June 16, 2025
Our Corsica house has storm windows in all bedrooms to make it pitch black for sleeping. Despite the ideal sleeping conditions, the kids were still up around 7:30am. They asked about Bri immediately and tried to go pound on her window to wake her up but we stopped them in time. She and Amanda endured a sleepless red eye and a layover in Paris yesterday so they deserved to catch up on sleep. Ollie wrote Bri a letter during homeschool asking her when she usually wakes up. He thought that if he wrote her a letter, he would then be allowed to hand deliver it to her right away and have an opportunity to try and rouse her. We ruined his plan though by telling him he could wait to deliver it when she woke up. We also retired our old Uno box this morning in favor of a found rubber band.
Kyle and I are trying a new homeschool approach where one of us will sit with both boys while they work through their online curriculum while the other has a bit of free time. Lucky me the first day of this approach was today so I used the time to go explore. Our house is just a 1 minute walk from the beach and there is a seemingly endless stretch of shoreline to walk along. All along the beach and shore, there are piles of what look like leaves or tree bark. I learned these were piles of posidonia leaves which come from marine plants that grow in the sea and fall in autumn like leaves. When making my way back to the house, I walked through the stretch of town that borders the ocean. There are a handful of restaurants and a seafood market we hope to check out later in the week.
The boys bombarded both girls as soon as they emerged from their rooms with requests to play and with stories from their morning. Bri and Amanda ate their breakfast alongside us as we ate our lunch in preparation for a beach day. The boys ate quickly and spent the early afternoon hours in the pool.
The house had a big bag of sand toys and a few paddle boards that provided a ton of entertainment at the beach. We started with a standing competition on the board where the boys would stand up and the sea monster (me) would try and shake them off the board. Despite falling and even bumping their heads on the board a few times, they loved this. The board played a variety of roles during the day including; a surfboard where the boys attempted to practice their learned skills, a boat that was storming Normandy to “fight Nazis”, and a torpedo they would lie on while Kyle and I pushed it back and forth.
Amanda and Bri were great sports at the beach. The boys were intent on looping them into their imaginary games and they went right along with it. I even read a few chapters of my book while they played!
We spent the late afternoon working on a sand castle fortress complete with a moat and bridge. It started off as competing castles but ended with Kyle taking over his and Lenny’s and working for over an hour solo. We think the tide will wipe it away overnight but the boys are looking forward to checking in on it tomorrow.
Amanda and Bri hung out with the boys while they watched a movie (Nightmare Before Christmas, their choice) so Kyle and I could run out again to the supermarket. The market was essentially a Wal-mart superstore which surprised us a bit. After shopping, we stopped in town to place a pizza order for pickup so we could eat back at the house. An ex-colleague of Kyle’s recommended this area of Corsica and has been helpful in recommending restaurants and shops, too.
We ended dinner close to 9pm with the boys asking, “OK, whats next??” since the sun was still up. The boys had rainbow ice pops and then put on a mini performance for Amanda and Bri. They LOVE having a new audience. Ollie worked on rapping along to an instrumental version of one of his favorite songs (When I Grow Up by NF). He messed up in the beginning and his exhaustion showed as he then ran away in embarrassment– completely out of character for him. Bri eventually convinced him to come back and try again and soon Len also joined in for a breakdance off.
