Sunday at the rink with Raphael.

No this is not the musical sequel to "Sunday in the Park with George" (worth seeing though, you can rent the production with Mandy Patinkin and Bernadette Peters)

No, this was the afternoon with Didier's Sister, Brother-in-law and Nephew... Raphael.

Raphael as I mentioned in a prior post is a sweet kid 7 years old, teensie. He's originally from Bangkok. They adopted him 2 years ago. He's quite the spit-fire. Full of snips 'n snails n' puppy dog tails... or as we say back east.. full of piss n' vinegar. (colourful to say the least) Seems back in France hes rather athletic. Practising 6-8 hours a week in gymnastic type things.

For a Thai kid living in France, and only having briefly seen ice and ice skates once before, he did pretty well. Now that's not to say that the amount of time he spent actually on his skates, as opposed to his ass, or face was almost equal, but I've never seen someone, child or adult with more determination. His little hands would get soooooo cold that every few minutes, Didier and I would hold his hands and go round the rink a couple times, just to warm them up.

Even in the hour we skated with him he improved. By the end of the hour he could make one complete tour of the rink without falling... completely. ;-) No matter how much he fell, he always giggled and got up faster than you could ask if he was ok, and like a little fire cracker was off again. It was a fun afternoon!

He'll sleep good tonight.
(Last year when Didier's other Sister's family was here, we took both her nephews, Sacha and Dimitri to the rink. And that night they slept like logs. Well I say night,, they both crashed HARD before 8 pm, as opposed to their regular 10+pm bed times... (if we only knew that a few days prior!... two young boys, on vacation have more energy than an H-Bomb!) My recommendation to ANYONE hosting ANY company with young children... go to the 'Atrium Le 1000' for an hour or so... the kid(s) will sleep well, and you'll have an evening off!

After that we went for an ice cream (I know you'll all shocked by that) Ben & Jerry's They all got a combo with Cherry Garcia. I got a combo with Coffee Coffee buzz buzz! and Chocolate Peanut Butter Swirl. . Yum. Yum. YUM!!

We then casually walked back home...

A short but eventful outing.

We're having them over on Tuesday night for a dinner, as it's their last night in town. We'll look at their vacation pics... all 800 or so of them! ;-) (they took, at last count 580, and Didier and I took another 200 or so.) Then that's it, we are well and truly visitor-free for the season.:-)