Country Costume Party

As I mentioned earlier, we had our end-of-the-year dance class party this past Saturday night.  Our teacher not only teaches two levels of class through our local village activities association, but she also has her own school elsewhere in Nice.  They have frequent activities throughout the year, this is the first year our group has been invited to join them, so we got to be part of the party, too.  I thought you might like to see more of how the French are more American than we are.

A dance recital, retro/vintage

Our little village has a thriving activities association for all ages in the community. For a number of years, I participated in their hiking club, a marvelous experience in discovering the mountains we see from our house. Loving dance and having no clue how to do anything, I also joined the jazz and salsa classes. Unfortunately, they were too advanced for me, and I quit both after I broke my foot falling in my living room! A few years ago, they started a country line-dance group, which I found amusing being in France, but we didn't get involved. Last year, it seemed like a perfect activity for the two of us to do together, and we've just completed our second season. This weekend was the end of the year spectacle for all the dance classes, including ours.

CCC - The T-shirt

As was programmed during the first class in May of the Calvary Chapel Couturières, the Triple C’s spent the first day of summer learning how to make their first wearable item, the T-shirt I’d worn as publicity to that first class.  Unfortunately, half of the original class ended up with conflicting obligations, and half of those who did come could only stay half the day.  But knowledge has been imparted, progress is being made, and the whole adventure of a sewing club is achieving some positive results.

Olives Niçoises

When we bought our little Mediterranean villa, it came with eleven old olive trees.  Most of them were estimated to be around 300 years old.  While they had beautiful trunks, the branches had been allowed to grow way out of bounds, and we’ve been slowly trying to learn how to correct that situation. 

Sapphire Blue: The Cowboys

Not ones to let a good party opportunity go to waste, we were able to continue our 45th anniversary weekend through Monday, when we had a stage rehearsal for our country dance end-of-the-year show.  Since we had to dress in something decent for public viewing anyway, we wore our anniversary duds one more time.  The whole effect was interestingly changed by wearing our brand new cowboy hats, but it was too hot to wear the boots we don't have yet anyway.

Sapphire Blue: The Dinner

While we celebrated a special year anniversary this year, we didn't throw ourselves a big party.  Instead, we invited a group of young marrieds, all under five years, to celebrate with us, possibly inspiring them for their own marriage futures.

Sapphire Blue: Church social hour

Yesterday we officially celebrated our 45th anniversary, the gem color being sapphire.  As I always have for special anniversary dates, I made my dress.  As I always have since our wedding color was my favorite color turquoise, my dress needed to include that color.  Blue and turquoise together, how much better does it get for a blue person!  As my dress was sleeveless, I made a little shrug jacket to go with it.  I think it all turned out rather classy.  I was always too timid to wear hats when I was younger; but if I can't be flamboyant now, when can I be?  So I got a matching hat, just like the Queen would do!

June 6, A Love Story

Once upon a time, two teenagers left home and went off to school.  He was a freshman in college, she was a sophomore in high school on the college campus.  For a job, he was a trainee on the school stage crew with a junior who was needing a replacement.  She developed a great attachment for her college roommate, also a junior.

On the road again

During the winter, we just happened to make a trip across France that included the same route we just took this past weekend.  As we'd taken a number of wintry scenic pictures on that first trip, we deliberately followed some of the same route this time to take a spring picture of a particular area.

A perfect hostess gift

When one spends a weekend under the hospitality of someone else, one needs to consider giving the hostess some kind of gift.  Not only is it the polite thing to do, but normally one has a certain amount of affection for the person one is spending time with.  That certainly was the case with our hostess Nicole this past weekend.  The biggest problem with a gift is figuring out tastes, wants, and/or needs so that the gift of choice will be meaningful.

Fete of the wine and the vine

When we lived in Paris, I had a good friend who was a wine enthusiast, and he introduced us to an annual Paris wine show.  We discovered a couple of vendors who became favorites we would look up

A Provençal vineyard along our route

every year. The year we moved down south, we informed the vendors that we were leaving and to take our names off their mailing list.  However, one of them told us that they held their own annual event at their château in the south and invited us to join them there.