Tag: French Sabbatical

July 4, 2011

It became VERY important to Chloe that we celebrate the 4th of July in an “American” way this year. This is interesting, given that we really don’t do this back in Seattle. Well, there was that one year in Montana that the girls were in a 4th of July parade and we attended a rodeo… Anyway, she made 6 dozen peanut butter cookies yesterday, and today made sure the Bertails came over for grilled cheeseburgers.

Me, I was out of the plans, having long ago decided I would be going to the horse races in Nantes today. It was my last chance since the next race day isn’t until October. Ella came with me and together we had a blast, picking different horses to cheer each race. She got the best of me in the 4th race when a horse named Sommerabend GB won. She saw the connection to Brenda & Greg, Melinda’s sister’s family, and picked this horse because of it. You can watch a replay here. Choose the 4th race (Course no 4) and you’ll see my hands in the air on the bottom of the screen near the finish (it’s the 1:52 mark and I’m next to a man in a red shirt). That’s Ella to my left. There’s a slo-mo replay of the stretch run and at the 2:10 mark you can see us clearly for about 10 seconds.

Back to the dinner… Ella and I got home to find the party in full swing. Pop, watermelon, hamburgers being grilled, that sort of thing. I expected a rousing chorus of “The Star Spangled Banner” to be sung. Instead, thank goodness, Max dashed the Bertail home and came back with sparklers, much to Chloe’s American delight.

Day 4 (4 July 2010) – SeaTac

July 3, 2011

Yesterday I mentioned that we were hosting the Boudeaus and the Bertails for a chocolate and wine tasting event, following the directions from a pairing kit, complete with chocolate, provided by our friends at Theo Chocolate in Seattle. I think all three couples had a great time, and it was wonderful for Melinda and me to bring together Frédérique & Laurent with Christine & Bernard.

Today’s photo is of Laurent pouring one of the three wines we used to pair with the chocolate. We had a Syrah, a Merlot and a Cabernet Sauvignon. If you’re scoring at home, Theo provides five bars of chocolate, a Dominican Republic, a Rich & Dark, a Bread & Chocolate, a Fig, Fennel & Almond, and a Cherry & Almond. Frédérique and Christine were quite taken by the fact that the Bread & Chocolate actually lists French bread as one of its ingredients!

Bernard & I had the same favorite pairing, the Syrah with Fig, Fennel & Almond bar. I described the combination as being nutty and liking how the flavors sat on the edge of my tongue. Christine commented how well the Cabernet Sauvignon matched with the Rich & Dark chocolate. Together, it created a kind of caramel aftertaste.

I showed Laurent the Theo website and we noticed that they also provide a chocolate and BEER pairing kit. It’s too late to get that here in France but I’m plotting a Seattle party for that one. Calling Mike Quamma….

Day 3 (3 July 2010) – Carless in Seattle

July 2, 2011

In about an hour we are expecting Frédérique & Laurent AND Christine & Bernard to arrive. Tonight we are finally hosting a party we’ve been wanting to host for months. Back in November when my parents came to visit, they brought us all kinds of goodies. Among those were some gifts from some Seattle area friends, including a selection of Theo Chocolate. You see, the son of the founders of Theo attends PSCS and his family has been very generous in supplying the school with chocolate. In this case, they sent with my parents an amazing amount, including a chocolate and wine pairing kit. So tonight, the Boudeaus and Bertails are coming to taste wine and chocolate. Yes, the living remains tough.

In preparation, Melinda & I went out to Leclerc this afternoon to pick up a few things to eat before the serious tasting commences: some cheese, some fruit, and some nuts. While in the produce section I was quite taken by the display of plums (or “prunes” in French). Three different colors and absolutely spectacular in appearance next to each other. I snapped this picture with my cell phone to try to capture them.

Expect another photo and more detail about the tonight’s party in tomorrow’s post. For now, I need to help Melinda get ready!

