Hi all – thanks for your support so far.  As you may have read here, Matea wanted to raise money for clean water instead of getting birthday presents this year Charity:water is a foundation that gives 100% of all donated money directly to water projects. They have a foundation that raises money for their operations –…

Here are just some pictures that I have taken recently of things that I’ve found interesting when we’re out shopping. “petit’ you say.  Really? 800g of cheese is petit?  Then what, might I ask would you consider grand? All right then….duly noted.A wheel of cheese that is probably a bit more than 1m across –…

Matea turned 8 last weekend. Hard to believe She had two friends over for her party – which was a good french lesson for me as I get little girls correcting my grammer on more informal vocabulary.  First we went skating     Then came back to our place for individual pizzas and cake It was a great…

Well we just had our February vacation time again.  Last year Matea was picking daffodils by now- but we had snow that sat on the ground for probably two weeks this year – so everything is a bit behind.   The first week started a bit down (the kids get two weeks off) – with everyone except…

living on the side of a mountain does have its advantages.  Sure it may not be the best place to learn to ride a bike – but it sure makes for good skiing.

“…a frozen curtain has descended across the continent…” French thermometers weren’t expecting this As most of you have heard….it’s cold here.  Not just in the Alpes, but all across Europe. They are estimating now that at least 400 people have died from the cold, and it isn’t over yet. The best data I could find…

Hard to believe  – but Alma is 5 months old today! She continues to grow as she should, smile as we like, and is just a lot of fun to have around.  The other kids continue to be amazed every time she learns something new – and it’s great to see her development through their…

Roasted root vegetables & baked chèvre salad with fresh home made bagel sandwiches. Nice.

On Saturday, Susan agreed to teach the kids to sew.  The older two have been asking for a while – and they got right to it.   They each made two little bags.  It’s funny to watch how two kids can enjoy the same thing for different reasons: one for the crafty-imagination part and one…

OK, so there hasn’t been any specific events of late that I felt warranting of a particular post – so here are just some pictures of the things of daily life around here the past month or so: Dec 26 – sledding with our friends the Royers who were down from Versailles for Noël.  We…

I just found some text being used to sell home surveillance security cameras here in France that I thought was too insightful not to share. It basically translates as: “It is a myth that is the envy of many: in Canada, you leave the door open all night, a light on outside as a sign of welcome to all travelers who need a bed for the night. In the Land of Bears, this may be. But in reality, the traveler who enters your…

New Years Day was a Sunday – and our church was having an informal service at 17.00. (that’s 5:00PM for you non-Europeans or  2 3/17th Leagues in the US) We drove down to the city, pulled up to park, and got out of the van.  Matea opened the back door to let the boys out…

 The snow has been gone for a while now – two days ago the above picture was taken.  Then yesterday morning it started raining – then it turned to snow – and it continued all day.  By the end of the day there actually was some accumulation on the ground.  Not much- but enough for…

Here are a few more pictures of Alma from the snow we had last week.  Actually the snow is back. The rain turned to snow early this morning – and all day it has been switching back and forth from wet snow to cold rain.  It accumulates on the ground – then the rain melts…

Hard to believe it – but it was ten years ago that Jonah was born.  I thought I would put up a few pictures that highlight some of the last decade with him. First ever family photo – in the delivery room some of his first steps – on the beach in Morocco Obviously moving…

Here are some of the other pictures that we took last week.   that is all.

The kids have been off school since Dec 17 – so we’ve already had a full week of holidays. Here’s what the past seven days have looked like in our corner of the world. Early Saturday morning – as les vacances de Noel officially began – the snow started falling at our place. And it…

It’s true – Christmas vacation started this morning. It’s only the first day – but here’s how it started at our house: the temperature dropped overnight and the rain turned to snow early this morning – so our first snow of the year was the morning of the first day of holidays. there were two…

she can roll over!

This is how much cheese is in our fridge right now.  No special occasion or anything coming up. Not having anyone over for dinner etc. Remember – this is one of three shelves in the fridge.I can count at least 13 kinds of cheese.I believe Charles de Gaulle said it best:“Comment voulez-vous gouverner un pays…

This was our supper tonight. We sat down a bit after 7:30 with our kids for Tartiflette. Tartiflette is a traditional hearty Alpine meal from the Haute-Savoie region (north of us – up towards Switzerland, by Annecy etc.) Boil about a kilo and a half of potatoes then sauté an onion in a bit of…

We have quite limited food storage in our house – in fact this cupboard is pretty much it.  Suffice it to say we have to prioritize and only keep on hand the most important staples of life.This is what one of the two shelves looks like. That’s right – three  unopened jars of nutella (the…