. This puzzled A1 as he knew that wednesday was no school day.

I would prefer the old system but with the new government in place, the new education minister has decided to spread the learning hours to 4.5 days instead of jamming into a 4 days school week. This is meant for students to have a shorter day in school. However, it is impossible for working parents to fetch their children earlier. No aide was given to the towns and cities and each town hall is left to its device to best manage the situation.

In our village, the kids have a longer lunch break and school ends earlier at 4.15pm instead of 4.30pm everyday except wednesday.  On wednesday morning, school is from 9am to noon. This defeats the idea of the education minister. Our kids are more tired than before as they spend more time in school. A1's tennis lesson on wed morning would be push to the afternoon. If we have no programs on wed, I would make the boys take a nap on wed and I notice that they still need that.

We just have to adapt to the new rhythm.

In the photo, they were carrying the school bags I made while walking to school on the first day. Before the end of the week, they had each received two birthday invitations. Such popular boys.