Inga and I took a sick day. She was really sick and I was on the mend. She still has a fever this evening and I hope she'll be ok for tomorrow. Zari had her last soccer game and, since they were down several players, they got massacred :( Dio had a small birthday party for his friends. I prepared a big lunch for them, plus homemade birthday cake, in the Chateau and then they watched a movie. It was a self-sufficient party. I just popped in on occasion to...

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Successful soccer Saturday

Eric was gone all day at 3 soccer games: Dio (Beausoleil, winning 3-0), Inga (Cavigal, winning 2-0), and Ivy (Cavigal, winning 8-1). I did more sewing today, finally redoing Inga's curtains with a rufflette strip on the top. We threaded stainless steel key rings through the rufflette loops and then put those on the curtain rod. I have one more thing left on my mending pile: a pair of sweatpants to turn into shorts. I was thinking of going to one of the Cavigal games, but a) I was...

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Mending is dangerous business

I was mending a frayed spot on Zari's jeans (backed it with a thin woven fabric and did multiple lines of zig-zags well beyond the worn area. I managed to sew through my finger! Oops! Fortunately it was just through the fleshy part on the side. The needle punched in and out so quickly that I hardly knew it happened. So yeah, I gave myself a finger piercing today :) It's unseasonably cool still--although I did turn the heat off about 1-2 weeks ago, it's not warm enough to keep...

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Conclave!

In the early evening we set out to watch the celebration of the 80th anniversary of the end of WWII in Europe. Turns out we were mistaken on the time somehow so it was already done and dismantled. So we walked home and came back to which smoke pouring from the Vatican chimney: a new Pope had been elected. We kept the TV on as we prepared and ate dinner and were surprised than an American was chosen. Super interesting. We were going to watch Conclave this evening but ran...

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Tomorrow is a school holiday, celebrating 8 mai 1945, which marked the end of WWII. After dinner, Eric and went on a walk that took us past the war memorial. They were setting up for a big event, and on the way back a violin was playing accompanied by a military band. Very lovely music. Ivy has a tournament all day tomorrow. Dio's class had PE at the Vauban stadium this morning. There was a problem with the tram on the way home, so he had to run all the way...

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I got a big breech project finished and published today. I also mailed Zari's Canadian passport application. I'm almost ready to tear off my scribbled over to-do list and start with a fresh piece of paper. So satisfying. Zari is filling out financial aid forms for Canada. There's a bit of limbo between which province she's a resident of, given that she has never lived in any of them. The financial aid office said to apply for both ON and AB and see which one ends up going through. Zari...

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Crêpe fête

An anglicized way to say crepe party, I know, but it's the expression we always use :) We had several people over for crepes this evening, with a full assortment of toppings: whipped cream & mascarpone, nutella, bananas, dark chocolate, orange marmalade, lingonberry jam, white sugar, powdered sugar, & lemon juice. I had a busy day and neglected to go out and exercise/walk today. I need to do better tomorrow. Zari worked on several scholarship applications: one was a 30-second video, the other a humorous essay. createSummaryAndThumb("summary533466934368829265"); Read more ... ...

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Rear window

I walked all over Nice in the rain today. To Cimiez and back in the morning (not realizing it was going to rain...). Then in the late afternoon we walked to our friend's apartment for a potluck dinner and farewell party. I've logged over 15k steps today. The kids came home via car and...well...there was a "big problem," in their words. We share a parking spot with a friend and so we have to do this juggling of the cars when we park our car (pull his car out, back ours...

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Dio had plans to have a birthday party with his friends, but they had to reschedule. That gave us some time in the evening to watch two episodes of Andor. He had a game in the afternoon (losing 3-1), which Eric went to. Inga and I wandered around Old Nice looking in a lot of the little shops. She's browsing for a friend's birthday gift. Nothing struck us, but it was fun to see everything from the point of view of someone who would be here to look at charming...

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When life gives you purple turnips...

I got a surprise box today consisting mainly of purple top turnips. Yep. Not the world's most exciting produce. I'm really not a huge fan of turnips or parsnips so I had to do some research to find a recipe that looked good. I ended up making a Provençal gratin that turned out great. https://cookpad.com/fr/recettes/14418033-gratin-de-navets-violets-aux-tomates-et-mozzarella I still would never buy turnips of my own volition but I'm glad I found a good use for them! I also cooked up some chicken breasts with olive oil and herbes de Provence for a...

