Le dernier jour d'école- The last day of school

July 3, 2008

Jean-Pierre was the children's sports teacher. He was always so great with the kids, they learned to like him very much and he loved them back. He was constantly giving them a hard time about being American.

Jesse had the most amazing teacher, Sylvie Poidevin. We loved her! She was also the headmaster of the school, which was nice for me because I formed a great relationship with her and she allowed me to come into the school and sit in on Jesse's class to learn French, but she also kept me very informed on the local scene and the kids language skills.

She did a fabulous job with all of the children and she is a lot of the reason Jesse can speak French so well. She was patient and kind and definitely went the extra mile for us.

Two of Jesse's classmates-Emmauel and Arthur.

Jesse's classroom. The last day of school was a little crazy. It was a day of cleaning, organizing and games.
Jesse and Romane.
Logan and his buddies, Alexis and Matthieu. They were happy to see Logan return to school for the last day.
A peek into Logan's classroom.

Logan and his maitresse Mme. Bauer. She was also very good to try to help Logan learn the language. Logan is sporting his souvenir T-shirt. The kids took T-shirts to school with some sharpies for all their friends to sign, some of them had a hard time writing on a shirt, but I assured them it was okay and it was for the kids to remember each of them.

Dallas in his classroom with a few of his friends.

These two adorable girls, Fleur and Alisa were always so kind to Dallas and very helpful with his assignments.

Dallas with his teacher M. Puissacq. He was a large man and pretty intimidating at first, but as Dallas learned more and his confidence grew he didn't seem so scary.

This is the canteen where the kids ate "school lunch". They always ate on glass plates, glass cups and real flatware. They had quite the system for lunch. There was always an older child at each table and that child was responsible for dishing every one's plate and helping the smaller children. Jesse had this job several times.

The lunch ladies. Marie on the left is the mother of Theo, one of Dallas' good friends. She was very helpful to me in learning French. She just assumed I could understand everything she said and that I could speak back. She spoke so fast and so I really had to be on my toes when I had a conversation with her. After Dallas' last play date with Theo she said, "Dallas speaks very good French, he understood everything I said and he answered all my quesitons." Dallas was very happy to hear this.
The other Theo and his mother Valerie and little Kevin.
The clan- These four boys were great friends and had some really great times together.

Thomas, Theo, Dallas and Theo.

Our cute friends from Romania. He was a student at Insead for the year. They got a job in Romania and were planning to leave just days after us. They have three girls, Nicole, Clara and Isabelle.

We wish them luck in their new job and their new life back in Romania.
Yea! We did it.
This is where Annie spent her days from 8:30 to 5:00, at the college.

These are the girls she spent her day with, Julie on the left and Emily on the right.
The three together well they always had a great time. They were very supportive friends for Annie.
The phone booth. This is where Annie would call me if there was a problem. There was generally a line to use it during the break. One of Annie's classrooms-personal space? what's that?
The college campus.