Emily

Speaking of summer adventures, Emily's having an adventure none of her friends are having this year. She has gone to France to be a "mother's helper" for three weeks. Despite all of our French connections, we have always had to rely on our friends to speak English, as none of us has ever learned to speak their language. Finally Emily signed up for French -- our only hope. School learning is fine, but there's nothing like total immersion when learning a language, so we made arrangements for Emily to travel to France to stay with Florence and Stephane. In return for her taking care of LouAnn and Nils, Florence and Stephane are supposed to speak French to her. She's having a great experience. She flew into Paris by herself, then figured out how to get herself onto the correct train to Brittany (Remember, she just turned 16 and Brittany France is a long way from home. Pretty gutsy!)

Is she learning French? I think she still has a ways to go. She reported that Florence told her the plans for the weekend in great detail. Not understanding most of what was said, she just smiled and kept nodding her head. When Florence asked if she was ready to go, Emily said yes, got her purse, and got in the car. She noticed there were beach towels so she asked if they would be going to the beach. Florence said yes, so Emily jumped out of the car and got her swim suit. It turned out that they were going to Florence's brother's home for two days. No toothbrush, no p.j.'s, no makeup, no clothes -- nothing but a swim suit. Yeah, she's learning French the hard way.