Sainte Victoire Study Break

We're on the last week-day of our last major vacation of the 2009/2010 school year--two weeks off simultaneously from work and school. We had fabulous plans--Avignon! Camping! The beach!--but the most exciting thing we'd done was relocate to a café for the afternoon and do homework in the sunshine. Well, that was the most exciting thing "travel-wise"--I had an interview (and got hired!) with a tutoring company -- entire process exclusively in French, and I felt like it went just as well as any interview I've ever had in the US. Maybe better, since I had to think a bit more before I could say anything. That was a bit exhilarating... but it certainly wasn't a weekend getaway to Avignon.

BUT, we have the good fortune of having some really awesome co-workers, and yesterday one of the English teachers at Josh's school invited us along on a picnic with his family. Three adorable little girls (speaking French, which majorly ups their cuteness quotient) + sparkling lemonade and Bonne Maman chocolate muffins (Entenmanns: these make you look like cardboard. sorry) plus some really pretty views of Mount Sainte-Victoire. It was a lovely afternoon.

The girls were very interested in using my camera: here's a portrait the three-year-old took of her five-year-old sister...
...who then surveyed the landscape very seriously when it was her turn to use the camera. She announced, "Je vais prendre une foto de . . . cette rocher" (that boulder).

I like the olive grove you can see in the background--little silvery tree-bushes.

And then the final excitement of the day: wild asparagus.

And now back to Jean Jacques Rousseau (for Josh) and Argentine cultural history (for me) before we run out of vacation and have to buckle down for exams.