I need to find more time to write. I feel almost like a virgin sitting here again. It’s creepy.

Quick updates:

We had a huge storm blow through here last Wednesday. The winds were blowing around 100 km/hr and gusting even higher than that which turned the rain that was falling into a wall of water. We had hail as well. I went out when the pea sized stuff was falling to put the car in the garage and got stuck across the street while the golf-ball sized stuff came down. (And felt like a moron for forgetting my smoky treats-because if that wasn’t the perfect opportunity….) Trees got ripped up, branches were flying and everyone in the neighborhood has damage of some sort. Here we lost a window. Up on the hill we last part of our roof, a couple of shutters, a porte-fenêtre, and the wooden supports in the front of the house took such a beating from the hail they look as though they’ve been sand-blasted. So we have to re-stain them. Feeling up to a bit of it, Vi? It only lasted ten minutes, but, God was it heavenly. I miss real weather.

Monkey-1 starts school on Thursday. I cannot begin to describe his excitement about this. He’s going to SCHOOL! On the BUS! Could life honestly be any better? He’s got his school bag ready, and has worn it pretty much non-stop since we picked it out—even had the girl at the checkout put the bar code in manually because he simply could not part with it long enough for her to scan the damn thing. A friend bought him some colored pencils and a sharpener and you’d think that the ensemble was the key to happiness. The last day at the crèche the directrice asked him what she was going to do now that he was leaving for school. He looked at her all serious and said, “Well, you’re going to cry.” Yep, he’s confident.

Monkey-2 refuses to stop growing. She’s so tall. And smart. And she uses this to her advantage. She wants to do all the things the older kids do, meaning she’s constantly in trouble. But of course, when it comes to punishment she thinks she should be granted a reprieve—she’s so little after all. Her vocabulary is amazing for someone of her age—up over 50 words already and the occasional full sentence tossed in for good measure. She’s 19-months old and is constantly asked why she isn’t in school. Uh, they don’t take ‘em that young around here. So we might just start her next year…

Monkey-3 is a doll. She’s all the things you could ask for in a baby. She still sleeps all night, she doesn’t fuss, she never screams (that’s so lovely after all the trauma her sister subjected us to). She’s worshipped by her older siblings and has taken to giving them a quirky sort of smile whenever they come near. Methinks she’ll be able to manipulate them fairly easily in the future.

August is the month of marriages around here. We had two yesterday, so we split the family for that. Marc and Monkey-1 got finished very early and joined us in time for me to get nice and happy, though not completely smashed. Marc likes when I get happy like that. He usually ends up happy too, and if that’s TMI, well, tant pis! And the oddest thing happened to me at the reception. Our next door neighbor’s son, a cousin of the groom and an old friend and teammate of Marc’s mentioned he’d found me blog. And this completely freaked me out. And made me feel like a star. And then he complained I only write in English, so maybe we’ll change that here soon. (It would be easier to explain just WHY the Hubz is an alien without translating.)

Today I’m abandoned again and have to joyous task of packing all three kids in the car to go to the annual farm festival bullshit thing with three kids! Woohoo! (Please, someone, shoot me now!) I’m going to try to get over to see Vi and find a Christening gown for my perfect little MP3 bundle of happiness Monday, as she’s so busy otherwise. Tuesday is one last visit before la rentrée with friends I haven’t seen all summer long. And Wednesday we prepare for Thursday's Big Event. Next week the crèche opens back up and I might be able to 1. rest-up a bit, 2. clean the house, and 3. find a bit of sanity. (Don’t hold your breath for any of those things.) Marc’s looking forward to this event as well, in hopes that it makes me almost as happy as wedding punch and champagne soup—not likely, but we’ll just leave him his dreams OK? And then we’re on to the next big adventure—the 5th anniversary and baptism with a frightening number of people and food involved. Yippee.

So, there, y’all is all up to date with ussens.