The French Riviera 04.08

A few weeks before we went home to the States, we took a trip with our good friends - the Framptons and the Mascaros - to Italy, France and Monaco. We had a blast lounging on the beach and exploring these beautiful countries.

Danny and Siena admiring the boats in Moraco

While sitting on the beach in Cannes, France we witnessed quite a fight. Some punk kids starting picking on a woman for no apparent reason. It got really interesting when the kids' mothers, by far the largest two women on the beach, jumped in on the action. I have several pictures, but this is the only one where you cannot see that the poor woman's bikini top had come off. during the melee. The lady eventually jumped in her car and left. As we were walking back to our car, completely disturbed by what we had just witnessed, we passed the police station and saw the woman inside upset and trying to explain her story. Fortunately our friends, the Framptons, caught the whole thing on video. After we showed it to the policeman he jumped on his motorcycle and sped off toward the beach. We don't know what happened after that, but the woman was extremely grateful.

Before heading home, we visited a beautiful town on the France/Switzerland border called Annecy. We rented a boat and spent a few hours out on the lake. Annecy has definitely moved onto my top 10 list of favorite towns in Europe.

Thank You Mr. Leprechaun!

Last week, Matt decided it was definitely time to break Danny of his beloved binky. He's 3 and 1/2 and up until now has insisted on having a binky whenever he goes to sleep. He was completely addicted. We have tried to break him of it in the past. We even bribed him with a brand new Playmobile tractor, which has been sitting on a high shelf gathering dust for the last 3 months. In the end, he would just end up stealing Rachel's binkys, so this time we decided to break them both at the same time. 

After the kids jumped into bed Rach fell asleep almost instantly with no problems. Danny, on the other hand, cried and screamed and cried some more. After about 45 minutes I went back into his room. In my haste to calm him down, I came up with this little story:

Danny, guess who I met last week? I met a leprechaun. (I then proceeded to tell him what a leprechaun was and how you find them at the end of a rainbow) He gave me some magical candies that help you fall asleep without a binky.  Would you like one?

He stared at me completely wide eyed and shook his head yes. I went into the kitchen searching for some "magic leprechaun candies" and finally spotted some in a box of spearmint Altoids on the counter. They were even green! I told him the candy would only work if he laid down on his pillow after he ate it and kept his eyes closed for 10 minutes. At the end of 10 minutes I promised to check on him and bring him another candy if the first one hadn't worked yet. Five minutes later, he was out cold.

Thank you Mr. Leprechaun for your wonderful magical candies. They worked like a charm!