Bike outing in the pine forest

Björn has been practising alot lately to be able to surprise his dad. Biking with no support wheels!! The actual pedalling was not so difficult, it was starting and stopping that needed to be worked on...

Today he was so confident we decided to go for a small outing in the nearby pine forest. The indian summer continues and we had a lovely weather for this family event... even if the trail was a bit sandy at times which proved difficult for our fresh pilot, otherwise everything was perfect... 

We sat down for a picnic by the trail, feeling alone in the world. We could hear the buzz from a fly or a bee from time to time, otherwise the forest was peace and silence. A good silence, calm and warm. I wished for a big blanket, to stretch out and gaze up on the tops of the pines and think of nothing...

(Trails like this are abundant in Landes, proper cycle lanes as well.)

Rafting in Bidarray!!!!

We planned a little surprise for a friend... rafting on the river Nive in Bidarray! The weather was quite gray but we hardly stopped laughing during the whole day... we brought our own sunshine!

Thanks to our guide Pierre who expertedly took care of these four girls that equalled eight... I hope to be back next summer with the children!

(The pictures show Nive with very little water - when it has rained alot or in springtime is is quite a different story with steps of up to 2.5 metres since the river is not regulated)

The river is breathtakingly beautiful... here a picture from one of the calmer parts.

We went with Ur Ederra, but there are at least two others: Cocktail Aventure and Uhina.

A hard work called surfing

I've written before about the adrenaline rush in surfing, the beauty of the Erretegia beach and showed surf photos of Clara and of my friends... so this time I wanted to put the emphasis on how bloody difficult and tiring it is....  The friends who tried it once last year came back this year, for a full week of training! Told you, it is addictive!!!!! And hard work.

You thought it was easy getting that darn surf out to the right spot?

They look cool, right? But they are just panting for air and pretending to be waiting for the right wave....

After two hours in the water, when you can hardly walk, then is the time to walk back AND carry the surf...

Maybe that is why surf teachers look so hot being five months pregnant????

It is nearly over. The wet suits are off. Time for picnic.

Course landaise in our village

School and the municipality joined forces to organise a demonstration of course landaise for the students at the Castets primary school and their parents. Excellent initiative since this is an old tradition here and really belongs to their cultural heritage.... and not all parents bring their children to learn what it is all about. We asked if we could bring our lunch guests, a mixed Swedish-Taiwanese-American family. I hope they found it as fun as we did!!

Photo: Fred Huang

He looks very solemn....

... but that's because he has somebody jumping up and down behind him to provoce the cow to attack!

The Angel Jump Photo: Fred Huang

Clara and her class mates

Photo: Fred Huang. One of the crazy men was a father with a pregnant wife...

Other articles about Course landaise, raising cows for the course landaise or the hugely popular cow games:
Spectacular cow jumping
Ganaderia de Buros - a passion for wild cows
Toropiscine

Climbing kids in Moliets

Clara got very jealous when she understood that I had been to Adrenaline Parc with my girlfriends... you went there without me? Really? (See Climbing Mamas or Monkey tree business, their first visit)
So I took both of them there - to the child version at two metres height - and they just loved it. Like they did last year. (And we checked it Clara was tall enough to do the adult version (accompanied) but she was a tiny bit short... so we'll see next year...

Precision

 Concentration

More difficult than it looks!

Their favorite: the spider web labyrinth!

And this is the adult version! (the monitor said it was ok for them to go there)

Very adult! You jump from 9 or 12 metres height down on the... air mat??!! Clara looked at it for a long time, declaring she wanted to try it... but I told it would be for next year. And once up there, I'm not sure she will be as brave...

Climbing mamas in Moliets

Adrenaline Parc in Moliets was our next activity stop during the weekend. Lots of fun too! Perfect with different levels of difficulty so that everybody could find their own adrenaline level.... I managed up to level 5, but two brave ones made the level 8... by then I was more than happy to stay below and watch....

Surfing mamas in Hendaye

Some Swedish friends visited this weekend. They tried a bit of surfing on the Hendaye beach with legendary Christophe Reinhardt as their surf instructor. I think it shows how much fun they had!

Single mum goes skiing

With her kids I might add. Too simple otherwise!

On the spur of the moment I booked a room and went straight to Val Louron after school on Tuesday. Wednesday there is no school, so we had one day for skiing. The alarm clock went off at 8 AM and 10 AM sharp we were ready to start (get dressed, have breakfast, pay the room, buy tickets for the lifts and rent some equipment - trust me, the two hours passed quickly!).

The sun was blazing.... the sky was blue.... the mountains at their best!

Besides a few incidents (Bjorn got something in his eyes when he fell of a lift, us walking up a hill since we didn't manage to get up in that same lift but still kept trying....) we had a wonderful day.

Lunch on the terrace looking out over the other skiers was not bad either... and even after we had given back the equipment the kids played in the snow... they are not used to snow, it shows....

Val Louron, a small family station

View from the terrace with the "rug" lift in the back. So you can actually have coffee and supervise the kids...

To the left the lift that gave us problems (tire-fesses). They have a small kids version but it was closed...

Bjorn crying, his left eye is red. Probably he got snow in it when he fell off the lift.

Ski school participants

Our apartment hotel next to the slopes.