Day 2 (2 July 2010) – iPad

July 1, 2011

So begins Day 1 of the post-sabbatical. For psychological reasons, I’ve changed the theme here on the blog and am thinking of the next four weeks, our last days in France, as a vacation that has just begun. So instead of seeing our French glass as 12/13’s empty, it is completely full. This is good.

As plans stand, Melinda’s and my intention is to return to Nantes each and every July for as much of the month as we can. In fact, our Kind Living project is partially designed to help fund this annual trip to France. Think of it as a way to inspire kindness (Kind Living), or think of it as a way to pursue what one wants in life (PSCS). Either way or both, it’s the way we want to live our lives.

With that in mind, we’re having another spontaneous Friday night with the Bertail family. I came home from a late afternoon walk to find three of the Bertail children in the pool, and Christine, Melinda & Chloe sitting by the pool. I quickly joined in, and before long Ella and Bernard had joined us. Théo made a trip to the bakery for fresh bread, dinner was made for the kids while the adults frolicked in the pool, and then the adults ate. Next up, a movie.

What’s the difference between a sabbatical and a vacation? I’m not sure. My best answer – soon to be empty or right now completely full…

Day 1 (1 July 2010) – Haircuts/Move Out

364 days ago today I turned on my laptop in the house in Seattle at which we were staying, having earlier that day moved out of ours. I was alone for a few minutes, Melinda & Ella having gone to run an errand and Chloe being with a friend. On a whim, I connected to WordPress and set up this blog.

Let me repeat that. This blog was a complete whim, started without much thought. It has grown to become a significant piece of the sabbatical, attracting a multitude of faithful followers (thank you to all).

Today marks the official end of the sabbatical from a timing standpoint. But I am very excited to say that Melinda and I worked it out with the powers that be at PSCS for us to remain in France for 4 more weeks. I’ll continue to post daily updates here; in fact, I’ll post through the month of July which will include the first few days we’re back in Seattle. After that, we’ll have to see. If any of you faithful followers have ideas, let me know.

Meanwhile, thinking back on that first blog post I knew I wanted to have a photo each day and wanted to keep the text short. I’ve succeeded at the photo part, but I know sometimes I’ve gone on a bit long. To honor that first photo, I present today’s. As I did on Day 1, I used PhotoBooth on my MacBook and I’ve tried to emulate the pose.

It’s hard to believe it’s been a year. As the saying goes, “The days are long but the years are short.”

So about an hour ago Ella came outside to where I was just getting out of the pool (rough life, I know) and announced that she wanted to bake something. After considering various possibilities with Melinda, she settled on zucchini bread. She checked online for a recipe and together, we cross-referenced the ingredients with what we have in the kitchen. Turns out we were missing two items, eggs & zucchini.

Off we went to the neighborhood grocery store, the U Express, what I’ve come to refer to as our pantry, so close is it to our house. Regarding the eggs, it is interesting to note that they are not kept refrigerated in French grocery stores. You find them on regular shelves, much as you do canned goods. Of further interest, they are usually next to the milk, also not refrigerated but sterilized in plastic bottles that need to be stored in the frig after they are opened. Today’s photo is of Ella in front of said shelf.

Let it be known that we couldn’t stop at buying just the two missing ingredients. We also bought breakfast cereal (Golden Grahams, if you’re interested), Milka chocolate that makes Chloe go a little nutty, a mango, and I let Ella talk me into buying her some yogurt with chocolate chips.

This is another one of those posts that has oodles of personal meaning for our family but may not make a heck of a lot of sense to others. You see, standing with Ella in this picture, taken last Friday on her last day of school, is Monsieur Bregéon. M. Bregéon is the head teacher of Ella’s age group at Le Loquidy, the school she attended. He also was Ella’s history teacher. He is also the man who showed us around campus last July on our second full day in France.

We were all quite taken by M. Bregéon, me especially. For one, he is a class act. He is both kind and no-nonsense. He is funny and smart. In short, he has a combination of character traits that I think make for not just a good teacher, but for a good human being. I insisted Ella get his picture and was thrilled when she came home with this one.