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May Day

The streets were packed today with people wearing enormous, bizarre hats; walking around in parades; and following a straw man wheeled about on a cart. Can you get pedestrian road rage? I certainly felt it, trying to walk through the crowded pedestrian streets of Old Nice. Stupid tourists who walk at a slow amble and go right in the middle of the available space so you can get around them on either side! Mid-afternoon we paused our other activities and went to the beach. It was so packed you'd think...

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Mayday! Mayday!

Tomorrow is May Day. They take it seriously here. It's a national public holiday and it's the one day a year that EVERYTHING shuts down--all public transportation, totally down. We made the mistake one year and arrived at the airport on May 1st. We had no option but to pay for a taxi since there were no buses or trams. I remember celebrating May Day by making and decorating little paper baskets filled with popcorn and candy and handing them out to friends and neighbors. I also have very vague...

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Because this past Sunday didn't feel like a Sunday--I was at a soccer game, not at the usual soccer game time--I've had no sense of where in the week we are! I keep thinking we're maybe at the end of the week, or the weekend. It's really been mixing me up. Anyway not a whole lot out of the ordinary today. School for the kids, computer work for the adults, broken up by a few errands I had to run. Oh, we went out to lunch with our guest who's...

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Family pictures! Big fish!

We finally got our family pictures back. Super excited. Plus I got a new headshot--way overdue since my previous one was from 2017. We did these in exchange for letting her use our pictures for her portfolio. If anyone needs a photographer in the French Riviera, here's her contact info:Kirstie | Head PhotographerClassico Portraitsclassicoportraits.comWhatsapp: +39 327 414 5165Eric caught a huge fish today (and a little one)! He was so excited. It's a sériole (Amberjack) and it makes delicious ceviche, which will be dinner tomorrow. It weighed in at 8 lbs...

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Happy 16th birthday Dio!

We had the usual reading of the birth story this morning, then opening presents (this year--a nice 3-piece suit, button-down shirt, pair of shorts, and short-sleeve shirt). Ivy and then Inga had games so half the family was gone between noon and 8 pm. I went with Dio to change sizes on a few of the suit items, and Inga and Zari came along, too. Birthday dinner and cake were a bit haphazard since Eric and Inga were still gone. But we all had time for a late move (The...

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Zari's statistics exam went well--she finished early and said it was all very easy and doable. She also had to take an English language exam online today (for her application to McGill--her paperwork won't satisfy their requirement for English proficiency despite her being a native English speaker!). Those of us at home this evening watched Flow, which was fantastic and also left us with so many unanswered questions. It's Dio's 16th birthday tomorrow! Wow! createSummaryAndThumb("summary3877812496491676753"); Read more ... ...

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Zari had a big law exam today and felt pretty good about it, considering how difficult it was. She's now studying for a statistics exam tomorrow morning. Gorgeous sunny spring weather today. Inga came home saying: "It's way too hot!" (Only 22 C but we've had relatively cool weather for a good while now.) Inga mixed up a cocoa-mango-honey-sea salt-aloe vera mask that she, Ivy, and I tried on. It smelled like we had chocolate frosting on our faces! A bit of a pain to wash off, though. createSummaryAndThumb("summary8668531816878286304"); Read more ......

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Egg Wars: Trump v Canada

I lost more than 3 pounds overnight due to sweating so much from my fever! I'm feeling about 75% percent better by this evening so I should be all good tomorrow. Zari has a big test for a law class that she's stressing over. It's terribly boring so that doesn't help having to memorize a semester's worth of information down to the smallest minutiae. We did egg wars tonight, finally. The final match was between Trump and Canada. Trump cheated but Canada ultimately won! createSummaryAndThumb("summary2216780095737024074"); Read more ... ...

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Sick

One minute I was fine, a few minutes later this afternoon I was DOWN with an intense fever/chills/body ache. I crawled into bed and haven't left except for the occasional trip to the WC. Our grant writer is submitting a huge federal grant today, $4 million over 4 years. Fingers crossed! To distract myself, I started reading Terry Pratchett's Discworld series, which surprisingly I have never read. I don't know how that happened because in middle & high school, I would often read 1-2 books per day! Bonne nuit! createSummaryAndThumb("summary6294013561672911517"); Read more...

