The kids have been loving the AirBnB at St. Malo. We are on the top floor so it reminds us Etienne’s 6-story house in All the Light You Cannot See. There was even a collection of sea-shells (shown in this picture) which reminded us of Marie Laure’s sea shell collection in the book. The unit was so fanciful and quirky. It had games for the children to play and fun spaces, like a little area where they could sleep together separated from living room by a curtain.
We started the day off with a carousel ride for Clarissa and Ammon. Ammon was sad the whole time because as I was on my way to him to give him his ticket, the ride started. When the person came to collect his ticket, he didn’t have his and he was really embarrassed and sad.
After the carousel, we all took a boat-ride to Dinard. Dinard was a getaway place for English people with consumption. It was a very charming place, and we could see St. Malo just across the way while we were there.
We spent our time at the beach in Dinard. We weren’t expecting to swim so no one brought swim-suits, but after we saw an amazing swimming pool set aside from the ocean that had ocean water, I ran back to our place for swim gear. The picture below is not of the pool at Dinard, but of a similar one at St. Malo so you get the idea. I had to run fast to catch the boat and not have to wait for the next one. I really enjoyed my run as I hadn’t been exercising and I was starting to feel sick, so it felt nice to sweat and to breathe deeply. After getting the swim gear, I drove 20 minutes to Dinard to meet up with everyone.
Lily, Ammon, Clarissa and I all took some turns swimming. And all the kids had tons of fun playing in the sand.
Towards the end of our time in Dinard, we are amazed at how low the tide was. In fact, a lot of the boats in the harbor were docked on the ground from the lack of water!
After our time in Dinard, we went back to St. Malo. We ate crepes outside at a cafe. I loved my goat cheese and honey crepe. Lily loved her scallop crepe.
Clarissa was in a super silly mood during dinner and she ate a TON of muscles.
Also, Lily was adorably teaching Clarissa math this evening. Below you can see Clarissa demonstrating her *in-progress* knowledge of fractions. Lydia is such a great teacher!
Walking around after crepes, we grabbed ice-cream and the most incredible donuts and stumbled upon a music group playing sea-shanties. We were memorized by the music. At one point Ammon disappeared and went away from us down by where the musicians were. He was dancing near them. We finally found him and had to correct him for running off (again).
We ended the day with a Ferris wheel ride. We had been using the possibility of it to help incentivize Clarissa to behave well. It worked! Overall she was very good today, and it was so fun to give her the reward.
Today was so fun. St. Malo is one of my favorite cities in the world, and I got to explore it (and Dinard) more with my favorite people!