We went to Le Tignet (close to Cannes, Grâce) to celebrate Paul, Marc's cousin and also Arthur's godfather, 30th birthday .

We left on Thursday 5th of July in the afternoon and Arthur was great in the plane. He played on his charm to everybody and he slept half an hour before landing (obviously). Florence, Paul's sister, and Kathia, Marc's sister who arrived the day before with her children and her grandfather came to fetch us. Arthur was really happy to see them even if it was 9pm and we just woke him up.
Paul didn't know that we were suppose to come, so the following day when Marc and Arthur went to wake him up, he apparently made a funny face. It's a shame that I didn't see it and that nobody had a camera at that time.

On Friday 6th we went with Caroline, Florence and Paul's cousin on their mother side, her son and Luc, Kathia's son near a lake. The water was rather cold, but Arthur appreciated it. The weather was beautiful and hot. That was a change compare to the awful weather in England that we had all June. Arthur didn't appreciate the change of temperature, he didn't eat much during this stay.
The evening, we ate some tapenade, black olive spread, in the garden. That, it's some proper holiday!

On Saturday 7th (Paul's surprise party day), we went in a villa that Paul is looking after and which has an outdoor swimming pool at 30C!! The swimming pool, Arthur knows, therefore he was quickly fed up, but he had fun to crawl all around the swimming pool. On the other hand, it was the first time for Mazarine, Kathia's daughter (and my brother's ;)) and she seemed to like it.
Caroline had prepared nicely a snack for everyone and Arthur who loves every fruits, ate all the grape. One of the seed didn't go well in his throat and he started to cough. I thought that he was going to spit it, so I put my hand under his mouth, but instead he threw up… on the table where all the snacks were!!
So, the day at the swimming pool finished for us two in the shower while the others cleaned the damage!
We came back home to celebrate Paul 30th birthday as it should be. We, all, have been surprised that despite everything Luc said, he didn't suspect anything. He seemed to be very happy. We managed to meet all his friends and his maternal family who are, all, very friendly.

On Sunday 8th we went to the seaside! Arthur discovered the sand, the salted sea and the waves. He liked, at the beginning, swimming in the sea and to play with the waves until the moment when he drank it (twice, once with Paul, once with me!) So after a while, he preferred to play in the sand. The problem is that, our little man when he is tired, he sucks his thumb and that when he played in the sand, it sticked. So he started to eat the sand and it was very funny to watch him trying to remove it on his tongue with his fingers full of sand!

Monday 9th we stayed at home. Arthur made up for all his lake of sleep by sleeping 4h30 in the afternoon. Obviously, when we took the plane in the evening, he wasn't tired, therefore he played in the plane. He played on his charm with the other passengers and in spite of the late hour and the noise he made, they smiled to him nicely. When we arrived at the car, of course he felt asleep in 5 seconds!

The next day, Arthur went to Fiona, his childminder, for the day so that I could do all our laundry and our luggage for our departure, the following day. Yes, with our usual organization, we hadn't realized that we had two events in France two weekends in the row!
So Wednesday 11th we went by car to Paris. Arthur played in the boat with a small buddy who was attracted by his toys. Marc discovered an adventure playground for children where they can jump, shout without annoying the others passengers. Arthur enjoyed it!
We arrived in Paris at the end of the afternoon and after turning around Le Sacré Coeur we found Stephanie's flat, my flatmate at Bristol who came back to France 1 year ago. We spent the evening with her. As she lives in a studio, we were in the same room that Arthur. While we had our dinner, he was in his bed, but didn't want to sleep. After dinner, we dimmed the light, Stéphanie and I continued to chat and Arthur felt asleep in 5 minutes. Proof that he cannot fall asleep with the light on!

Thursday 12th we went in Andrésy to visit Stéphanie's sister, Céline who has 8 months old baby boy, Raphaël. He is beautiful like an angel, logic with his first name. We were really pleased to see Céline, we hadn't seen her for more than 2 years. Arthur managed to sleep which surprised me because when there is a lot of people around him and is in a place that he doesn't know he prefers to explore. I suppose that the fact he was up until 11 pm the previous night helped !
The evening, we went to have dinner at the Thevenin family. It is the family of which I kept the first 3 children when I was in Paris. Now they have 5 of them, but the two older girls were in vacation camp. Louise and Pierre, the two youngest nicely offered a M&M' S soft toy to Arthur which they found at the bottom of their toy box and I found that very adorable. Arthur was very happy too.
After that, all the children were in bed (Arthur included), we spent a very good evening between adults. The last time that we had seen them I was 6 months pregnant, therefore we had a lot of things to talk about!

Friday 13th we spent a quiet morning at Stéphanie's by packing our bag. We met her for lunch in a Japanese restaurant close to her job (Pasteur Institute!) Arthur played on his charm with the waitresses and I struggled to make him eats his meal. They gave him lollipops, but he preferred to break them on the table.
We bought a travel high chair for Arthur that we found useful in the restaurant. We managed to choose the restaurant in thirty seconds instead of looking for THE restaurant which has high chairs. The food was quite good, but it is not worth our small Japanese restaurant in Oxford.
Then, we left for Rambouillet for our friends Jean-Marc (Jim is his nickname) and Berengere's wedding. They got married by Jim's uncle who is a Diacre and, so the ceremony was very intimate and convivial. We spent an excellent day and evening to meet their family and friends who are all very cordial and funny. There was a good atmosphere. Even more as they asked to some baby-sitter to look after all the kids, therefore we could enjoy ourselves and Arthur liked to be cuddle by two strangers.

On Saturday 14th we went to Jim's family country house where a picnic was organized. Arthur spent 5h sleeping while we had a fight with water pistols!
In the evening we went back to the suburbs of Paris to visit some friends from Marc's school (EPITA), Anne and Erwan who are expecting their first child for the end of September. Arthur had his first experience with a dog. They have a young Labrador who is very excited and excitable. She kept jumping around Arthur and licking him. He was very scared. But each time she was calm, he went down from my arms to go to excite her. Little devil!
We came back late to Paris, in Ménilmontant where Marc's friend-colleague had nicely lent us the keys of his studio.

Sunday 15th we had invited Monik, one of my mum's friend for lunch, but we forgot to take pictures. I saw her during my stop-over in Paris while coming back from Egypt, but Marc hadn't seen her for 4 years!
In the afternoon, we went to a couple of friends whom I met in Bristol, HK and Kaia and who got married the same year that us in Norway and in Singapore (she is Norwegian, he is Singaporean). She was 8 months pregnant and she should have given birth a week ago. We don't have any news yet, but I leave them the time to recover from their event to ask them what it is and who he/she looks like the most.
We hadn't seen them since their wedding as at the time they lived in Singapore, but they moved to Paris a year ago for two years and we were happy to find HK speaking almost perfect French (Kaia speaks French as her mother is French!) We spoke about the way to raise a child with 3 different languages. Kaia speaks Norwegian, French and English , she talked to me about her own experience, but also about the languages they want to teach to their child.
In the evening we went near Vincennes castle to visit the new flat of Thomas and Amandine (Marc's friend from Saint-Dié), to meet Patrick and Camille (a friend from EPITA) and to meet for the first time Alexandre and Agnes.
Their flat has a terrace, so we managed to have a nice buffet under Parisian heat. Arthur was still perfect, and felt asleep without any problem in their room.

The following day, Monday 16th we came back home. We managed to avoid at the last minute a traffic jam (thank you, the radio) and Arthur was adorable during all the trip as usual.

In summary, we spent some lovely holidays with family and friends... Arthur has been great from the beginning to the end, he is ready to travel even more! But we came back obviously more tired that when we left.