Looking for the king in Chambord

School holiday is here. With the boys' friends and their mother, we took a road trip to visit Château de Chambord and Zoo de Beauval over the weekend.

I get along well with Nina and my boys get along very well with her two boys. As Nina has a small summer house nearby Zoo de Beauval, she invited us to stay over and visit the zoo on sunday.

On Sat, the six of us got into the Touran and headed for Chambord. We had a picnic along the way at a play ground like what we did as a family two years ago. Our guided tour was booked for 2.45pm. The target audience was aimed at children and what a delightful time the kids had. The tour guide was the nanny of King Louis XIV's children. She explained to the group that the children were sick and she had to look for the king. As she brought us around in search of the king, she explained the facts and function of the castle and the lifestyle of the royalties back then.

At the king's chamber, the nanny taught us how to do a bow or curtsey if we were to meet the king. The children and the adults took turns to practise. It was funny watching the boys took it seriously.

A2 volunteered to check if the king was in his changing room and managed to enter the prohibited area. The boys were saying he was lucky.

When the nanny left at the end of the tour, we walked around the castle grounds before heading to the summer house. Nina's youngest boy was 4 and he was looking out for the king. We were told he might be out hunting since he was nowhere to be found in the castle. The older boys however understood it was just a story.

We were fortunate to have a clear day. It was cold but dry. When we arrived at Saint-Aignan, we quickly started a fire in the fireplace to warm up the house. The three older boys were excited to be able to sleep together on a sofa bed for the night. Though they had a long day, they were still chatting away when lights were out. 

The guided visit was really well done for little children. The nanny was perfect in her role. However, it is only available in French. For french families, this is something worth doing.

A2 is 6

I can't believe my baby has turned 6. A2 celebrated his birthday with his friends last Saturday. He invited 6 boys and they had fun.

The theme was basketball. I printed out basketball invitation cards, made a simple butter cake and 2 basketball pinatas stuffed with sweets to be thrown into the basketball loop.

The boys spent their time in the garden playing with balls. They also spent time upstairs playing dressed up and fighting as super heros. It was free and easy as they were not interested in the games Seb and I proposed.

Still at the end of the party, Seb and I were exhausted. The boys were very rowdy. We think this might be the last birthday party at home. We are considering indoor playground for next time.

As for the birthday boy, he was happy to spend time with his classmates. He received toys and games and a book. He told me frankly that he did not like to receive book as a birthday present. That is just so A2.

Espace Rambouillet

We went Espace Rambouillet on sunday. I went with the boys' school in June but A2 was sick on that day and Seb took care of him.  So he missed out the fun. I promised him that we will go visit it as a family.

Espace Rambouillet is a big forest park, home to many deers and wild boars. We walked in the forest to try to find the wild animals.After walking for half an hour, we came upon a herd of deers. We looked through our pair of binoculars to have a close up of the animals. A1 tried to walk closer to the animals silently.

In the group, there were male, female and baby deers. It was a beautiful sight. They were calm and moving slowly following the male leader. At the end were a few male deers making sure everyone were following.

We walked for another hour in the forest and came upon a group of wild boars. We kept a distance and observed them through the binoculars. A2 was afraid to go too near while A1 was trying his best to walk slowly and quietly to get a closer view.

At 3.30pm, we watched the birds of the prey show. The owls were the first to show up and they were perching near the spectators. They were pretty.

There were other birds like eagles, hawks and even vultures. They flew around and flew so low that one vulture's wing hit my head. Their wings were big and when they flew past, the sound of the wind was impressive.

The show was very entertaining and the highlight of the day. After the bird show, we went to the tree top walk at Odyssee Vert. The boys had fun walking along the bridge from tree to tree.

With that, we concluded our day at the park. There was a playground and picnic area at the entrance of the park. We enjoyed our day.

4 years ago when we visited this place, we did not get to see as many animals. The boys were young then and could not walk too long. 

