A lot of people have asked me, what do you every day in France for 5 weeks?  Well, as most of you who have been following the blog know, we have seen lots of castles and gardens and played Knight games.  Basically we did what would do here (well, minus the whole job and school part).  We just hung out really.  We connected, snuggled, pretended, napped and had a really great time.  Today, we played restaurant.

Finn was the waiter.  He kept saying "Would you like chocolat?"  I think France is wearing off on him.  He made me call him waiter.  If I messed up and called him Finn, he would correct me.  After he would take my order I would say, "Oh, waiter, just one more thing...after dessert I would also like a kiss from the waiter".  He would just give me this look and say "No, waiters don't give kisses!".

This was my dinner- carrots and a soup made of herbs, carrots, walnuts pistachio shells and wine corks.  Delicious!

This was dessert- rock pudding with frogs and some beautiful ornaments left over from our ice creams at Marqueyssac.

This was the kitchen.

and this was the delightful chef.  Do you like his chef hat?

Pretty cool restaurant right?

I have been watching this one field of sunflowers since we first arrived.  There are actually about 3 or 4 fields in the same area.  At first, when it was just all green, I didn't even realize it was sunflowers.  Then when the heads of the flowers started to form I realized what it was.  We drive by it almost everyday and I have watched it slowly change.  The petals started to inch their way out and before long it was just a sea of yellow.  It's a sight to behold.  I couldn't get myself up high enough to give you the full view.  It is an entire field of flowers.  I am assuming that the farmers raise them for the seeds.  I'll be gone before they have gone to seed though so I'll never know what it looked like in the end.  I have a feeling they look really cool all spent and dried waiting for the seed harvest.  Here are a few shots, enjoy!

For these next ones, I added some texture overlays and played with some cool borders.  You like?

One of the (many) cool things about the field is that it is swarming with big bees.  They don't bother you but while I was shooting, I could hear them buzzing right by my ear.

We leave Bezenac on Saturday and head back to Paris.  Then a day or later we hop the flight back home.  It is so hard to leave...

I am behind on blogging.  I still have pictures from the aquarium and from other adventures.  I should be blogging one of those but I had so much fun today that I just have to blog about today.  We went to see Castle Beynac.  It is just down the road from us.  All of these castles that we've visited are all in about 5-20 minute drives from our house.  It's been great!  If you like medieval stuff then this is your place!  The kids had been to Beynac with Steven and his Mom one day when I stayed home to get some work done.  They were all nice enough to go a second time for me.  I loved it.  It was one of my favorite castles thus far.  You could really imagine what life was like then and the castle was so well preserved.  Here are some images from the day...

At the base of the castle there is an amazing look out point with this sweeping view of the Dordogne Valley.

Almost all of the castles or chateau that we have visited have their own small church and some even have their own graveyards. This is the Beynac church. We heard that they still have services here on sundays.  You guys should all be proud of Susan (Steven's Mom) because she is scared of heights.  Just look at her though!

And just so you know it isn't all perfect...3 year olds can throw tantrums at medieval castles too.  This one went something like this "But my legs are tired!!!!"

Here are some pictures from the inside. What I liked so much about this particular place was that they kept it simple. They used oil lights and kept the display to a minimum, which gave me a real sense of the true place.  This is Steven peeking out of the castle window at the river below.

Another glimpse at the amazing view!

The boys had fun playing knights as you might expect. Here they found a look out window way up high and had fun pretending to watch out for the enemy!

I love this one of little Finnian peeking out of the window.

How will we ever readjust to a busy life?  We've settled in so nicely here.  I must have brought 4 or 5 pairs of shoes and have worn nothing but flip flops for weeks.  Life is simple here- much, much simpler than at home.  All of the shops close between 12 and 2:30.  Everyone takes a long lunch or heads home for lunch and a nap.  You have to ask for the bill at a restaurant.  The roads wind and so we drive slower.  Steven has to wake us all up (kids too) around 9 am.  We stay up late because it doesn't get dark until around 10:30 pm.  Our stay is coming to a close though and I am trying to adjust to the idea.  So you can enjoy it with us, here's a little of what we do from day to day...

Lots and lots of amazing baguettes, croissants and pain au chocolat.

bug hunting in the lavender 

after an afternoon rain... 

lots of wine with dinner, some wine at lunch...pretty soon we'll be drinking wine with breakfast.

afternoon naps with Finnian, our bedroom window.

the smell of lavender 

and the huge bumblebees in the flowers. 

Tensing (my friend Wendy's dog)

clothes on the line 

This time we had meat that cooked on a big lava rock right in front of us.  It was incredible.  Lots of amazing wine, lamb, duck and beef.  A fabulous salad with goat cheese and one with mussels.  Mmmmmm...... 

A beautiful moon. 

Sayer grabbing on to my legs- super excited about the street performers.