Nous ne sommes pas pretes

But we will be ready soon! We leave in less than three weeks. Amazingly everything is coming together and ready or not we'll be jetting across the Atlantic on January 12th.

The fall semester became "the semester during which I spend all of my spare time planning our sabbatical in France". Talk about not living in the present! I hope that once we arrive in France, we can shift gears and enjoy the moment and not spend our time there planning for when we come home. Oh, certainly not, that would be tragic.

I just need to look back for a moment and retrace our path in getting to the point of departure. When we commenced the sabbatical planning effort, we were headed to New Zealand. But, a major earthquake (oh, poor Christchurch!), the loss of my original book project, and a crazy search for an IB school for Josie lead us around the world (virtually) in our quest for a destination through NZ, to Bali, the Seychelles, England, Scotland and finally France.

By September, our sights had settled on Aix-en-Provence where Josie could attend the International Bilingual School of Provence, I could take a french class, and we could enjoy sunshine, fresh food, and only 30 miles away...the Mediterranean Sea. Then commenced the next adventures...registering her in school, collecting the massive packet of information necessary to acquire a long-stay french visa, finding an apartment in Aix, renting our house, finding dog and cat sitters, and moving through the changing seasons with the recognition that we wouldn't be here to see the spring in Grand Junction. Translation...someone else will have to re-construct my complex system of hoses and sprinklers to get our irrigation system going!! Josie rolled her eyes as I took pictures and video-taped my highly engineered conflagration of timers, splitters and hoses.

Thanksgiving was a trip to Los Angeles to present ourselves at the French Consulate to apply for our visas. Many evenings and weekends were spend in front of the computer searching for apartments and translating french emails about apartments. Who knew that a canape clic-clac is a fold-out sofa?!

A huge thank you to my new friend Caroline in Aix who saved us from renting an apartment that had the toilet in a little phone booth in the bedroom! Caroline visited two apartments for us and answered my many many questions about french etiquette and what to expect. And, thanks to her we will have a cozy apartment just two short blocks from the Cours Mirabeau.

Okay...now to packing...

The French Blog begins!

We're less than two months away from our sabbatical 1/2 year in France. Well...hopefully! Next Friday we will present ourselves at the French Consulate in LA to apply for our long-stay visas. I've been working for a couple of months now to gather all of the information that we need to acquire our visas. However, here we are now, less than two weeks away and not surprisingly...we have acquired some glitches. The three major missing pieces...a rental agreement, verification of adequate health insurance and the answer to what kind of visa I need!

And, not surprisingly, you can't just call the consulate with questions. Well, you can call, but you won't get to talk to anyone, nor can you leave a message. I've called, faxed and emailed. No answer yet, but I haven't panicked yet. Stay posted....the week's not over yet!

Homecoming October 2010

September 2010 - Longs Peak Scottish Highlands Festival

4th of July 2010 - Avery House Fort Collins

Josie in costume! She was running the milk bottle toss game...favorite of all the little kids!

New Orleans June 2010

What a fun trip we're having so far!

We arrive in New Orleans on wednesday evening. After taking the shuttle to our hotel in the French Quarter we immediately headed for the swimming pool which closed at dusk. The water felt wonderful! We swam until dark so that we didn't head out the door to find dinner until 9pm. by then my good friend Ellen and her family were headed to Cafe du Monde for beignets...who needs dinner when you can have beignets!!!

Thurday we headed out to catch the streetcar to go visit Tulane. On our way we ran into Ellen and her family again. We all decided to have breakfast together and ended up at a local diner called FredRicks. Pounds of butter and about $6 later we went our separate ways. Streetcar to Tulane, visit with architecture school, walk through Audobon Park to Magazine street. Lunch at Whole Foods and gelato at the Dixie Bee. Footsore and hot with the threat of a thunderstorm we headed back to the streetcar. Back in swimming pool at our hotel...aaahhhh. Dinner at the Desire Oyster House in our hotel on Bourbon...great oyster po-boy on excellent french bread.

Friday, early rising to get to Airboat Adventures for our swamp tour. Breakfast at the Avenue Cafe...nothing special. Could be very cool, but they were very slow and running out of bagels despite how early we were there. Great swamp tour. Airboats are loud!!! lots of alligators. Lunch at Des Familles. Back to hotel for more swimming. Out to Metairie for a trip down memory lane and dinner at Sid Mars with Stephen and Ellen, et al.

Our hotel phone hasn't worked since we got here despite multiple phone calls to report the problem. So, our wakeup call today was a hotel security officer banging on our door!! :)