Around Lourdes - La colline aux Marmottes

The marmot hill is an animal parc where you see many of the animals that live in the mountains. My children loved giving carrots to the marmots!

The only negative thing was the amount of wasps at the pic nic place.... we ran away and ended up having our pic nic next to the Jer cable train!

 

Around Lourdes - Donjon des Aigles

 The Eagle Fortress is really that, the beautiful remains of a real fortress, surrounded by mountains and the home for over 45 different species of birds of prey. We spent two magical hours there. The site is close to Beaucens, a little bit outside Aquitaine in the Hautes Pyrénées.

The setting is beautiful

  

The prey birds are imposing

Here you see it attack....

... a bait to show us how they hunt

The vultures were mighty and flew so low they touched my head twice!

  

This intelligent bird used stones to break an egg

And this one knows how to kill snakes by stomping their head

  

By the end came the smaller birds and the parrots

I loved watching the children; smiling but impressed

 

 This one talked alot!

Picking blackberries

We went to see if there were any blackberries to pick... a bit early; but we still found heaps. Along the small roads here, among the pine trees, it is easy to find the bushes. I love standing there in the sun, listening to the crickets and concentrating to avoid the thorns...

We ate most of them straight away but I made a simple jam of the rest, just add the equivalent of the berries in sugar, some lemon zest and a vanilla stick and boil for 30 min. Lovely with vanilla icecream....

41, everything is still fine

A happy birthday is simple. Retrieving old friends that just moved closer to us, sipping champagne in the pool and hearing the children playing without bothering us....

Eating artichokes with salted butter and nothing else...

Sharing a Swedish dessert....

... and some flowers!

Nintendo for a five year old

He has been looking at his sisters' Nintendo since she got it about two years ago... and now, for his five year birthday, he finally got one for himself. No need to guess, he was overwhelmed with emotion... next to this, the birthday cake was just something getting in the way between he and his new toy...

I can't believe that my baby five years ago is now this big...

Classic Swedish cake. No butter but half flour, half potato flour to make it real light. Cut in two, bananas and custard cream in the middle; real whipped cream and strawberries on top!

Vacation with Armelle

Spending time together, talking about all and nothing, picking fruit from the tree and enjoying their new pool... I left with tomatoes, figs and plums! And only one question, when can I come back?

Modern kids, playing Mario connected by wifi

And an evening out at restaurant l'Emulation

Café gourmand.... pannacotta with mint, fig sabayone and something raspberry and something chocolat...!! (Food was excellent but the photos bad)

Colorful tomato salad

Today I bought yellow, orange and red tomatoes! Talking about making you want to eat vegetables!
Which one do you prefer, in slices or in small pieces?

Back from summer camp Camieta in Urrugne

Camieta main building

Dearest Clara is back after a whole week away at her first summer camp.... she said she missed her mother and her family, but I really missed her too!

She had a good time with different activites, most related to the sea, and a good lesson in autonomy. Let's see if she wants to go again next summer.

(She came back with lice, but to be honest I don't know if they are from Camieta or elsewhere. I am just disappointed they didn't detect them at the camp....)

Breakfast here....

Her room, shared with five other girls

Some of the elder children slept in tents.

View from the camp

After one week apart... a big hug!

We celebrated by going to the Erretegia beach

And a sandwich at the snack; where a Swedish-speaking guy works.