Mushroom villages

The boys were on their bicycles and I was on foot with Handsome running around in the forest. The boys wanted to go further than our usual route. I agreed and we reached to this sandy area at the end of the forest. It was a long walk for me. A usual 30 to 45mins walk got prolonged to an hour and a half.

We spotted clusters of mushrooms. There were mushrooms villages popping up here and there.

Pretty little things.

Despite being mid September, the weather is still hot. We are enjoying this late summer with dinners on the terrace. Enjoying while it lasts.

School has started

School started last thursday on 1 September. A1 and A2 are in the same class again. There were more than 20 kids who finished primary school last year and only 6 3-years old starting kindergarten. This reduces greatly the population of the school. As such, a teacher was made redundant.

The rest of the three teachers in this kindergarten-primary school have to divide up the classes. 

Now, all three levels in kindergarten are taught by Sophie. Florence is taking the classes CP, CE1 and half of CE2. Véronique, the school principal is having the other half class of CE2, CM1 and CM2. This gives an average of 24 pupils for each teacher.

As A1 is in CE1 and A2 is in CP, they are both with Florence. Each teacher can choose his/her teaching materials. Last year, A1's CP teacher was using an old textbook dated more than 16 years old. This time round, Seb is happy to see that A2's CP teacher is using a different textbook. He does not want to go through the same reading material as A1 for A2. 

As I had mentioned before, studying in public schools in France is free. We do not pay school fees and only pay for lunch meals. Textbooks, exercise books and note books are provided by the school for free. 

The boys have to provide their pencil cases with writing pens and pencils, ruler, compass, color pencils, erasers and such. I spent about 10€ for their stationery this year.

A glider experience

I have my first glider flight today. I received it as my birthday present. The glider club was about 25mins drive from home. We began at 10.30am for the flight briefing. It was mainly information about the weather of the day and who were assigned to the planes.

I was assigned to my pilot Benoit with 3 other people. While Benoit was checking on the sailplane , we listened attentively to his explanation and instructions. We were also briefed on the use of the parachute in case we needed to eject from the plane in mid-air.

After that, the gliders waited in line to be aerotowed by the powered aircraft . While waiting for my turn, we had a picnic lunch. The boys played baby-foot in the club's room to kill time. They also patiently watched gliders taking off and landing. A2 even got invited to sit in a glider.
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 When it was my turn, I put on my parachute and took my place. Because of my light weight, metal weights were added just below my seat. The 50m rope of the powered aircraft was hooked onto the front of the glider and then we were off.

At the attitude of 500m, my pilot released the rope and we soared higher and higher by "riding" on the wind. That also meant that the glider was turning in circles. I assured my pilot that I was alright with the twirls.

Our highest attitude was 1200m. He could not go higher as the aviation regulation did not allow in case of collision with commerical planes.Our fastest speed was 190km/h with the 40km/h wind pushing us from behind.

Today was an ideal day. The wind was strong and my experienced pilot knew exactly when to ride on it.  He even let me pilot the glider when we were very high and it was not at all easy.We did a sharp left tilt and I had a thrill. It was fun.We had a difficult time during descent as the wind was blowing us up.

The flight lasted about 30mins and we managed to go to Chartres to see the cathedrale.

The landing was just as smooth as the take off. The boys were happy to see me when I landed. They wanted to try too. They have to wait a while because they have to be at least 33kg to fit into the parachute before they can fly.

The people at the Club CVVE were very friendly. We had a great afternoon at Bailleau. After seeing my videos taken in the air, Seb shows interest in trying out too. I love this experience so much that I will try it again. Maybe at another location for a change of scenary.

Can you run?

I told A2 that I am going to learn tennis this fall. 

He asked me, 'Can you run?' 

I replied, 'Running is using the two legs right? Sure I can run.' 

He thought for a moment and rephrased his question. 'When you were young, did you run fast?' 

