A birthday fete at a winery

The girls help new friend Marin celebrate her 6th b'day

MEYROGUES, France - The girls got invited to a birthday party for one of their new classmates, Marin (celebrating her 6th), who lives on a winery not far from Aix. Her parents are American (the Mom. Audrey, is from Philly), and mother and daughter speak fluent French. The dad (Dave) works at the helicopter plant in Marseille and they have been here for almost a year. So it was good pick their brains, and also meet some of the other kids who will be in Lindsey's class.

Their home is actually the renovated servant's quarters on the winery, which still produce award winning Rose's. It has a big garden area, where the party was held, and Audrey and Dave were the perfect hosts, offering cold Kronenbourg's to go along with a nice spread of food. Nadine, our landlord, had made the connection for us to Audrey, who has a mutual friend with Nadine from Club Med days. We chatted with some of the other moms to get a better sense of the girls' school and the general routine, all of which was quit helpful and set our minds at ease a bit. Plus, knowing that we'd see at least a few familiar faces one the first day of school made us feel better, too. Hearing some fo the kids move easily between French and English impressed our girls and I think made them think this bi-lingual thing might be doable after all.

Afterward we wall went to a very nice recreation area not far from their house where there was a fairly large man made lake in a quarry and lot of shady grassy area to relax and have cold rose.