Today we drove up the mountain to the wide open alpine plateau for a day of – Raquette-ing…or Raquette a neiging…snowshoeing.   It was a beautiful sunny day – there was tonnes of fresh snow and the scenery was almost unbelievable.      As the afternoon went on – so did the hike…

  We pulled the kids out of school a day early and started our vacances de Noel by driving up to Alsace.   Day 1 – Mulhouse (pronounced “muh-LOOZE” just to throw everybody off) Pretty much the first thing we did when we got there was stop and grab a Bretzel.   The Mulhouse market…

Here are a few pictures of Susan and Alma that I took a few weeks ago when we had our snow:  

When my mom was here we took a day trip to Geneva. It’s only about 2 hours on the train, and there is plenty of beautify scenery to see on the way – or play Uno – whichever you prefer. We walked around the city and took in many of the most important things to…

I’m pretty sure this is just about exactly what I sound like when someone tries to help my French pronunciation…  

While Grandma Watts was here we took a drive up to some caves in the Vercors mountains.  We had been there a few times before the last time we lived here  – it’s an amazing drive up an incredibly twisty, narrow, hanging on the side of the cliff, through tunnels, you can’t always get past the cars…

I realise that most of this month has gotten by without much news from us. So without further delay – here is a quick review of what went on in our part of the world over the past few weeks.   Kids Olympics At the kids school they had an Olympiad – which looked a little bit like…

Here is our youngest pulling her weight around the house   all 9.4 kg of it    

The weather is starting to cool down – and the kids are back in school – definitely Fall.  Luckily that means harvest from the yard time.  This year we’ve made off like bandits on the apple front (perhaps “bandits’ is not the best term since a tree or two may not exactly be in our…

Hard to believe it, but our lttle Alma is already one year old. We took Alma in for her one-year appointment and she continues to grow well, is doing the things that she’s supposed to, and is generally just a very happy healthy baby. The strange thing about her is that after watching our other…

This September marks the start of the kids third year of school here in France. The kids changed schools this year.  They are still in our village, but at the ‘other’ school. We figured they needed some more change in their lives. They went from a school that had split classes for most grades, to having 2…

..and another rock. That’s where we were the weekend before school started – a little stone village in a narrowing part of a valley where the rock faced mountains almost meet right next to the 400 year old settlement. The name is Entrepierres – literally ‘between the rocks’ – and it really is.    …

We spent about 5 days down in Pezenas.  Good times were had by all. We went to the sea a few times, we went to the wine festival, we went to a flea market, the weather was great the whole time we were there.  Pretty tough not to love that part of the world One…

After we left Nîmes we continued to head south. To get to Pézenas from our place you basically head south until you hit the Mediterranean, turn right, and if you get to Spain you’ve gone too far.  My aunt and uncle have had a place there for probably 15 years now, and it’s probably one of…

Micah turned 6 on Saturday.We had a fantastic time together celebrating another year with our funny boy. He had a great time on his birthday – family and friends – lego – playing in the yard which turns into hide-and-go-seek – turns into head-lamp and flashlight games – turns into bike riding with headlamps down…

I stand by my decision as to where to hang the swing…why do you ask?

On Tuesday we headed down south on a last minute trip and stopped on our way in Nîmes. The city is about halfway from our place in the Alpes to my aunt & uncle’s house down south. Nîmes has history that goes well back to the Roman era – with some significant physical reminders of…

Heading off on a last minute trip. I’d say the weather looks promising

Saturday we went out for a family hike when Alma woke up from her afternoon nap. The great thing about where we live is that as soon as she wakes up we can leave our house at and be at a trail-head 12 minutes later. …”trail includes difficult passages…” Fortunately Alma is stil very content to…

While my sister Marie and her family were here we got a chance to go see Le Tour de France again.   It did not dissapiont.   Let’s face it – our kids are really in it for the  caravane publicitaire – an 80 year old tradition where the sponsors of the race have a 20km long…

Susan and Matea went out this afternoon… on their way out.  … for Matea to get her hair cut (I believe her first real cut since we moved to this country in August 2010!) …and after They grabbed some treats from the boulangerie next to the hair-dresser – then went over to eat by a…

One of the great things about being along the sea is, of course, the sea.  All four of our kids love the water – and we made the most of the fact that we were staying so close to the water. There was quite a bit of swimming, playing on rocks, diving, playing in the…

A few weeks ago I got to go to Vienna to conduct some research for my second year PhD paper.   For my paper I am investigating what allows resource-constrained individuals to be able to overcome their constraints and create successful innovations.  The field that I’m looking at is the coffee-growers who supply the specialty coffee world.  Most…