Heading to Crolles for the weekend

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Evy's friend Tsetse has kindly invited us to join her family for the weekend at their house in Crolles, so we were up a bit earlier this morning, packing a smaller version of our stuff as well as laundry to take with us. On the internet, we also spent some time checking prices for plane rides around Europe (London to Edinburgh as well as Edinburgh to Dublin) . Evy collected files of Benjamin's school work to print at Tsetse's as well.

About 11:30 Tsetse picked us up and drove us the 20 minutes to her house in Crolles, which is at the foot of the mountains. Tsetse and Xavier have a beautiful place, with a large backyard, pool, and amazing view of the mountains. We were quickly introduced to their four children: Sebastien (16), Claire (14), Emily (13), and Thibault (10). They are really nice kids and quickly had Benjamin and Joshua shooting basketball and playing ping-pong while Xavier barbecued and Tsetse prepared a delicious lunch. We ate outside watching the para gliders drift down from the mountains above.

After lunch, we took a walk which led us through a corner of town and then off to series of trails which led up the mountain. The trees were still wet after yesterday's rain and the kids had a great time shaking the branches to cause an instant rain storm.
While walking, we ran into friends of the family (Rafael and his son Francis) who invited Xavier and us to go rock climbing tomorrow. It sounds interesting though a bit scary. We shall see.

Further up the mountain, we came across a fenced in area where they cultivate oak trees in hopes of getting truffles to grow there. Shortly after this, the kids headed back while we continued on a bit further. Just before we turned back down the mountain, we came across a cuckoo bird, calling from the woods. Having never heard one in the wild (just the cuckoo clock version), Evy and I were captivated and I even recorded a few minutes of the call on the video camera.

Back at the house, the children had all settled into playing a racing game on the “Wii”. We discussed the rock climbing again, and Xavier, Benjamin, Claire and I decided to go, though Claire's warning “You should know, people have died doing this “ was a bit disconcerting.

After a wonderful dinner of curry, we all played a Game of Perudo - a sort of “cheat” game played with dice, before heading off to bed.

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