Wednesday, July 12 Day of humidity

"Mr. Cool" on the swing : )

After our bike ride -- playing in the backyard

Morning: Gym with Sharon and kids; met John again; didn’t get my money back yet (guys at gym couldn’t reach customer service yet) I don’t know when they’ll reimburse me; hopefully still this summer… Before lunch time: Bike ride with Finn, so that Sharon could leave with Conor and Riley peacefully (without Finn crying); Sharon went to her mom’s pool with the older kids; Finn can’t go there yet, since there is a public pool where kids with diapers are not allowed in Lunch: Finn had a peanut butter bagel -- really a breakthrough : ) he has usually only snacks (chips, pop tarts,…) and nothing else; he even had apple sauce today! After lunch: Decided to go to Elisabeth and the O’Connors with Finn, so that he could play with other kids (and got a bit tired and ready for his nap); in the end, he didn’t want to leave, since he had such a good time at the O’Connors’ Afternoon: Finn had his nap (a really long one today, lucky me : ) ); I actually wanted to go on the patio and read something while Finn was sleeping; but since it was so unbearably hot and muggy, I decided to stay in the house and got some things done (laundry, dishes, etc)…. actually I love the heat -- everybody who knows me well knows that, but today it was just unbearable; (in the later afternoon we had a thunderstorm and it luckily cooled off a bit) Sharon came back with kids from her mom’s pool; moaned about humidity; Dinner time: Kevin came back from work; Sharon and Kevin made themselves ready, since they went out for dinner tonight (Kevin will go to Chicago on Friday to meet some clients there, so he wants to spend a nice evening with Sharon) I made some pizza bagels and pizza pitas for the kids After dinner: Played with the kids in the backyard; watched TV;… Gave Riley and Finn a bath; Conor took a shower Conor and Riley had some conflicts and didn’t want to stop, so I sent them to bed -- were a bit offended; Finn also went to bed; went to Conor’s and Riley’s room again; spoke about everything,… read book to them Silence at 9.30 -- time for myself : ) Oh yeah, before I forget, I got an email from the woman who is responsible for accommodation in Lyon; (for those who don’t know it yet: I’ll go to Lyon in September to do my studies abroad there); she already proposed a family to me, but I don’t know yet if I can accept; costs a lot of money every month and I don’t want to accept if I don’t know anything about that family; I only know that I would need 15 minutes to go to the university, that they have an apartment (and that I would have to share the bathroom with them), that they accept only 1 student for 1 semester, that they are nonsmokers and that they don‘t accept vegetarians… oh yeah, and they also have an 18-year-old son named “Hubert”; I would really want to get some more information about that family, so I’ll probably write an email to the accommodation officer now; I have to admit that at the moment I don’t want to think about going to France; I’d rather stay here in the States for a bit longer… it’s really a pity that the university already starts in September in France, otherwise I could stay longer in NJ; but anyway, I really need to improve my French (especially my spoken French), so it’s probably the best for me to go there asap;

I just hope that I'll also get along with my host family there as well as with the O'Shaughnessys (I don't know if this is possible...) and also that I'll have a great time there and meet a lot of people