All in one birthday...

We had the privilege of celebrating Geoff's mom's birthday while she was here (they left this past Friday even though I'm still catching up on their visit). As you can tell by these posts, she keeps her camera ready at all times and captures a lot more than I do!

When she woke up the girls were on her immediately. They had made her all sorts of homemade gifts and cards, and here she is adorned in a birthday crown made by Adele. It was cute to see their love for her. Among her many gifts were favorite paper doll families, a special sea-glass collection, and a pair of earrings I had given Adele for the day she gets her ears pierced (she can't wait until her 10th birthday!) They gave away their favorite things.

Here they are singing a song Tennie had composed for the occasion that included actions.

Geoff led a personal yoga session on the patio.

We headed to the beach in Menton to take a few informal family pictures...

...and have lunch on the beach.

After lunch we drove through Monaco... (a quick glance at Monte Carlo)

Through preparations for the Monaco Grand Prix (tickets are $3500 for a bleacher seat)

Through the streets lined with expensive retails stores.

We stopped to marvel at this villa...

And finally arrived in Ville France Sur Mer.

We stopped at this little market for some strawberries.

Stopped to look at the work of some local artists in the town square.

Stopped in at a couple of great jewelry stores for gifts.

Walked through the colorful and quaint streets of Old Town Ville Franche...

loving the unique hodgepodge of streets and alleyways...

Saying hello to a cute little, old lady who was having a conversation with a friend directly across the small alleyway.

Finding so many picturesque nooks and crannies worthy of a picture, but so difficult to capture on film!

The nooks and crannies weren't the only things worthy of a picture! Look at these cuties!

Geoff and Ceci had skipped Old Town and went to the beach. When we found them Ceci was swimming European style...

We ate dinner at a restaurant overlooking the harbor.

While waiting for Geoff and Nikki to get situated on the moped Mesha and I were commenting on what a perfect day we had. We had stopped up on the main road while no cars were coming to wait when we saw Geoff and Nikki make a wobbly U-turn out of their parking space and hit a car! Turns out Geoff had wrapped his legs in a towel to stay warm and when he couldn't get his balance he was stuck in his towel! He put on the brakes and they didn't work! Miraculously the only thing that hit the car was Geoff's leg, and it only hit the tire. He was pretty bruised, and had some bad scrapes from the moped on this inside of his legs, but that was it. No damage to moped or car. Given they could have been taking the moped on the 45 minutes ride home in the dark on a very curvy road with dysfunctional brakes (!!!) we considered this little accident a huge blessing!

It was still a perfect day.