This is an installment of Bryant Backyard Border Bouncing (BBBB).  For more information, please see the bottom of the About page.

Once again, this report is being written almost two months after our France weekend, and once again, we didn’t learn nearly as much as we would have liked about France.  Clearly I need to do better at planning these, as it seems to be a recurring theme!

Regardless, I was excited that the middle girl pulled France out of the hat, as Delta Air Lines had recently announced that nonstop service from Indy to Paris would start in May 2018, and we were planning to make the trek at some point (which has since happened, so see those blog posts also!).

We started that pleasant Saturday morning by finding France on a map, again with just a couple hints from dad.  Dad then had the idea to have the girls color plain white paper to make French flags with red and blue colored pencils, though like many things we do, they never got finished!  We did learn a few basic French words are phrases.  There aren’t many things cuter than toddlers and kids saying “bonsoir” and “merci!”

When it comes to facts, we failed pretty miserable, and ended up spending a lot of time learning about food.  But can you blame us?  We’ll try harder next time to make it more about the entire and not just the food…maybe.

On Sunday that weekend, we made the trek to the Broad Ripple neighborhood of Indy, where we stopped by a French bakery, Rene’s.  We picked up some goodies to go with dinner later that night.

After that, we and were lucky to find an empty table at Petite Chou, a popular brunch spot with a French influenced menu.  There was lots on the menu, so we ordered several dishes to split.  We ordered Croque Madame, duck fat pommes fries with aioli, French toast, French onion soup, and a peanut butter and jelly crepe from the kid’s menu.  Everything on the menu looked fantastic to me, though I’d never really thought French food sounded particularly interesting before.  Everyone enjoyed the food, though I was forced to finish up everyone’s leftovers.  It was rough.

On a more serious note, I think we’ll best remember this day as the day where the oldest busted her chin open on a playground after brunch, sending us to an immediate care center, where we spent two hours waiting and holding her down to get her stitches.   While it was not fun for any of us, we at least had some goodies to look forward to when we got home.

For dinner I made ratatouille, paired with four French cheeses I’d picked up from the Murray’s cheese counter at the Brownsburg Kroger the previous day, along with the baguette we’d picked up, and some Bordeaux for dad (and a few sips for mom).  For dessert we enjoyed a croissant, pastries, an eclair, and macrons.  Having never had well made French pastries before, I determined that it would be a new addiction.

While I’m not happy with the fact that we didn’t go very deeply into history, the geography of the country, watch some videos, and do more in general, at least I know that it’s one we’ll be able to visit fairly easily with the new nonstop flight, and we’ll learn plenty in researching trips and heading over the pond.