June 21, 2025
It was a very difficult morning, mostly for Ollie. He snuck into our room early trying to grab his iPad which is not allowed. His letter is now his first thing to do each morning. He then rebelled by opening the shades in Lenny’s room to wake him up, claiming he was trying to get changed to go to the store with Kayleen. Lenny probably would have slept for another hour or two since he was exhausted but now he was up too. Not a pleasant way to start the day. Ollie lost a bunch of points and was an emotional mess.
Kayleen took him with her to the store to grab more coffee, as we were out, in hopes of calming him down. That worked but only until he returned and was forced to write his letter for the day. The home school day dragged on for what felt like hours as Ollie whined about every word he wrote.
Eventually it finished and the boys went in the pool for a bit while we had some quiet time. Bri and Amanda had headed to the beach and Lenny and I went to meet them with the kayak in tow. We arrived at the beach to find the remains of our last sand castle, mostly destroyed, but the sand mountain was still there.
Lenny and I took the kayak for a spin along the coast but he lost interest quickly. It was a small kayak so would rock around a lot and he couldn’t stand up like on the paddle board. He decided he would rather play with Bri and Amanda in the water and I used the break to take a kayak ride out into the bay. I made it out to a buoy where the water was deep and turned a dark blue before thinking about sea creatures and turning around.
Once back Ollie and Kayleen had joined us at the beach. Ollie was keen to play football again but I told him first Lenny and I were going to rebuild our castle. The tunnel underneath was still there and only covered by a little sand which was easy to remove. I put castles all around the mountain and re-dug our moats while Lenny gathered sticks to make “lighthouses” everywhere to warn passing ships.
Now it was Ollie’s turn to get his football time in. To keep everyone happy I had convinced him that he only stood a chance of winning if he had Lenny on his team. Whenever he would banish Lenny for a play I would make sure it did not go well for him. Both boys loved “blocking” me so the other could run the ball for a touchdown as I fell over in the water. Lenny is mixed up between football and rugby so always touches the ball to the ground when he scores.
We headed back to the house to let the boys go in the pool while we all had a cocktail and showered before going out to dinner. While I was sitting outside watching the boys play they were obviously tired which lead to saying ridiculous things. At one point Lenny yelled, “Let’s do a race! It will be fair and it will be square. I will make the rules.” Yet he still lost. Later they were doing some kind of battle and each felt wronged.
Lenny: I don’t want to play your game!
Ollie: I don’t want you to play!
Lenny: Fine I’ll play.
Ollie: OK good I wanted you to.
We all walked to dinner together and Lenny is thrilled to smell the flowers along the way and try to get others to as well. Bri had convinced him the white flowers smell like marshmallows the other day so he was keen to tell me and have me smell one.
Ollie has been working on his rap battling and gladly challenged Bri to a battle on the walk. They seem to be a good match and we have been encouraging Ollie to write down his lyrics for school as a possible break from writing letters.
There was another 6 person Uno game at dinner which take quite a bit longer than our old 4 person games. It was interrupted when Kayleen and Lenny caught a Squirtle on Pokemon Go and Ollie turned green with envy. After dinner we walked to the beach to attempt to take over a Pokemon Go gym for the first time as Bri and Amanda headed to their Corsica bar for one last drink. The boys were delighted that we “captured” a Pokemon gym, but we got a notification that we lost it an hour or two after we got home. We are still not exactly sure what any of this means.
There was a stage setup at the end of the main street and the band seemed like they would be on soon but it was late and we needed to get home. Tomorrow is a travel day to Paris and the boys needed rest and we had to complete a load of laundry, with a proper dryer this time. Our flight isn’t till 12:30 tomorrow afternoon so no early morning rush this time, a nice change.