A couple more things to note. First, every time we saw him he was wearing a very nice pair of jeans. I mean really nice. High-quality denim with orange thread stitching. I bought myself a pair last fall and took to calling them my “Bregéons,” a name that caught on with others, especially Christine and Frédérique, as well as Chloe, Ella and Melinda. I want to market them in the US under that name.

Also of significance was seeing him at the hockey game each time I went. He was sitting high above the ice in a spot reserved for officials of some kind, as far as I could tell. I decided he was keeping statistics.

To sum up: M. Bregéon is a classy teacher who likes hockey and has inspired me to wear nice jeans. Now do you feel caught up?

With Friday having been Ella’s last day of school, today became her first day of summer vacation (she & I don’t count the weekend). And since she has been so busy with school, seeing how long school days are in France, plus homework, plus just wanting to be home and re-charge her English-speaking battery after hours of hearing French, she’s missed out on some of the ordinary things the rest of us have done in Nantes. We’re going to use some of our remaining time in France to rectify that, dubbing these “French Culture Class.”

Today’s lesson involved taking Ella to Leclerc, the huge grocery store at the end of our neighborhood tram line. We took the caddy, of course, and made her pull it. We showed her how you have to use a coin (or a fake coin) to get a shopping cart. We showed her how to use the self-scan device as you put your items in your cart. Of all the things involved in a trip to Leclerc, I think Ella liked scanning the groceries the best.

Today’s photo is of the three of us going down the escalator to the parking lot and toward the tram stop after having finished our shopping trip. All things considered, including the huge mirror, I thought the shot came out kind of nice, even arty.

Maybe I’ll incorporate some photography into upcoming lessons, things like how to try to roll your R’s without success, how to have the kind bakery women give you French lessons, and the importance of remembering that most stores are closed on Sundays.

Totally hot. And by that, I mean completely hot. Really hot. In Fahrenheit, it’s 95 degrees. That’s hot. I’m hot. Totally hot.

Given that everyone else in the family is totally hot, and given that we have a pool, today has been spent either in or next to said pool. It was too hot for me to go get the camera to take pictures. But if I had, I would have tried to persuade someone to take my picture inside the blow-up horse I was using as a floatation device. I think it was designed for someone younger (in fact, Chloe kept saying how much 3 year-old Luce would like it), but it was doing the job for me. Celeste and Claire came over for a swim and with Chloe’s help they located a few more pool toys. There was the horse and a floating basketball hoop that prompted a game of P-I-G. Every game in the pool was welcome.

What you are getting for a photo is one I took yesterday as I conducted the weekly pool water test. We need to make sure the pH and chlorine levels are where they should be. To do the test I take small amounts of water from the filtration system located in the laundry room in the basement (that’s it in the background). I add a few drops of solution in each side, the one on the left, the red one, is pH, and the yellow one is chlorine. All looks good, which is a good thing considering the use of the pool today.

We had a very spontaneous get-together last night with Christine’s & Bernard’s family. Eldest son Max was having a few friends over and in order to provide them some space, we invited the rest of the family over for an impromptu dinner. It all came together quickly and at the last minute, including Christine and Melinda making a dash to the grocery store to pick up cheeseburger fixin’s. We wheeled out the grill, which hadn’t been used since last summer, and, together, Melinda and Bernard got it working. I grilled the burgers, Christine whipped up a salad and Melinda put together drinks and munchies.

Of course the pool was in use, as was the basketball hoop in front. I helped Théo refine his jumpshot and an abbreviated game of H-O-R-S-E was played. Given the grill was out and Christine said her kids had not experienced s’mores before, Chloe and Ella took it upon themselves to remedy that family oversight. Today’s photo of s’mores consumption took me back to the Nebraskan summers of my youth so adding the Polaroid effect seemed appropriate.

Earlier in the day Christine had made a lemon cake which she kindly added to the dessert offerings. Like all of Christine’s baking, it was delicious. After dessert, some of the kids settled in to watching Harry Potter on DVD. The adults (including Chloe) watched a couple of episodes of that classic American TV show Freaks & Geeks.

Now that’s a fine Friday night.