A Grand Day Out

Dear Family and Friends,
Yesterday was the perfect February Saturday for the Onstotts. It began as always with everyone waking up around 8:00 to watch our weekly edition of Top Gear, a sometimes crass English show about cars, and eat pancakes. After we had eaten their fill and gotten ready, we packed up some supplies and headed south to Saint Tropez for a day at the beach.

Saint Tropez is located to the west of Cannes and is famous for its yachting events and white-sand beaches. During the summer, it can be very crowded with tourists and jet-setters. However, this sixty-degree February day turned out to be perfect for avoiding crowds and exploring the small village.

Saint Tropez Harbour

While at Saint Tropez harbour, we walked around the docks and looked at all of the yachts, some of which were as large as small cruise ships. Each of the kid's had a favorite, such as Elyse's "Don't Touch" or the one that Nicolas thought looked like a battleship.


Picking up Pebbles



Later on, we drove up the road to one of the many beaches. Joe spent some time beachcombing for multi-colored stones that had been polished by the surf while Julie relaxed and listened to periodic reports on the kids' activities.



Freedom!

Nathaniel, Nicolas, and Elyse, who have been working very hard at school and on their instruments over the past several weeks, bolted out of the car like animals being released back into the wild.

Wet Sand Machine

Elyse used her freedom to build a machine to make wet sand using a small piece of pipe and buckets of seawater.

Fort McNicolas

For their part, the boys constructed Fort McNicolas from flotsam they found around the beach. As it turned out, the fort was perfect for fending off attacks from Joe, who hurled small balls of tangled beach grass, and for having contests to see who could jump the furthest.

At sunset, we packed up the car and headed for home. Although we didn't have as much time as we would have liked at the beach because of our late start, there were no coplaints coming from the back seat on the way home.

All the Best,

Joe, Julie, Nicolas, Elyse, and Nathaniel