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Easter holiday for the kids...we slept in, ate French toast (pain perdu) and used up most of our extra bread. I've been really busy helping our grant writer as she prepares a massive federal grant application. Also working on some big research projects, doing captions, etc. Freeze Family Foot was fun tonight. Ivy had a panic moment because she couldn't find one of her school books. We went to the car--not there. Finally we tracked it back to church, where she had left it. We finished the last episode of Wheel...

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We had a bit of an unorthodox Easter. We did some of the usual things (decorating Easter eggs, (chocolate) Easter egg hunt inside our apartment) but skipped the fancy Easter dinner in favor of finishing up leftovers. We'll do the nice meal tomorrow, since the kids are still on holiday. Ivy, Inga, and Eric watched a rugby game to cheer on our friend, a woman from New Zealand whose husband also plays rugby professionally. She plays for fun now--she also has 3 little children! We watched another episode of The...

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What a way to turn 47!

We were out by about 9:30 this morning, heading back home from the Gorges du Verdon. My sister really wanted to do the zipline/ropes course in Villeneuve-Loubet, so we made early afternoon reservations. We were practically the only people in the entire park! It was amazing. And very challenging--I had forgotten how much effort some of the stations took. Our family plus the oldest cousin did the most difficult course, with 40 different stations. Many of them are rock climbing up sheer cliffs with just a few pieces of rebar...

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A perfect day in the lower gorge

Clear and sunny all day. We were out the door at 9 am. We had a 40 minute drive to the start of the lower gorge in Quinson. We had a 10 km hike along the bottom of the gorge, following an old canal that is no longer in service. At the halfway point, right before the path turned and started going up the side of the canyon, we went through a long tunnel (some of the canal is open and some is tunneled through the rocks). Because of the recent...

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Circuit panoramique des Gorges du Verdon

Despite rain half the day, we had a super outing. We let the kids sleep in and had a slow morning. We were on the road at noon, heading from Aiguines towards Castellane. We drove along the length of the Gorges du Verdon on the Rive Gauche (on a map, the southern side of the canyon). It was...astounding. I've been to the US Grand Canyon and while it was enormous, it was so big that you couldn't ever see the river. And it was all dry and brown. This canyon...

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Grand Canyon of Europe

We're spending 4 days at the Gorges du Verdon, the largest canyon in Europe. It's only a 2-hour drive away from us, and I can't believe we've never gone in 10+ years! (Well, I can believe--soccer makes it hard to get away). Unfortunately it's been extremely cold and rainy and today was 100% rain all day long. That didn't phase us, though. We still got out and even did a little hike. We drove past Lac de Ste-Croix (brilliant turquoise water, even in gloomy rain and mist) and caught a...

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A pain in the eyes

My eye exercise class leaves me with headaches. It's normal and goes away by the next day. But it's sure annoying! We're packing to visit the Gorges du Verdon for 4 days. Unfortunately it's been cold and rainy and the forecast says more of the same. We'll hike as much as we can. Zari finished her last day of university classes. She has lots of exams between now and June, but no more classes! I can't believe how quickly that went. createSummaryAndThumb("summary3835538548551833744"); Read more ... ...

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I felt feverish last night but a bit more functional during the day today. But I opted to stay home while my sister took her family and Ivy and Dio to Eze, Villa Kerylos, and Villefranche. Not much else noteworthy to report...need to get to bed! createSummaryAndThumb("summary2701695072397682263"); Read more ... ...

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Ivy had a tournament all day. I went with her in the morning and stayed until Eric arrived at around 12:30 pm. I was so cold by time he arrived. Despite dressing in a thick sweater and a jacket over that, I couldn't stay warm (it's hard to when you're sitting still for hours). When I left, they had tied 2 games (0-0 and 1-1). They had several more afterwards and ended up winning 3rd place, scoring 3-2 in the last game. Ivy scored one goal in that final game. I...

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Cousins!