This cracked me up. 

I told him, 'I don't think I run fast. But it is ok. I just want to have fun at tennis.'

A2 is concern about the running ability of his friends. He had told me before he did not want to invite a certain classmate to his birthday party because she did not run fast. 

Seb and I explained to him that someone else might be running faster than him and running fast is not a measurement for friendship.

I am taking up tennis so that we can play as a family. Doubt I can run fast. Just do it. For fun.

Singapore Gardens by the Bay

A dear friend of mine gave me two tickets for the Flower Festival at Gardens by the Bay.  We visited the festival on the last day. As I was queueing for the entrance tickets for the rest of us, a lady kindly gave me another complimentary ticket. So I just paid for the boys.

We arrived right after lunch and it was crowded though we did not have to queue to get in. We visited the Flower Dome and there were many orchid plants on display. Some of them won awards and had ribbons tied to them.

There were also sculptures and wooden cravings of animals in this dome.

This olive tree looked like an old man's face. A sculpture of Alice in Wonderful was just behind the rabbit.

From far, we could see this impressive wooden dragon. We took the lift up to the second floor to have a closer look of it. It was very well done.

After our visit, we decided not to walk 15 minutes under the hot sun to the next part of the festival. We went on the Adventure trail and then the boys had fun at the splash park at the children garden.

In the late afternoon, we made our way to the Mrt station. We passed by the Flower Dome and the queue at the entrance was very long. People who had bought their tickets online were queueing to enter. I suspected that it would take them an hour or so. My friend who passed me the tickets had free tickets herself. When she arrived at around 3pm, she caught up with me at the splash park. Half an hour later when she saw the queue, she gave up and went home.

It was my first time walking through this big garden. The Supertree Grove was impressive. The Marina Bay Sands buildings were equally impressive from this view.

In the MRT train on the way home, A2 took my camera and clicked for fun. Here was a fan A1 bought from Chinatown.

The next day after our visit to the gardens, it was time to say good bye to Singapore. The 3 boys enjoyed themselves this holiday until the end. At Changi Airport, they played at the play ground.

Changi Airport lives up to its name. The garden in it is just as beautiful as the one we visited the day before.

Hua Hin, Thailand vacation

In July, we went to Singapore to see family and friends. During our trip, we went to Thailand for almost a week. We spent a few days in Hua Hin. At the airport, our driver came to pick up the 6 of us. There were Seb, my boys, my mum, our nephew from France and me.

We passed by a salt lake with vendors selling salt along the roadside.

The driver proposed a stop at the Amphawa Floating Market and we agreed. This market was very crowded and the river was very murky. Matt, my nephew saw a boat lady washing something in the river and then cooking it.

Though Hua Hin is about 200km from Bangkok, we reached our Airbnb appartment in the evening. The stop at the floating market and the condition of the roads made the journey almost 5 hours long.

At Hua Hin, the boys enjoyed themselves at the swimming pools and the beach. Matt fell sick on the second day and I brought him to a doctor. It might have been the weather.

It was easy to travel around Hua Hin. We mostly took the bus-truck which cost 10baht. We flagged it down and pressed the bell when we reached our destination. We often went to Hua Hin Village shopping mall to have our meals. The food court was clean and the food was generally good. Everyone could find something to his/her delight.

At the beach, there were horse riding activity but my boys were not interested. They preferred the sand and the water.

Our days there were mostly the pool for the boys and massage for me and my mum. There was a massage place nearby where we stayed. We also visited night markets.

The place we stayed in was calm and quiet. There were not many residents and we had the pool to ourselves most of the time. There was a gym room for Seb. All the water features along the residence can be swam in. This is a cool concept. The staff were friendly and even helped in finding a doctor for Matt and calling a taxi for us.

Hua Hin is a tranquil little beach town. It is a nice place to just relax and chill. No wonder the Thai royal family choose this place for its summer palace.