Eric and I have had enough of lazy kids sitting around the house all day. So we told them last night: "We need your help finishing the apartment. Your grandparents arrive in October and we'd like to have the back part done enough that they can stay there. From now on, we're all getting up as a family at the same time, and we'll all work together in the mornings."
So at 7:30 am, the Freeze family was awake and looking
Inga and Ivy had soccer practice again. While Eric was dropping them off, Zari and I got started mixing a batch of chaux (lime mortar) in the cement mixer. I sent Dio off on a walk with Baya. While the lime was mixing, Zari sanded some of the MAP that we had applied yesterday.
I think I have the hang of using the cement mixer now. It's so nice to just push the "on" button and come back 30 minutes later!
I rebuilt one of the big voids in the rock wall. It's almost all the way filled up. Zari was my rock fetcher/sorter/wetter. She'd find the right size and shape, dip it in water, and then hand it up to me on the ladder. She would also refill my hawk with lime.
I wasn't going for aesthetics, just stability. But even so, it looked better than I had expected. It's a bit like playing Tetris as you have to fit the rocks together in 3 dimensions.
Dio helped Eric install the "ceiling" on chimney bookshelf. We ended close to lunchtime, just in time for Eric to pick up Inga and Ivy.
Then...fun time for the adults! We went out to eat with some friends of Eric's who were visiting from California. Their daughter stayed and played with our kids while we had an amazing meal at L'Eau de Vie. Everything I've ever eaten there has been fantastic. With a 3-course lunch menu at only 24 Euros, it's one of my favorite places to eat.
We had some brief down time at home, then met up with our friends at the beach. The waves were getting so big that the lifeguards started clearing everyone out of the water shortly after we arrived. They switched the flag from orange (caution) to red (no swimming allowed). They even brought out the big guns: the big patrol boat. It cruised close to shore, ensuring that the stray swimmers complied. The waves don't look very big on the video, but I assure you that they were quite dramatic in real life.
Oh...our fridge! So we've been without a fridge since last Saturday. The repair person came this afternoon and took the entire thing apart. He seemed more and more perplexed as he tried one thing, and then another, and then another, and he even called some support line and asked the person, "have you ever heard of this happening?" He finally figured out that some part of the electronics had gotten water into it somehow and it was completely unrepairable. I'm frustrated because this fridge was only 2 years old!
So after our attempt at swimming, Eric, Zari, and I headed to the appliance store. They gave us store credit but we had to buy a different fridge since the model we had is no longer being manufactured. And of course anything that was the right size was more expensive. We finally found one we could agree on, and it will be delivered next Wednesday. So we'll be 12 days without a fridge.
This took so long that Eric bought pizzas for dinner on our way home. We didn't eat until about 8 pm, which is very late for us! Normal for most French people, though.
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