My sister, her husband, and their 4 kids arrived yesterday evening from California. We did little excursions here in Nice today: Château, beach, coulée verte. We had a bigger excursion planned but their family slept until mid-morning. Dio is flying home and Inga and her cousin (2 days older than her) are picking him up at the airport. We had to push them out the door and reassure them that they could do it and figure it out. We made a huge batch of sushi for dinner, and I got...

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A Day At the Museum

Dio went to the British Museum today with his cousins. It's a Freeze Family First. I've only been in London once for 1.5 days back when Zari was a baby and we were interviewed on GMTV about her birth. It was quite the whirlwind. We walked all over but didn't go inside anything. He says the most interesting thing so far has been the Tube. He's never been in a huge metro system before (excluding when he was in Paris as a 1-year-old). I had a productive work day that began...

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Buckingham Palace

Dio flew to London by himself today to meet up with his cousins, aunt, and uncle. He and Eric had to get up at 4 am for a super early flight. They visited Buckingham palace today, ate delicious Indian food, and were watching the Minecraft movie when I last hear from him. Crazy that he is off in another country having adventures! Our big adventure for the day was finally receiving our countertops and backsplash. The delivery company refused to drop them off in front of our building with the...

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Lots of soccer, lots of friends, lots of fun

Everyone but Ivy had a soccer game this morning through early afternoon. I went to Inga's. Her team won 10-0 and I was filming to try to catch Inga scoring a goal. Somehow I missed her goal, which was the first one of the game! She was frustrated because she was on midfield during the first half but then put on defense during the second half, even though she was clearly not needed on defense. It was a weak team and Cavigal had possession most of the time. Dio's team...

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First swim

We got together with some friends of ours, a family from New Zealand. He's a professional rugby player here in Nice. They have 3 kids ages 2 and up. Ivy and Inga adore their two youngest girls and the feeling is definitely mutual! The littlest one reminds me of Boo from Monsters Inc. We had a late lunch together at our apartment and then headed to the beach. We walked a bit further down to the area where there is some sand (volleyball pits during the summer and in the...

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I started the day with a "coffee group" with some of my friends. It's so nice to sit at a cafe and catch up with each other's lives. Then I got to work in a serious way, hammering away at a huge grant application that we're trying to put together before the deadline. I had several meetings as well. We're officially on school vacation for the next 2+ weeks! We're doing things with friends both tomorrow and Sunday and I'm super excited for socializing and a break from work. createSummaryAndThumb("summary8089469175250330412"); Read more...

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Aabenraa, Denmark

I'm back from a short trip to Aabenraa, Denmark! 🇩🇰 I was there for the Upright Breech Seminar on April 2nd to observe and write up a conference report. (You can read it here if you're interested: https://www.breechwithoutborders.org/aabenraa) I flew direct to Copenhagen and then caught a 3-hour train to the nearest train station in Rødekro. The hospital is actually in Rødekro and not Aabenraa proper, so I stayed in a hotel just a few blocks from the train station. I had a 50-minute walk in the morning to get to...

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Eric got back from LA with no major issues and went straight to Freeze Family Foot! We had orthodontist appointments, parent-teacher conferences, and (for me) tons of meetings. createSummaryAndThumb("summary5148004114706697487"); Read more ... ...

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We share a single parking spot inside a garage with another car that belongs to a friend, so every time we have to get the car out, we have to get his car out, pull ours out, and back his in. I managed to do this myself today, not without a lot of stress. It's a complicated space to back into (several curves around concrete pillars, and it's really dark and you have to go in backwards). Phew. I never want to do that again but I survived. Dio had...

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Coming and going

We had one set of Le Chateau guests leave this morning and another check in this evening. Ivy's sleepover group left at noon, leaving behind a bit of a mess and lots of great memories. And one very tired Ivy, who took a nap in the afternoon! Zari and Dio watched Mickey 17 this afternoon. I had several things going on so I decided not to go with them. Inga had a soccer game in Antibes, and the transportation was complex. She took a tram to a stop near the airport,...

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Eating rotten wood, leaves, and mushrooms

Ivy is having a birthday sleepover with 5 friends (she wanted more but we had to limit it due to limited sleeping spaces!). They are staying in Le Catamaran and having a great time, from all the thumping and giggling we're hearing. She helped me make the darling cake: a wood stump with toadstools, oyster mushrooms growing on the side of the log, and ivy leaves. We tried all sorts of things to dye the white chocolate for the leaves green and nothing worked: oil dyes, powdered dyes, matcha powder,...

