A Day of Rest & Relaxation

Some days, you just need to rest and take it easy, especially when you are traveling as a family. We had a great day on her birthday, but we got in late so it was nice to just sleep in (to 11:30 yet!) and have a lazy day and catch up a bit. It was a sunny (but windy) day, yet we just did not have it in us to do much and hardly left the camper.

I am surprised that we could all spend that much time in the camper and still feel comfortable. I keep waiting for it to feel uncomfortable,but a month into this and it just seems to be getting more comfortable. We took extra time on home school and with her instruments since we did not do much the day before. We took time to just play, rest and read. It was like a quiet day at home. Mozart spent a little time in her tent, but mostly she was inside too. I thought about doing laundry, but just felt too lazy to do even that. We had done a lot the day before, so it was nice to just decompress and the campsite was pretty much empty of people. It was a perfect day for a kite and we are in one of the great parks in the world, but somehow the day  passed into evening before we got around to even that. DaVinci cooked a leisurely yummy  brunch and I made a leisurely yummy dinner including Mozart’s favorite guacamole & salsa in chips as an appetizer while I cooked and they read (and danced a bit in their seats to some hip hop music they played on the nuvi).

The digital piano is so big (and soooo cool as we ended up getting the yamaha P140 in Amsterdam) that it is almost a joke for a camper this size, but it works for us. Rene at B&W could not believe we added that to our overload of stuff ( it was too big to carry so we had to leave it at his office to have him meet us at the workshop when we first put it into the camper) and said if he ever wrote a book that we would certainly be in it. He even teases us in emails about it ( which we enjoy as we do get the humor in it as it truly is insane, but then many would say the same thing about our trip).

Yet, Mozart is at a place in her training where she needs something like this and she has a blast playing on it. We are glad we made this choice and I suppose one would have to have a kiddo who was into music to fully understand. She is not getting the same kind of training that she would be getting at home, but at least she is getting some. She misses some days, but we make up for it on days like this day when we don’t tour. We have high hopes for our new web based teacher, but thus far haven’t been able to connect with him, but he also works by phone (he has an awesome ear) so we will soon try that, but right now we are working on review for the time that was missed before we bought this new one.

While she and dad were doing their practice and just having fun on it, I was up in the loft bed with this trusty laptop. It is very comfy being sprawled out in a reclined position with a laptop, but not great for typing I must admit. But the piano is so big that there is definitely not room for me below. I did enjoy watching and listening to her play better than a box seat at the opera. She thinks it is very cool and was writing extensively about it in her diary.

So Paris awaits and here we are lollygagging at home As I looked at the beautiful sunny day, a part of me thought it was a shame, but knew it was the right thing for us .We got our  great Paris transportation cards all set and there they sit, altho they are not good until Monday anyway. It is one of the great things of having no time restrictions, we get to do what we want when we feel like it. Nice! Of course it is not like we are doing hard touring to start with as we often only do half days and saunter slowly thru our days, but nevertheless, sometimes it is best to not do any.

It rained the next day, so we actually did two days of rest. Sometimes ya just have to hang around at
home. I know rain is not an excuse, but we have been quite spoiled on this trip so far and just did not feel motivated enough to schlep in the rain all day around Paris. Its an intimidating kind of place as it is, so much to see that a year here could not do justice, but lots of walking, metro-ing etc that is challenging enough in decent weather.

Yawn, naaa, one more day of down time, we can read about Paris some more and maybe the weather will be good the next day. Most museums are closed anyway, so there is another excuse. Good on the budget too.:) But mainly we were just too lazy and it felt too good in bed to rush out into the rain. Sometimes families just need to cuddle, read, play, make music together and be silly and lazy at home....even if you are in Paris. (I added two birthday night shots here as we don’t take many pics on rest days.)