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Not lost in France

I have just returned from a week's holiday at Center Parcs, in France (Les Bois Francs). This was our last family holiday before Everything Changes (ie school in September).

We usually go each year to either Longleat or this French one, I think once you have been once, you become a CP Addict! However the cost almost trebles if you have to go in school holiday time so Longleat will be out of the question, and France used to be cheaper than the UK, not so now with the crappy exchange rate.

Here are a few highlights from my holiday:
  • Elf made a new friend! And had his first French playdate. A really sweet 6 year old boy from Paris made friends with my 4 year old. Barely able to communicate, only through my French, they played water pistols in the park, met in the pool the next day and arranged a last water fight on our last day.
  • His recent gromet op threatened, in my mind, our future holidays as we are all water bugs but no! I was wrong. He wears a swimming hat and ear plugs (and never complains bless him) and with a little lifejacket, he is still able to jump in and put his head under to look at the starfish on the pool floor with his goggles.
  • His confidence in water has improved. Because the French are less - well less English about things, he was able to go down the Rapids (a 5 minute trip down some fast and slow water chutes) and some of the larger slides.
  • UNO! Perhaps our favourite game and now we can play with him! We obviously have to lay out our cards, but he has picked it up very quickly. We don't do the +4 cards, but he loves the +2 ones and the other "naughty" cards. The magic change colour card is a fav too. Even when we can't let him win, he finds it funny. I played nine games in a row with him.
  • He has just learned to ride his bike without stabilisers - yippee. This happened a little sooner than expected, necessitating a last minute and urgent trip to Halfords (£100 for a Clone Wars bike and that was reduced!). But he is SO proud of himself.
  • Twirling spag bol with his fork, he was just copying us.
  • Staying up late-ish in a restaurant, sooo French. The lego pit helped, I was so proud.
Some non highlights:
  • The week after a holiday that it takes for Elf to settle down after the constant attention and fun on holiday. He's just whispered down from the top of the stairs for the third time, and the reason he's up is "I banged my head when I got up" so OH said "Well if you hadn't got up, you wouldn't have hurt it". The previous reasons were: "My nappy hurts me at the side" and "I'm hungry".
What are your family holiday highlights this year? Or what are you intending to do holiday-wise?

Comments

  1. AnonymousThursday, July 08, 2010

    Sounds like a fab holiday... Best not to mention the Tic in the eye of the other child. That might make your readers recoil from the monitor. Camping on the Isle of Wight next year then with Charlie?!

    ReplyDelete

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