Chapter 280:

Even though it had been late when Lisa had gotten to sleep last night, she woke just after dawn and couldn't go back to sleep once she remembered her gift from Sebastien. She didn't want to wake Seb or the babies, so she quietly slipped out of bed and pulled on her robe against the morning chill. She peeked at their tiny girls to make sure they were still sound asleep before leaving the bedroom.

Looking out of the foyer window, she could see that there were several inches of pristine white snow, as of yet untouched by anything, blanketing the front yard and driveway. She imagined that the children and probably even Seb would be in a hurry to go out and mess it up. She headed to the kitchen with a smile on her face picturing them all playing outside together.

Regularly a very early riser, Maman was already up and fixing the morning coffee when Lisa entered the kitchen.

"Good morning, Maman. Did you sleep well?"

"Very well. How about you? You're up early."

"I know. I couldn't go back to sleep once I started thinking about The Bastille." Lisa said, giddy as she thought of it.

"That was quite a surprise, wasn't it?"

"Oh Maman. You have no idea. When we got there, I was almost upset with him for bringing me there when he knew how I felt about its closing. But then when I realized what he'd done.....I love him Maman, so very much." Lisa had to wipe some tears away.

"I know you do and he loves you. It makes me very happy to see the two of you together. It's been many years since I believed that true love really existed. But now all I have to do is see the two of you together and I know it is there.

"Hi Mama. I'm hungry."

"Good Morning, Kaytibug. Climb up at the table and I'll get you some breakfast."

Not yet having a large enough table to fit everyone, they had to eat in shifts, usually feeding the children first before the adults had their meals. Breaksfast was easy that way as they usually fed the children as they woke.

*
They did go out and play in the snow after breakfast, once it had warmed up a little. This time they even brought Lauren out for a few minutes to experience her first snow. Seb bent down and set her feet on the ground and held her waist. She tried to pat on the snow and looked confused when it pushed down and away from her hands. She lifted them up and looked at the palms of her hands and at the snow sticking to her mittens.

Like everything else she got a hold of, Lauren just had to taste it, licking the snow off of her gloves. It was clean so Seb didn't stop her and she startled at the chill, puckering her lips up like when she was given some ice cream.

By the time they all went inside, everyone had red cheeks and noses. Kayti didn't want to go in and Lisa wound up picking her up and carrying her struggling little body up the stairs and as she often did, Kayti wound up in their new time out chair until she had calmed herself and agreed to be a good girl.

Maman kept Lauren and Jessica that afternoon when Seb and Lisa left for The Bastille to meet with the owner and the attorneys. Seb had managed to get everyone to meet there for the signing of the papers transferring ownership.

Lisa got the children set up on the floor as soon as they had entered the building, telling them to play while she and Papa talked to the people. She had had them bring their backpacks with their favorite toys.

She walked around inside running her hand along the counter, still having a hard time believing that this was all hers, or would be as soon as the papers were signed. She wouldn't have ever thought of buying a place like this and to be honest, she didn't know much about the actual running of it, but she was sure willing to learn. Even though she wouldn't be here for the day to day happenings, she wanted to be involved as much as possible. She had enough of a business background helping to run the daycare, that she felt confident enough in her skills to give this a go.

"Well, that's it then. It's all done. You are now the owner of The Bastille." the heavily accented older man told Lisa with a smile. I hope you enjoy it. It has brought me great pleasure over the years. I've gotten to meet so many wonderful people."

The former owner was laying all of the keys to the building onto the counter for them and then he wished them luck and left with his attorney. He had told them that he was thrilled to sell it to her especially once he found out how special it was to her. He said he knew that she would take good care of his old friend. The Bastille had been a big part of his life. Now he was going to retire and enjoy some time to himself with his family.

Lisa jumped into Seb's arms and he spun her around and kissed her as he set her feet back on the floor, both of them seemingly oblivious to the fact that the other attorney was still standing there grinning at the pair of them.

"Sorry" she said to the man sheepishly, her cheeks coloring when she remembered that they weren't alone.

"No apologies needed. I can tell this is a happy occasion." If you need nothing else from me, I will leave you to have a look around."

"Of course. And thank you for helping to get this all arranged so quickly. It could have waited till we had returned to the United States but I really did want her to have it while we were still here." Seb said as he shook the attorney’s hand and walked him to the door.

"Well, normally I would not disrupt my family's Christmas for business but you were quite persuasive and now I am glad that I was part of such a Christmas gift. She is obviously very happy." he said glancing back at the look on Lisa's face before he said goodbye and left.

They had a few minutes alone before the manager arrived. He and Seb pulled a table and some chairs out of the back storage room so they could sit and discuss what would be needed to reopen The Bastille for business.

"I've been doing the ordering of supplies for many years already so I can begin doing that as soon as you wish. I would suggest some repairs and a good cleaning while it is so empty. It will be much easier than waiting until after it is open. You can also go over our menu and see if there is anything you would like to change." Michel DuBuois said to them.

Lisa was excited to reopen but did agree to the repairs. They spent time going over what needed to be done and making calls to schedule the repairs. Lisa was glad that things were moving right along. It was doubtful they could open in the time they had left here in Paris but at least it would reopen. For now they decided to leave the menu as it was with a promise from Michel that he would give them any suggestions he had if he thought of something that would fit in with their existing menu or discontinue anything that wasn't selling well.

Lisa excused herself from the table when her phone rang. She saw on the screen that it was Alex.

"Hi Alex. Is everything okay?"

"Everything is fine here. How about you? I read your email. It sounds like you had a wonderful Christmas."

