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Interestingly, tonight will be the first night since we returned from France that we haven’t had a guest or guests spend the night. In fact, I’m writing this post in the company of Ella and Melinda, the only other people in the house. It’s both nice and a little sad. Quiet, too.

Today’s photo, of course, comes from France. Specifically, it comes from a little café in the city of Guérnande and the same “photo shoot” that produced the photo from this blog entry back in July. That was a fun day.

Dessert is on my mind, I guess, what with Ella, Melinda & me having just finished dinner. That chocolate cake on the right side of the photo would really hit the spot…

Melinda & I left the house at 8am, Chloe snug in the backseat with the car packed full of her stuff. Yes, we were off to Canada, specifically to Quest University in the beautiful British Columbia city of Squamish. It’s Chloe’s second year there as a university student and she was excited to get there and reconnect with her friends.

We stopped in Vancouver (West Van, for those in the know) to run a couple of errands and to grab a bit of lunch, then continued on to Squamish. This was very reminiscent of our trip a year ago when we brought Chloe to Quest for her first year. Only this time she is a veteran and knows all the ropes. So last year’s nerves were replaced by this year’s excitement. For Melinda and me as parents, it was all quite fun.

Having carried in Chloe’s boxes, we pretty much said goodbye and came home. It was probably 8 hours in the car, 2.5 hours in Vancouver, and 30 minutes at Quest. A whirlwind.

School starts on Tuesday at PSCS, meaning we’ve been working hard gearing up for the new school year. I had a long day today, getting up early to take Chloe to her babysitting job at 6:30am, then coming home for a couple of hours of PSCS work before heading to school and working until about 7pm. I think the site is pretty well ready for Tuesday and now I have only “several” things to do over the holiday weekend instead “too many.”

Not that I’m complaining. I love my job.

I was readying a simplified version of the school’s eNewsletter for delivery tomorrow (sign up here) and came across this picture in the school archives. It’s from 1998, I think, back when PSCS spent a day each week not far from the Seattle Center and the Space Needle. This shot was taken of a couple of students walking across the Seattle Center grounds.

18 years ago was the beginning of PSCS. That’s really something, you know.

Isn’t that what it says on this sign, a sign I spotted along Aurora Avenue in Seattle (I think makes “Aurora Rents” an apt name)? I’ve never rented popcorn. I’ve bought it, both popped and unpopped. I’ve had it given to me, both popped and unpopped. But I’ve never rented it, either popped or unpopped.

I didn’t go in to ask about rental prices on popcorn, or when the due date is for returning it. Certainly, a more curious blogger would have provided details like these for his dedicated readers.

But I do want to plant in your heads the question of other kinds of food one might rent. What about a steak? Or maybe a side of fries? I bet there would be a whole new income stream for fast food if they started to rent it instead of selling it.

Although when it comes to fast food, you kind of are *renting* it when you buy it, if you know what I mean.

Our niece Jessica got married earlier this month (you might remember this since I mentioned it here). Earlier today, Jessica sent out a weblink to the 600+ professional photos that were taken at the wedding. I’m not sure what copyright I may have infringed when I snagged this one via a screen capture, but I just couldn’t resist.

It’s a pretty fine shot, don’t you think? I mean, it’s not every day I present a photo of Melinda, let alone one of her involved in a line dance (and, yes, that’s Chloe & Ella on the right).

There she is. Melinda. My wife.

This photo is from almost two months ago, when we had our little “pre-vacation” in Iceland on our way to France. We were walking through the Reykjavík airport and came upon this display. It seemed like a natural thing to have Ella pose next to it, don’t you think?

Speaking of Ella, she’s been getting up early this week to do a little babysitting, watching a 5 year-old. It’s been fun to hear a recap of her day at dinner each night. Today’s included the story of their lemonade stand. They took in 2 dollars. Not bad, I thought. Then Ella told us cups were 50 cents. Oh. Then she told us that she bought one. Um. She sold they sold two, one person paying a $1 for a cup. I see.

Apparently, they only were in business for 30 minutes, 5 year-old attention spans being what they are and all.

You know how everything’s bigger at Costco? Well, here’s a HUGE bottle of Melinda’s favorite French champagne, a photo I took at Costco soon after our return from France this summer. Not only did its size stun me, so did its price. I know champagne can be really expensive. Good champagne, that is. But a bottle for $1900?

Well, it IS a big bottle. 15 liters. That’s about 4 gallons.

So I’m picturing Jack, having just climbed the beanstalk, coming across the giant’s wine cellar. Instead of a goose, he grabbed this bottle.

I took this photo Friday night at Frank’s, our favorite neighborhood restaurant. Melinda & I walked down there after dinner for a little nightcap. Don’t worry, Laurent, I didn’t violate my plan. I had a mocktail (sans alcool) and it was really good! So you ALL know, my plan is to refrain from having any alcoholic beverages until after the Seattle Marathon in November.

That’s right, I’m in training!

Speaking of which, I went for a 2.5 hour run this morning along the Burke-Gilman Trail (if you’re interested in my route today, click here and trace the path from the pinpoint just to the right of “University District” to NE 145th – I went there and back). Let me just tell you, that’s a long time to run without stopping. I ran so far as to see a sign telling me I had left the Seattle city limits. Then I ran all the way back. In the 150 minutes it took me to do that I could have watched 5 episodes of the Brady Bunch. With commercials!

It’s funny what occurs to you while you’re running.

Here’s a photo from about two hours ago. It is, of course, of Melinda. But I bet you didn’t know she was in the midst of texting Ella who is on her way home from a quick overnight trip to Idaho with her best school friend. And I think it’s unlikely you’ll know that the photo was taken at Uneeda Burger, a delicious burger joint in Seattle’s Fremont neighborhood.

What else might you have to guess at? Well, we split a mushroom burger and an order of fries, and Melinda had kombucha to drink which was available, interestingly enough, on tap. I bet you didn’t know that I don’t like kombucha. Or melon of any kind.

Wait, you might have known that.

So I subscribe to a blog about the city of Nantes. What a surprise, eh? What IS a surprise, perhaps, is that the blog is in English, meaning that I have a better chance of understanding it than if it was in French. I will say that it appears to be English English, as opposed to American English, but I pretty much can figure out when s’s are used instead of z’s and that sort of thing. That and the r’s make sense to me…

There aren’t a lot of entries posted but there was one today. It’s about the summer-long Journey to Nantes that I blogged about in July. I found it interesting that there was a 16% increase in air traffic at the Nantes airport when comparing July 2012 to July 2011. Way to go, Nantes!

Also, 116,000 visitors were said to have visited the nest (Le Nid). There are 3 of them in today’s photo, not counting the photographer (me!).