Le weekend de Paques

We had a nice Easter weekend even if there was a lot to do. At least we had some time together. Seb took Friday off to work in the house and make some progress on our bedroom, the only room we aren't contracting out. He worked Saturday searching for building materials in Annemasse 45 minutes away, driving a rental truck back and forth and back and forth. On his last trip, the one where he was to turn in the rental car and recuperate our car he realized he'd forgotten his keys at home. He called me to see if I had any ideas of how he could get home but all I could say was take the the train. The problem was he had taken grumpy, tired Little S on the last run so I could catch some sleep and the trains from Annemasse were few and far between. We only have the one car now because we killed the engine in our Renault by hauling building materials (go figure!) and so I couldn't really go and rescue him. The other catch? He'd taken all the credit cards, cash and the checkbook. The next train on my end of town going to Annemasse was leaving in 15 minutes and I frantically dug through my purse for Swiss money which I prayed that SNCF would accept. I made it to the gare with two minutes to spare and was very proudly able to rescue my husband and son from having to spend four hours in the train station on a Saturday afternoon.

On Sunday I was very ill so we cancelled most of our planned day off and Seb just decided to work. I slept a lot off and on and felt well enough to go walking at five o'clock in the afternoon. Little S was ill too and we all looked a little ragtag walking by the lake trying to pretend we were having a great time with all the other tourists. We bought Little S ice cream and let him ride on a few of the manèges and we did somehow walk all the way to the swimming pool which is a pretty long walk. In the evening I tucked in early without eating and then it was Monday before we knew it, another day spent slaving in the house, trying to meet all of our crazy Summer deadlines.

I suppose there is solace in knowing that next Easter will be different. It's hard to believe that in one year we'll be settled in a completely different country, a whole other culture. I know that Easter is a huge religous holiday celebration in Mexico and that most companies close for the entire week beforehand. That probably means we'll be travelling because we've decided that any free time we have in Mexico will be spent exploring. Hopefully we'll be looking back at this last year and shaking our heads saying "wow, how did we survive all that?" as we stare off at a mayan temple or dig our toes a little deeper in the sand of a gorgeous, azure shoreline.