"Oh you have no idea and you don't even know the best part. After I sent you that email, Seb surprised me with another Christmas gift, the best one ever."

"Wow, what did he get for you."

"The Bastille."

"What? I thought you just said The Bastille."

"I did. He bought it for me. We just signed the papers. I own The Bastille."

"Oh Lisa, I was so upset when I read your email that The Bastille had closed. That was where you and Seb met and I know you were so excited to go there again when you two were on your honeymoon. This is amazing. Isn't he just the sweetest guy, well almost the sweetest. I know you are grinning from ear to ear."

"I am." Lisa confirmed.

Alex filled Lisa in on their Christmas. Telling her that Mom and Dad had come to the house and had Christmas dinner. Mom had initially found it difficult to only help with the dinner preparations instead of being the person in charge but had eventually decided she liked being able to spend some time relaxing and playing with Aaron instead of having to be on top of everything.

Alex said she'd spoken to Vicki a while ago and Vicki had told her that their Christmas had just been magical with the two children there to share it with after so many years of it being just the two of them.

Of course Carlito was too young to know what was going on but Amelia had enjoyed every moment and every gift she'd been given. Alex also told her that it seemed as if Amelia was settling in nicely to her life with Carlos and Vicki.

"I'm glad the transition has gone well. She needed to get settled one way or another. She will have to deal with a lot of confusion as she realizes that her parents aren't coming back for her but she will have a good and happy life with Carlos and Vicki. I think Vicki will have her hands full keeping Carlos under control so that he doesn't spoil her." Lisa chuckled.

"Yeah, Vicki pretty much said something like that to me the other day when there was a delivery of a huge package. When Carlos got home and showed her what it was, Vicki had just had to laugh at him. But she told me today that it was well worth it when they saw the look on Amelia's face when she woke up Christmas morning and saw the giant doll house with every little piece you could imagine inside. Vicki said it is taller than Amelia and has the furniture to fill every room and a whole family of little dolls for her to play with. She said it has kept her occupied for hours. The funniest part is that she said Carlos has been in there a lot of the time with her, sitting on the floor helping her to arrange the furniture and even playing with the dolls with her."

"Oh I would love to see that."

"Yeah, Vicki said she was momentarily tempted to take a picture of him and post it on the forum for all of his Cuties to see."

"That would cause quite a stir wouldn't it. I think they would love to see him like that.....So, how is Aaron? I miss kissing his chubby cheeks."

"He's great. He's busy chewing on his toes right now but he rolled over this morning from his back to his belly. When I realized he was on his belly I had to go ask Urs and Mami if one of them had turned him over. They said they hadn't so he had rolled over and I missed it."

"He may not do it again for several days or a week but before long he'll really get the hang of it and then you'll have to start chasing him across the floor. There will be no stopping him."

"Well, we're all ready for him to start moving around. There is nothing down low that he can get into. The cabinets all have locks and I did what the book suggested by getting down to his level and crawled around the floor to see what he would see and be able to reach."

Lisa could see that Seb was waiting to speak to her so she said goodbye and told her to say hi to everyone and kiss Aaron for her.

*

What was originally going to be a fairly quiet week between Christmas and New Years wound up being busy as Lisa wanted to be right in the thick of things at The Bastille as it was being readied for the reopening.

Workmen were already there the day after the signing of the papers, doing the several small repair jobs that needed doing. Several times she longed for Drew to be there handling everything. After spending so much time together over the course of the renovations on the house, he always seemed to know what she wanted even before she'd said it and his work was impeccable. These men seemed to be doing a good job but Drew was just a cut above everyone else in his business as far as she was concerned.

"I've had an idea." Seb said wrapping his arms around her from behind.

"Okay, what is it?" she said leaning back against his chest and enjoying their closeness.

"If we can get enough done here in the next few days, why don't we have a combination New Years/ Grand opening party with our friends and family that can be here?"

"That would be wonderful. Do you think we can get it ready for that?"

"I think so. The repairs are nearly done and Pierre helped to find the new tables and chairs and if we can get them to rush delivery on them, we could order food, wine and champagne and have our own party."

Originally, the plan had been for Lisa and Seb to have some of Seb's younger cousins to come in and sit with the children so they could go out New Years Eve to one of the local New Years Eve bashes that were plentiful in Paris. But For Lisa, this would be even better for them to have a party right here in their place.

"If we can get it done, I think it's a fabulous idea."

*

Because of so many people being off on holiday, Seb was told that the new tables and chairs would not be able to be delivered before the New Year so he and Pierre hired a truck and went to pick them up themselves.

At first, Lisa had said she wanted to keep the old ones that were here when they had been here before but, after having a good look at them, she agreed that they had seen better days and they might as well start off giving the whole place a facelift.

Adrienne and Donovan were there with Lisa when Seb and Pierre returned, so they were enlisted to help unload the truck and they spent the next couple of hours setting up the patio and the few tables that would be indoors. The outdoor tables were equipped just as before with an umbrella and each with four iron chairs that would withstand the weather for many years. Inside, several tables were arranged on either side of the doorway leaving an aisle for patrons to walk up to the counter. Just as before, people would be able to walk up and order what they wanted or to sit and be waited on.

Now that they were planning the party, Lisa wasn't so frustrated standing around watching the repairs. Maman, Adrienne and Aunt Cecile helped to organize what they would need to do before the big night. Aunt Cecile offered to contact everyone and invite their local family and friends.

Lisa just thought it was ashame that her Florida family and friends couldn't be here as well but, there just wasn't enough time for everyone to come over this time. But as she thought of that, she did imagine that maybe one day, they could have a gathering here that everyone could attend.