End of Summer...

It had to happen. It is the end of freedom and in a few more days it will be back to sch..., hum, schoo.. hum, I cannot say it.
But, it's in a few more days so let's talk about all the fun I had during the rest of Summer.

Papa took me camping to Wallowa Lake where we met Grandpa and Grandma. They were camping during the day with us and sleeping in a motel at night. I was so excited about going camping and it was as much fun as I thought it would be.
We had a great spot with view on the lake.

I did explore the lake... just a little bit, just to try to get my boat floating.

It did not quite work as I expected but the scenery was sure beautiful.

What I really, really wanted to do though was mini-golf! Yes, we traveled for 7 hours, we found a cool spot in the beautiful nature but what I wanted was mini-golf. So every body obliged.

But camp life was also great, especially when everybody is wither cooking, washing dishes or cutting wood and I am, well, I am chilling.

 

To be fair though, everybody was chilling. We worked on crossword puzzles,

We went for a hike...

And the bestest times were at night when the fire was going and I could roast my marshmallows or roast a stick until it burned so I could write with it. Fun stuff, fun stuff!

The good thing about the active life of camping, the being outside all day is that you sleep sooo good.

And too soon it was time to head home for some more relaxing time. Relaxing time for me but not for Grandpa and Grandma. See there was a big fire that came super close to their house and it was quite scary. Sadly, 5 homes got burned down but luckily theirs did not but as you can see on the pictures, it was indeed really close.

I was barely back home that my cousin came for 3 days and we sure had fun together. From chasing each other with water guns at the splash park, to going to the zoo, we had some good laugh.

And for the rest of the month, between bike rides,visits to OMSI, and hikes, including this one up to Multnomah Falls, it really felt like Summer.

And for the last week of the month, another exciting adventure: zoo camp! Maman asked me why I love zoo camp so much; I told her about the cool rules like rule number 3: Have fun! Maman told me that it could be a cool rule to share with my 1st grade teacher. I looked at her like she lost her mind or something and told her that there was no way: you don't have fun at school, come on.
She then kept asking about other things I really liked better about zoo camp. Without hesitation I said: Freedom. At camp, you are free!

Maman sighed: she thinks I have a pretty sad outlook about school and it's probably going to be another wild ride in 1st grade.

I'll let you with a picture of Papa ready to go for a bike ride. See, he is wearing the jersey we got him in Birttany. Cool hein!

Breaking News

Monday, August 19 2013

For the past week it was wiggling. I could feel it. I tried many times to pull it but it felt like it would hurt. Every body seemed to have a good idea as to how to remove it and that even included tying it to a string and attach the string to Papa's trailer hitch.
I said no to all suggestions.
And then, on Monday, as it seemed that it was moving back and forth and balancing dangerously, Maman tried again and YES!
She got it out. My first ever fallen TOOTH!

I found the little car with the pocket for lost teeth and set it under my pillow.
Now, you have to know that since in this house we have both American and French traditions going, I was very curious about what would happen during the night: would the tooth fairy come? would the souris come? See, the souris, a mouse, is the equivalent of the tooth fairy here.

When I woke up, I actually forgot about my lost tooth but run back to my bedroom to check under the pillow. And there it was: the proof that both the Tooth Fairy and the Souris do exist ( as Maman is typing I am looking over her shoulder and told her she should type "Toot Fairy"... yeah, I know, 6 year old type of joke!).

I began rapidly making some math and decided that I will now wait until I have 5 teeth to put under the pillow to get a full $5! Smart, right?

J'ai 6 ans!

July ended with 6 candles on a cake!
I was quite excited about my day... and since it's basically my day every day, the cake and candles made it different!
But it all began in France where my uncle and cousins thought it would be fun to give a piggy bak that you can only open by breaking with a hammer...in 10 more years. I filled it up with secret messages.

 They also seemed to know me well enough after 4 days and thought I might like a water gun. "Might" like? You mean I LOVED it!

 At my last day with Papi and Mamie I got to blow my first set of candles.

Every year, Maman has tried to come up with a cake that matches my liking of the moment. This year, I am into Ninjago and Star Wars so we both figured out a plan and I helped: we made two round cakes: one dark brown representing the Death Star and one yellow one representing Tatooin, another Star Wars planet.

Then we made Sand troopers using marshmallows. Marshmallows are made of pretty bad stuff Maman says, but they are mmmm, so good.

And of course I was spoiled as you can see by the loot I got from Papi and Mamie, Grandpa and Grandma, Uncle Olivier and my cousins and Papa and Maman.

And I am very, very happy with all my gifts. As you can see, there were a lot of books; that's because when I am not working on my  title for  "Most annoying kid on the planet", I spend hours with my books.
I had barely opened Grandpa and Grandma's present of a set of Ninjago books that I was already avidly reading one of them: my first ever chapter book in English and I devoured it and the 4 others in no time.

I also got this cool fort kit from my friends in Indiana. That was a great idea for a gift and i went to work right away!

Today, a week after my actual birthday, it was my birthday party! Was I excited ? That is an understatement. Maman is very happy that my birthday happens to be during the Summer because at least she can send the wild crowd outside. And since I had planned to have a water gun fight, the hot sunny day was another thing that was welcomed.
My friends seem to have different social skills that I do though: while they seem to play together, I tend to either jump on every body or take a book and read while they play.

And if somebody needs to be goofy, you can count on me... and on my friend S.

Now, we had a lot of fun with the water gun fight. We ran to the park that is about 10 minutes away from our house. Papa drove the car containing the supply of water we would need.

And soon we were chasing each other and getting super wet, super fast! We did teams and the team split that got us all happy is when we decided to do kids against adults, which meant 4 kids against Papa and Maman. Ha, that was cool!  Good thing we had our water guns on the way back home because it was hot, hot, hot!

After a great lunch, I got to have more cake and candles and then we spend the afternoon building and creating with cardboard and all kind of materials that we glued with hot guns and not water guns this time!

Voilà! Birthday time is over and being 6 is as much fun as being 5.

I'll leave you with a bunch of pics that show you that I keep Maman entertained when she tries to take my yearly pic with Winnie the bear...