An American in Provence

On Sunday, we went over to Alain's aunt's house, picking up his grandparents on the way. Once we all got down to the parking lot in front of their apartment building, Meme remembered that she had forgotten her hearing aids, so Alain ran back up to fetch them for her.

Around 1 pm his parents had also arrived, so we sat down to eat.

I can't really qualify it is as "Easter lunch" or "Easter dinner" only "Easter meal", as it lasts about 7 hours. Thanksgiving is a lot of food too, but that only lasts from about 4 pm to 4:15 pm. I am not sure which is best, but I get restless towards the end of the mega- sit and talk fests.

Here is what we had: a light salad (in photo above) with some tapenade-feuillété rolls, followed by large gambas and mayonnaise, then leg of lamb (side note: just had to explain to Alain that veal is not a baby lamb) with stuffed zucchini (not my favorite) and a crunch basil cheesy muffin thingy, the romarin-olive mini baguettes I made (love my bread machine!) followed by fruit, a fruit-rouge chocolate cake, strawberries, then patisseries and a gugelhupf made by my mother-in-law (they just got back from a week in Alsace, near Strasbourg). I declined the last two desserts (giving my shares to Alain, who was quite happy to have them).

My sister-in-law and her family arrived after we had finished eating the main meal (but before the desserts, bien sûr). They were late as they had to pick up eldest niece from the train station. As she is off from school these two weeks (week before and after Easter) they shipped her off to a camp, where the girls learned how to take care of horses, while the boys rode on mini motorcycles. Figures.

The girls hunted for chocolate Easter eggs, which was quite cute to see Anna looking for them for the first time. Which was a nice change from her first Easter two years ago when she screamed the whole time, and a nice change from last Easter, where Manon threw up all over just before we started to eat.

After dessert #3, the guys went outside to talk about guy-stuff (including shooting off his cousin's BB gun), while the women mostly talked about kids. What a surprise.

We rolled out of there around 8 pm, slept in until 10:30 am as Monday was off from work.

Yay for holidays!