February 2007 We spent a week in the French Alps in February. Frederic and his brother & sister had a great time skiing, and Benjamin and I enjoyed the sunshine and warm weather as we bummed around the resort. Since Benjamin isn't even walking yet (I think he will be in another week or two, though!) he didn't ski - but he might next year! This year we stuck to sledding.

December 2006 We spent three weeks in the US visiting my family and friends for Thanksgiving. We did less traveling this year than some years, visiting only St Louis, MO, Tulsa, OK, Norman, OK, Madill, OK and Memphis, TN. No, really, that's fewer stops than usual!
Benjamin got to experience snow for the first time while we were home. St Louis got about 2 inches of snow after about 6 inches of sleet. Icy, icy roads. Fortunately things had mostly cleared up by the time we needed to drive to Chicago to fly out.
	We also celebrated Benjamin's birthday early while we were home. Has it really been a year already?!
	About half an hour after his birthday, we had early Christmas with my family. Those are the breaks when you have a December birthday, poor kid!

July 2006

We moved into a house! This was one of those things we thought would be out of our reach as long as we lived in France. But we finally got totally, completely and utterly fed up with the neighbors, and started researching the market. We ended up about an hour away from Paris, in a little village, in a Real House, and we are loving it!

We even managed to sell our condo for a halfway decent price and in an almost reasonable time frame.

December 2005

............News Flash!............ Benjamin Pierre was born on Dec 16th, 2005! He weighed 9 lbs, 0 oz and was 20 1/4 inches long. Everyone is still wondering how someone as small as I am managed to have a nine-pound baby!

March 2005

I got my French citizenship in March 2005! That is when I picked up the papers, but it's retroactive, so I'm French since June 17, 2004. I even have a French national ID card. Now I just have to register to vote and make one more attempt at getting them to exchange my US driver's license.