Melinda and I meet with Romain over lunch on Mondays to give him some additional practice with English. Being a basketball fan and a Boston Celtics fan at that, today’s lesson surrounded the Celtics having added Shaquille O’Neal to their roster this summer. I had Romain read an article I found online. After summarizing the article he learned that it’s nicer to say “too heavy” than “too fat” when referring to a 38 year-old, 325 lb (148 kg) basketball player. Oh, another good vocabulary word from today was “lethargic.”

Melinda and I also meet with Manon on Mondays after school for an English lesson. In today’s lesson we talked about the movie “Inception” that we saw with her and her parents yesterday. Manon really, really liked the movie. In fact, she told us the movie was so good that “in the cinema you don’t know what time it is.” She left today’s lesson understanding how to use the expression “lose track of time.” She even got to practice using it in another context by reciting, “I have so much fun talking with Andy & Melinda that I lose track of time.”

Manon and Romain are quite good English speakers and Melinda & I thoroughly love spending this time with them. We give them all kinds of credit for taking time out of their busy, busy schedules to improve their English.

Oh, today’s photo is of Ella enjoying today’s “goûter.” You see, when the kids get home from school in the afternoon it is time for “le goûter” or afternoon snack. In reality, I think it’s more like an afternoon breakfast as from what I’ve come to understand it is quite often a pastry. For instance, Melinda and I provided a pain au chocolat for Manon this afternoon. But Ella doesn’t get home from school until about 6:30 on Mondays, given that she stays late for a study session with her French teacher. So her goûter was less of an afternoon breakfast and more of a pre-dinner, even though it was Eggs Benedict.