Halloween

Just to clarify, the Bois de Boulogne is the second largest park in Paris, about two and a half times the size of Central Park in New York City.  The Bois de Vincennes is slightly larger.  Thank you, Wikipedia.

Today was Halloween in France, but you hardly saw any sign of it.  Tonight as we left the apartment we saw a few young girls dressed up on our street, but where they were headed was anyone's guess.  The holiday is not widely recognized in France, so it's difficult to know if they are going to trick or treat or if they're going to parties for the occasion.  Coming home on the metro tonight we saw quite a few young people (aged 18-25?) dressed up or made up to look scary.  Perhaps just out on the town in a festive mood.  Juliet seemed interested in the concept of Halloween since we had just read a story about Max and Ruby, and their Halloween.

Today was a quiet day; we had errands in town so we did those this morning.  The sun was shining although it was quite cold, in the mid-fifties.  Juliet led the way on her scooter; we went to the chocolate shop for gifts, the Monoprix for diapers, the Carrefour City for some mustard to take back to the States, and the deli for lunch items.  After lunch it was nap time for Juliet, and James and Jeanne had an appointment with the pediatrician.  The one-month checkup went smoothly; James is now at the 75th percentile for weight and length.  Or height, really, except of course he's not standing.

While Jeanne was gone I made the mistake of laying down which I should never do during the day because I always sleep too long.  When I woke up it was time to get ready to go to the Ministry for dinner with Jeanne's family.  Everyone was there except Vincent and Laetitia; they had to work.  But all Juliet and James' cousins were there, and what a sweet group.  They all really like one another, and are kind to one another, maybe partly because of their age differences.  Thomas must be about 15 by now and of course the youngest is James.  I got lots of good pictures of them together.  We see them infrequently but are always impressed with their manners and their treatment of each other.

We stayed quite late at dinner and both Juliet and James were exhausted by the time we left.  I hope they will sleep late tomorrow, as it's our last day and we hope to make it a good one!  Rain is predicted so we'll probably go to a museum and maybe out to lunch or tea.  I'm going to walk tomorrow even if it's raining, as Saturday will be spent folded up on the airplane, headed home.