Andy Smallman

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!).

Here’s an idea. You know how yesterday I was lamenting the fact that my French summer is over now that the Boudeaus have gone home? Well, I’ve got a somewhat solution to offset the sadness! I have to find “French” references wherever I go!

In support of this brilliant idea I present today’s photo, taken at a local grocery store, PCC. This is coconut milk. One side of the package was in English, the other side in French. I turned it French-side-out for this photo.

Then I left it that way. Shhh!!!!

Our French summer has officially ended. We left for France on June 28 and spent a full month in and around Nantes, an incredible recap to our sabbatical. As Melinda explained recently, it’s like we have two wonderful lives, one in Seattle and one in Nantes. It was reassuring to return to Nantes and have it feel like home.

Anyway, back to my point. We left on June 28 for France and returned to Seattle on July 30. With us, we brought back Manon, whose presence helped us feel as if our French summer was continuing. Then a week later, Frédérique and Laurent arrived and stayed with us for over 2 weeks. That means our French summer lasted from June 28 until August 22, almost two months!

Today’s picture was taken this afternoon at SeaTac Airport, just after the Boudeaus had checked their bags and just before we bid them our goodbyes at security. Checking their flight status, they are about 2.5 hours from Reykjavík, about 15 hours from walking in their front door at home in Nantes.

It’s a very sad night in our house but it’s been filled with laughter. I made the dinner I referenced last night, and our families, the Boudeaus and the Smallman-Shaws, sat around the table for hours enjoying each others’ company and friendship. At one point I just sat back and reveled in the awareness that it wasn’t two families sitting together, no. It was one.

It IS one.

Laurent, pictured here from our trip to REI of a few days ago (when he spotted a Tour de France hat in the sale section), made a lovely speech in English about both the historical and current connection of our families. It was both poignant and funny, and more than a little bit sweet.

Manon and Frédérique had to resist the temptation to correct his English. What was impossible to correct, or improve upon, is the sentiment. I gave his speech a perfect score, what in France is a 20.

It’s been a busy series of dinners the last four nights for the visiting Boudeaus. First, on Friday that were taken out by Dwight & Michele, Melinda’s parents, for a fancy dinner at the Seattle Yacht Club. Then on Saturday night, we took them out for an Italian dinner at Mamma Melina’s. Last night, it was an elegant dinner at the home of Dwight & Michele. Then tonight, it was over to Mercer Island for a very fine dinner at Bennett’s courtesy of my parents.

What’s funny is that prior to them coming I was thinking about the different dinners we would cook for them at our house. As the two weeks have flown by, including their 3 nights in Canada, we’ve only had dinner at our house a couple of times. And I’ve had this one meal, salmon wrapped around crab meat, that I’ve been wanting to try since before they arrived.

Tomorrow night is my last chance at it. Sadly for us, they head home on Wednesday afternoon.

Melinda & I took the Boudeaus to both REI and Easy Street Records today. As much as I like looking around REI, sometimes evn buying a couple of things, I LOVE Easy Street. It’s one of the last remaining record stores in the area, a place you can go and actually pick up an LP, in vinyl or CD form, and get a “feel” for it, if you know what I mean. None of that downloading digital stuff here.

When I was younger, records are what I spent my money on. I regularly hunted for disks at the local record shops and sometimes bought the hard-to-find ones via mail order. Over time, I amassed quite a library (as opposed to a collection – don’t ask me to explain the difference), and was quite proud of it.

So when Manon said she wanted to find a vinyl copy of a recording to bring home to Romain, I knew where to go. From the looks of today’s photo, we were successful.