September 21-22

Oh. 

My.

God. 

I am pretty sure this is the prettiest place I have ever been. 

Grignan. 

So we went south to Provence for Nicolas' family birthdays. It was an absolute riot. It's a requirement to give your kids cool names in this family... 

Xavier. 

Astrid 

Sixtine 

Victor

Just to name a few..... 

Anyway, Saturday evening we got to the house, wow..... This place is amazing. We had an extremely French dinner. Which was good but some of it was disgusting. I'm not even going to pretend otherwise.... 

So they own a bed and breakfast type thing. So there are like 5 or six mini condos... 

So Aude, Hippolyte and their cousin Xavier and I went back to put a movie on for the boys..... I'm not going to name names but a certain middle child left the sliding door open while we were eating dinner.... I went to shut it but as I did a massive black car came barreling in. He just looked at us and then it started making this noise. I thought it was Hippolyte crying in the other room. It honestly sounded like a person. Once we realized it was the cat and not a kid we were laughing/screaming. This went on for about ten minutes. It was running around the condo screeching then finally jumped out a window..... The best part. He came back and was screeching again outside at like 5 am. 

The stupid thing came back again..... 

So Nico's mom is one of six. Bridget (his mom) is the oldest as well.... And some of her siblings are much yonder.... 

 This year they had a Decade birthday party.... 

10- Apolline

20- Elise (Nico's cousin) 

30- Isabel (cousin) 

40- Seb (brother)

50- Dominique (aunt) 

60- I don't know his name but he was my favorite guy at the party (uncle) 

There was no 70 and 80 

90- Nicolas' grandmother, who is in the early stages of Alzheimer's and had me sit next to her and was chatting my ear off..... In French, then half way through the conversation she looked at me and said "oh damn you're the British nanny ! I'm sorry I was talking in French!" 

Everyone just laughed, it was adorable.

For some reason, the French can't tell the difference between British and American accents. I will tell them I speak English and they will ask what part of England am I from..... His one cousin who's like 35 and has the cutest kid ever! Lived in London for 5+ years and he asked me if I was from London.... 

I get it if you confuse British with Australian, New Zealand, or South African accents but American.... Really? 

Anyway, his family his so nice but does not speak much English. Well they speak it but not all of them so well. Most are good, then there's a few that I just could not understand to save my life. 

Anyway, back to the party, I was put at the kids table, which I'm not complaining about but every French person so far thinks I'm like 17. So Nicolas' mom put me next to her godson Max and her other nephew Victor because they spoke english. They were super nice! They thought I was 16-17 like them, yeah it was really awkward telling them that I was 22. Especially since they look older than me.... Super nice guys though, girls ages 16-17 I'm serious, you should probably come visit me and check them out for yourself...  

So the day kind of went something like this... 

Hands down, the most important thing, I helped Bridget cook lunch. Yes mother you read that correctly, I helped cook. And she said I was a fabulous assistant and I was welcome back any time. So take that mom for thinking I don't know how to cook! Hahaha

After that we set up for the party which was fun, and once everyone started to arrive is when I got overwhelmed... Holy crap, not being able to speak to them is one thing, but they kiss you on the cheek. I am still so not used to that. I mean when Nico's parents and brothers and their wives it was whatever but with the rest.... it was so awkward. And they don't actually kiss you, they just make the kissing noise and then you kind of rub cheeks... it is so weird. 

So once everyone arrived, we started drinking champagne, I think before lunch even started almost 10 bottles were empty... I'm not even kidding. And I only had 2 glasses, I swear. Okay I lied, I had 3... 

Around 1:30 we started lunch, the one thing I really don't like about French food is that everything is served cold. Pasta and meat especially. It really throws me off, and I am pretty sure it's insulting to ask if I could heat it up. Like we had steak for lunch, they sliced it from right off the grill and then refrigerated it. Why... just why would you do that?! 

Anyway, the food was fine, and after lunch we all just kind of chatted around, then the guys all went and changed into like workout clothing because they were going to play soccer.... I'm not saying that I don't think Sunday Night Volleyball is awesome, because it it, but holy crap this put family sporting events on a whole new level. One was the ref, there were team captains, it was insane. It was crazy intense too, like blood was drawn on more than one occasion. 

After that, everyone just kind of chilled. Adults were chatting and the kids were playing, so I was relieved of my duties and I read a book. This only lasted for about 10 minutes because there was so much yelling and running around. Slowly people started to leave, and by 6 there was only the six of us, Nico's parents, and his uncle and 3 cousins. We ate spaghetti which was awesome because it was warm not cold! It was around 7:30 by the time we left their home, it's only about an hour and a half away but Eleonore and Apolline rode there with their cousins, and we kind of forgot about that, so Eleonore had to sit on my lap for the entire drive, which would have been fine if she wasn't the most spastic sleeper on the planet. 

We finally got back around 9:30 and we all just crashed. Hippolyte didn't make it to his bed. He just sat down on the carpet and the next thing I knew, he was asleep. Also, I don't know what he's doing wrong because he's still kind of sick, and I'm freaking out thinking that maybe I just had a good 24 hours and then I'm going to be back to my death bed. 

Well that was my weekend for you!