7.11 at Chez Coo-Coo

It's Gib's 17th birthday today! It should be a very lucky day with those 7's and 1's all lined up again.  He was born on 7.11 and weighed 7.11.  I feel a lotto ticket calling his name.

We are dragging the birthday celebrations out since the fun started on my bday the 8th, kicking into high gear on Gib's bday the 11th and sailing thru to the 18th Tebow's bday.  Yesterday, Tib and I started on a cajun style Doberge cake. We made 4 layers. I am quite certain my bakery result will in no way resemble that of the image above, but I am 90% certain it will make up for in taste what it will lack in style.  It's a white cake layered with chocolate pudding. I'm putting on vanilla frosting and chocolate sprinkles. No silver cake plate, flowers, or garnish. Unless Tib goes all French on me... hmmm, maybe I should turn the frosting part over to him?!   He did a very fine job making us dinner last night - stuffed tomatoes and cheesy rice. Mariah said she had a similar dinner - Thibault said it is a typical french dish.

Tebow has agreed that we can call him Tib or Tebow.  I mostly call him Tebow. I showed him Tim Tebow you tube vids yesterday. He likes Tebow - the real Tebow - he's big, athletic, and has a cool move...what's not to like. He says some people call him Tib - you pronounce it like "teeeb".  I am enjoying his fluency quite a bit - he gets my jokes and that's really saying something. Yesterday he said something about "ooomare" meaning I was being funny, or humorous. So we worked on his gutteral, phlegmy H sounds - hhhhhhuuumer. I think he's a pea in the pod here.

We will go out for the traditional birthday family dinner on Friday, the dudes get a firework show on Saturday (courtesy of the Sounds baseball game), a 21 gun salute at the shooting range this weekend, and maybe some Thriller at the Michael Jackson concert at the park. When it's Tebow's birthday we will be at the lake. Tebow has never camped in a tent before so I think he's starting 15 off with a jolt!!

Tebow was dutifully impressed with Sonic when we went there to bribe Gib into waking up with a large Dr. Pepper.  Oh, and our friendly Publix guys LOVE Thibault!  He's met 3 of them so far - we've been there twice already - one practiced his French and the older gentlemen keep teaching him stuff like "I'm a fixin'" and "over yonder" seeing as how Tib mastered "Y'all" in about 3 seconds.  My favorite part is when they pull out receipt paper and write it down in Redneck English. Ain't nothin' like living in the South!  Next time we go, I'm gonna have Tebow say to the cashier, "hey Chuuuuck, how y'all doin?"

Gib and Tib spent the evening at Scouts, Laser Tag and watching a redbox movie. Today we planned for them to go rock climbing and a friend is coming over to hang out and have dinner with us. It's game night at church for the youth group so there's our itinerary for the day!

Meanwhile in Paris.....  Mariah will be going to the Versailles Palace today.  She's working off every croissant and bite of chocolate by walking for like 12 hrs a day.  Euro Disney sounds like it was a blast. Mariah said she loved this ride that was like an elevator, and then they dropped you 5 floors, then went back up to the top and you dropped back down several more times. 


In googling Versailles, I really had to laugh at this description I copied below. I KNEW I was right about that cafe thing!!!!  

Outside the Versailles Palace and Estates
Versailles is a Paris suburb, and while there is some interesting architecture through the neighborhood, the raisson d’etre of a Versailles visit is the palace and park estates.
I don’t talk much about toilet facilities, because city parks will always have at least one. I must commend Versailles for its appreciation of people’s needs. While the palace itself has just one toilet area that has a perpetual line, the gardens have toilets at or near each of the four cafés.

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I might have to modify my favorite life motto: "Never pass up a cafe, bistro, or restaurant!"






French for Dummies: Word Du Jour

chez  ("shay")

at the house of: often used in the names of restaurants and the like; Chez Coo-Coo - house of crazy people. I know coo-coo is the equivalent of "hey ya'll, how y'all doin?" in french, but we don't take ourselves too seriously here.