A Little Update

An epic snowboarding season is coming to an end. This year’s snow fall was exceptional. Although we didn’t get to do the Vallée Blanche as planned due to bad weather on both the weekends we tried to go, we did get plenty of snowboarding and skiing in. I even skied for the first time in about 10 years. It felt like riding a bike. I lost a bit but not a ton. I can still manage the bumps pretty well. There may still be one more weekend of boarding left but I am not holding my breath. Depends on how Valerie feels when she gets back this Saturday.

Valerie had an extra week of vacation so she took off to Italy with her father and Mathieu leaving me at home to work. It is the first time I have been away from Mathieu this long. I definitely miss seeing him in the morning and the evening but on the other hand, it is nice to have a week to myself.

On a side note, I am devoting this week to kicking off the process for getting French citizenship. I am now eligible so I just need to fill out the dossier and printing out about a 20 copies of crap that prove that I am married and living in France and am not a criminal. Of course, typical to the French administration, if I forget even one copy or don’t sign in the right spot I will be turned away so I am really concentrating on make sure everything is correctly filled out and exactly in the order required. Other than having my U.S documents translated into French the hardest part will be obtaining my FBI background check.

Once, the dossier is complete it takes about a year. In that time, my wife and I will be required to meet with the administration to prove we are married and I will have to meet with the police where they will give me an oral test to prove I can speak and understand French.

Hopefully in a little over a year I will have dual-citizenship just like Mathieu! I will keep you all updated.

P.S. We are looking forward to seeing everyone in California next month…

Couple of more pics from the wkd

Snowshoeing in Haute Savoie. This was fun but next weekend we are going to have a fondue at the midpoint. I am looking forward to that.
















Oscar is happier than Mathieu.

And the winter continues

Yes it is still winter here. Mathieu and Oscar are enjoying it and so are we.

This was last weekend so we are looking forward to skiing this weekend (yes I will be skiing instead of snowboarding). I haven't skied in about 8 years and we are planning to ski the Valley Blanche in Chamonix at the end of March which is supposed to be one of the most exciting out of bounds descents in the Alps starting at 12,500 ft. The hardest part is getting down to the area for skiing since you must walk along a ridge that drops off 1000s of feet on either side. Unfortunately, snowboarding the valley would require a lot of walking so I am going to ski a couple of days and hopefully I will remember how everything works before we go.

Annual US Trip Planning is Under Way

We are heading to SD and Sacramento again. Well now that we have our trip booked and lodging covered, albeit not in San Diego but in Oceanside. It wasn't easy to find a couple to exchange homes with this year due to the current economic climate, however, we did find a willing couple and they have a place in Oceanside right off the beach. We will be about 5 minutes from Carlsbad and right near the Oceanside pier. I am looking forward to waking up in the morning and going surfing. It sounds like it is going to be a cool place to stay.

Anyway, there are a couple of things still up in the air. We still need to rent a car in LA and drive down and with the car comes the baby seat issue. We do not want to carry a baby seat over from France. We will already be carrying 2 big bags and a couple carry-ons. So I looked at the price of renting a car seat from the car rental place and it is $10/day.

Hmm, 16 days x $10 = $160. Can you say RIPPPPOFFFF!

So now I am looking at other options. I have checked Craigslist but so far there is nothing and anyway it is too far out. I have also looked at Ebay, once again too far out and nothing in the neighborhood. That leaves us with one last option assuming neither of those works out, and that is to buy one at the nearest store. I have found a Walmart nearby (within a few miles) that I can order the baby seat online and have it delivered to the store for in-store pickup. The cost: $65. Total savings $95. Personally, I am willing to run to the store, pick it up and then come back and get Val and Mathieu if necessary.

This of course, leaves one problem which we still have not figured out. What do we do with the car seat once we return the car? Well, there is always the possibility of Craigslist and meeting the person near the airport. But being a bit devious, I am thinking that maybe it would be possible to return the car seat… Hmmm, maybe, just maybe…

A little update

We went up to Metz 2 weeks ago to celebrate the 80^th birthday of Valerie’s uncle. On the way up there as we passed the toll booth just outside of Metz, the temperature registered 10 degrees. “Welcome to the Arctic”. Yes, it was cold, fricken cold! Metz is a beautiful city but I have trouble understanding how people can endure winter there. I know it doesn’t get as cold as the midwest of the US (especially recent temps in the Midwest) but come on how do you live in this weather. I guess California weather is ingrained in me.

We didn’t spend much time outside since it was so cold but we did manage to get out and buy a few things since January in France is “Les Soldes” meaning “Sale time”. Valerie and I both managed to find a couple of things to buy plus everything is generally cheaper in Metz than in Lyon which makes it easier to find good bargains.

News from Mathieu

Mathieu is starting to talk. He is blabbing about everything saying mama and papa for the most part to the right person and he is saying “doudou” which is the French term for “preferred stuffed animal”. When he arrives at daycare in the morning he runs over to the “doudou” wall, finds his doudou and says “doudou”. He even says “toutou” which is the slang term for dog.

