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Whoop-de-doo! The Cannes film festival starts today!
Did you know? (Do you care? 
)
I ate my morning oatmeal with Matt Lauer, and as we chatted with Cate Blanchett and Russel Crowe about the Cannes experience, I watched the breezes from the Mediterranean flutter their hair but I hardly heard anything they said. My thoughts were traveling back in time, back to the Cote d’Azur, back to these guys…
Aren’t we the stylish family? Pink leggings on my son and a $5 Old Navy tee on my hubby, complete with American flags, just in case anyone was fooled by our incredible accents. Ha ha. I can’t really explain the tee shirt (he really wasn’t the obnoxious American tourist, I promise) but perhaps I should try to explain the pink leggings or else Sammy will be so humiliated when he sees this post that he will make me email the whole world that we made him do it and it wasn’t his fault. Which is true, not that he cared at the time.
So here goes.
French school gives the kids had a long April vacation, so two other families and ours decided to make good use of the time and take a trip to Cannes. Together. Six adults and eight children.
We were clearly out of our minds.
On that particular day we spent the afternoon letting the kids wade in the Med, and of course Sam completely soaked himself during the first five seconds of play. We immediately stripped him down to his underwear, but the touring afterward required a little more clothing. The only clothes available were his buddy Anna’s leggings, and he couldn’t care less. He was three. (Is that clear enough, Sam?)
So we spent our vacation trying to remember we had children and to keep an eye on them, while our eyes kept wandering back to this.
They were preparing for the film festival just as we arrived.
We looked for stars like Nicole…
But she didn’t show.
Instead we saw these superstars.
Hey, there’s Ben, Jonathan, the Clemson student, and Mitchell, who’s now driving! (Watch out, Simpsonville!)
And see that lovely aluminum siding behind them? It’s one of our spacious motel rooms!
Yes, with all the fancy- shmancy four star hotels available in Cannes and Saint Tropez, we chose to spend our nights in a mobile home camping park, which was PERFECT! (If you’ve ever taken a vacation to a fancy place with eight kids who love each other and get terribly excited whenever they’re together, you’ll understand.)
It really was ideal. We could spend our days sightseeing and behaving ourselves, and then go back to the campsite and let the kids run wild, play ball, and squeal as much as they wanted. We ate out for lunch, and each family took a night to cook, followed by a raucous, 14 player game of Pit!
Ah Cannes! The palm trees, the sparkling sands, and the pull- out bunk beds! Quelle joie!
Have you ever taken a multi-family vacation? Good memories? I still remember all those beach trips with the Huggins family. Anybody want to go crabbing?
Have a great Wednesday, y’all!
Love, Becky
