Friday: A Day to "Relax"

So, today was our day to “relax”. Which meant going to get groceries, catching up on laundry, and some things like that. I took all four kids with me to the grocery store, which was as far from “relaxing” as you would imagine. But having a full fridge made the whole trip worth it.

Living as nomads has caused us to change a few things. One is the way we eat. We don’t have nearly as much food on hand at a given time, and when something is gone, it’s gone. I’ve said more than once, “I suggest you finish that because there’s nothing else to eat. And I mean nothing.” After a couple of hungry mornings, they no longer doubt my threats. There is always a camp store where we’re staying, but I don’t know how often things are going to be restocked. Hence, my choice in produce for the last couple of days from there has been onions, tomatoes, and lemons. Luckily there is a grocery store nearby.

Another thing that has changed is the way I approach laundry. At home, I can easily come up with a load a day. Here, laundry cost about $10 a load to wash and dry and is a huge time sink, so some things needed to change. I brought about 5 changes of clothes for everyone, but we’ve had to change criteria for what makes it in the dirty clothes bag. Multiple times when I see one of my kids going to put clothes in the bag, I’ve said “Is that REALLY dirty? Show me where. Because if I can’t see anything, then it doesn’t get washed.” (For the record, I never second guess underwear. It ALWAYS makes the cut. As do the majority of Chloe’s clothes). So we’ve cut our laundry down to 2 loads every 4 of 5 days between the 7 of us. I don’t miss doing more laundry.

Since we had the whole day, we took a pedal boat out and did some mini golf and go carts at the camp. I was able to unload Chloe (napping) and Andrew (angry birds) to take Mason, Katie, and Megan to a chateau nearby in Pierrefonds. It was pretty amazing, and definitely worth the drive. Tomorrow we’re heading back to Paris, but this time without Ryan. Hopefully I survive.

The Chateau de Pierrefonds. Made even more beautiful by not having Chloe and Andrew with us on the visit.

The four kids in the "pedalo". I pedalo'ed way more than I wanted to. Pedal boats are not the easiest way to get around a lake.

One of these girls loved her go cart. The other one felt very betrayed by it when it slammed her into a curb and henceforth wanted NOTHING to do with it and abandoned it on the raceway.