He is really easygoing. We can take him anywhere and he just seems to get along with whoever is there. Last night we went to dinner with some friends and we left him down at the end of the table in a high chair. He was having a blast with throwing his arms up in the air with our friend Irvin for half the night.

Anyway, we were up in the mountains last weekend with friends but we didn’t get to go boarding but we are heading back up this weekend to board. We did take Mathieu out on the sled. I will post some pics in the next few days. He is not sure about the whole sled and snow thing yet. I think we are going to have to wait until next year.

je m'appelle Mathieu

je m'appelle mathieu
Video sent by frimouss159

MUSIQUE :Auteur inconnu : "mon coin de paradis"

Maman,Valérie : fille de mon ancien compagnon,née en Haute-Savoie.

Papa,John : né en Californie,sa maman habite à Sacramento.
Ils se sont rencontrés en Californie,où Valérie a vécu plusieurs années,d'abord à Phoenix,puis à San diego.
Ils ont décidé de revenir en France,où ils se sont mariés,et vivent à Lyon,où ils travaillent
Je les remercie pour les photos

Certaines de ces images sont prises à Boston,lors d'un voyage en mai 2008

Je les embrasse tous les trois tendrement

frifri

This video was produced by our friend Francine.

MERCI BEAUCOUP FRANCINE pour un œuvre vraiment super !

Col Malval

Mathieu is much happier in his mother's arms. :(

We got lots of Snow

This is right outside of Lyon which is no more than 600 ft above sea level. It snowed most of the week so it is looking good for some late December boarding.

You Can Do It!!!

Unfortunately, we don't have any good video of him walking but this was shot right after he did his little tour.

MATHIEU WALKS!

Mathieu took his first steps in Boston. We were on the Freedom trail on the 3rd of November in the USS Constitution Museum and Mathieu stood up on his own and took about 5 steps and fell over. It was so cool. He had been getting up on his own for about 2 weeks but this time he actually put a foot forward to move.

New York and Boston

We just got back from a trip to the US. Other than the baby jet lag we are back to normal now. The trip was everything we expected and more. We decided last May to do this trip because Air France/Delta started offering a direct flight from Lyon to NY in August and Valerie had a free flight.

Before the flight day we were a bit nervous because Mathieu had recently had ear problems. In fact the night before he didn't sleep. We aren't sure if it was because of the ears but it made the flight over that much more difficult.

During the flight he did better than we expected. We were worried that he was going to be as difficult as when we took our first flight to the US back in May to California. During that flight we spent 15 hours trying to calm him down. Sorry passengers.

Once over in the NY we visited some family about an hour north of the city. We had a wonderful time and they all loved meeting Mathieu for the first time.

Following our family visit we headed up to Boston. Neither of us have been up there before and I have an old college friend who I haven't seen in over 10 years living out there. We did a home exchange in Boston which once again worked out perfectly. We stayed in Cambridge and had the chance to do the freedom trail, Harvard, MIT and spend a wonderful evening catching up with my V.J. and his wife. We traveled down south to visit the Cape but neither of us were overly impressed. We were expecting ocean views throughout the drive but the road goes down the center of the Cape and there is no ocean views unless you find a private road off the beaten path and we didn't have a ton of time to explore. However, we did like P-town. We were there on Election day and there were a bunch groups out pushing their opinions on the street.

We found the north of Boston to be much more interesting. We visited Gloucester, Marblehead, Essex, Salem and Rockport. These beautiful fishing towns were exactly what we wanted to see.

From Boston, we headed down to NY where we did a second home exchange in Brooklyn. This needs a bit of explaining. The couple from NY had already stayed in our Lyon home back in August while we were up in Brittany.

It was the first time we have been to Brooklyn and we will definitely be going back there if possible. It is known by New Yorkers as the place you move to when you are ready to have a family. The whole town seems to be taylored to kids and the home we stayed in was heaven for Mathieu. They had more toys than a toy store! On top of that I found a beer and sandwich store down the street that was my heaven.

In NY we visiting the Empire State Bldg, Central park, and of course Brooklyn. We also spent some time with a couple of my friends Gabe and Sarah who live in the city.

Of course, I should mention the shopping. If you are ever in NY or Boston, it is a must to stop at Filene's Basement. This store has everything at outlet prices.

Well, now we are back in France already thinking about our next vacation.

Mathieu's B-day

OHHHHHHHH, fire.....

Mathieu's 1st Birthday

It has been a crazy week leading up to Mathieu's birthday. He had a cold last week which turned into two ear infections. Last Friday we has to pull him out of day care because he was so down. It was definitely a bit scary since we had never seen him so sick before. He went through one really bad night but felt much better on Saturday which was just in time for Sanoe's (Mathieu's friend) 1st birthday. We took some pics at Sanoe's birthday and some more for Mathieu's birthday, oh, and there are couple from a picnic the same weekend, so take a look at "Our Photos" for the link. I will leave you with one here on the page to hold you over.

Nimes

They stole our baby.