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Eye exercise class

I found an antique desk and chair for the far side of the kitchen, where I had left space for my "office." The desk was 3 cm too wide for the space. Never fear! I can make it work! I measured, double measured, and then got out my power tools and trimmed the top of the desk (keeping in mind that the walls are not square, so I was cutting at an angle). I cut it perfectly with 1 mm of tolerance. I have to sand, stain, and seal the...

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Happy 12th birthday Ivy!

We started the morning off with the reading of her birth story and opening presents (Olympique de Lyon soccer jersey, shoes, cyanotype kit, and a purse from my mom). We had several people coming and going to soccer practices this evening. We weren't all back together until 10:30 pm! We waited until most people were home at 9:30 and then had late night cake and candles and singing. She's having a sleepover this weekend so we'll have party planning and cake baking and all that fun stuff. Tonight's cake was...

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Late night filming

Zari and I are up well past midnight working on college application stuff! (Not initial applications, but post-admission stuff). The last step was to film a video response to a discussion question, 1-2 minutes long, so evaluators can see how she might be in a classroom setting. We have one hour to do it and we'll get it done with 15 minutes to spare. It was our last day with my parents. They leave at 4 am tomorrow. We're already looking forward to their return next January. We had a...

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The day started with pancakes and ended with swing dancing and rain (but not in the rain!). We slept in and woke up at various times, me first and the last two kids at 9:40 when I roused them out of bed. We made pancakes mid-morning. We finished the last episode of Night Sky and we are very sad there is no season 2. Now we need to find something else to watch. Eric brought Ivy to a soccer game mid-afternoon, which her team won 8-2, with Ivy scoring 2 goals. I went...

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You can't beat free

I found a dresser via the online classifieds that was originally listed for 30 Euros. Then the seller said--"tell you what, I'm cleaning out my grandpa's apartment. I'll just give it to you for free." I figured that was pretty low risk! And it's actually very pretty and in good shape! Eric and I picked it up today and put it in the bedroom of Le Chateau. Now there is finally a dresser and an armoire! Crazy wind today. All of the parks were closed, shutters were banging, roof tiles and...

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I started the day off with a run (sprint intervals) around the port and back. I'm glad I got out. I've just been so unmotivated lately, in part because I have so much work that it feels hard to justify taking time away to exercise. But the work will never be done, no matter how fast I complete my to-do list. I made Toulouse sausages roasted with fennel, mustard, thyme, and red wine. French comfort food. We also had aubergines à la provençale for our vegetable. It's very close to...

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My parents have more visitors, although this family is staying at their own Airbnb since they are a family of 5. They arrived early in the morning and I joined them for lunch at our favorite restaurant, L'eau de Vie. So delicious! I had lots of meetings sprinkled throughout the day. We took family pictures in the late afternoon with an Australian photographer who has recently moved here from Italy. She was looking for families to photograph to add to her portfolio. I'm excited to see the pictures! Inga made the first...

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Earthquake

Well, that was exciting--we had an earthquake in Nice this evening! Nothing super strong (magnitude 4.1) but it's the first one I've ever felt in my life. Zari was in class and she said the auditorium windows began to rattle and the building shook. She thought at first it was an explosion. The other kids and Eric were at soccer and are super disappointed that they missed it--they were driving at the time. Zari got really sick yesterday (fever, chills, body aches, headache, sore throat) and spent most of the day...

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Fun with family finances

I used Mint intermittently, but for the past several decades I've mostly done our family finances the old-fashioned way: Excel and/or calculators. But after doing taxes this last year, I decided it was time to level up and find a tool that would help me keep track of and categorize everything. Now I am really missing Mint--it was free and more than functional for what I needed. This weekend I've been on the hunt for finance tracking software. Free would have been nice but there are very few totally free...

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Three halves

I went to Ivy's soccer game at Cavigal, which was a friendly match between the U11 and U13 girls. They had one half, then a short halftime break, then the second half. After that was done, I figured the game was over. But none of the parents were leaving the bleachers. Weird. Then everyone went back on the field and played a third half! I was so confused! Turns out that they kept switching up the teams after each 25-minute half, so it was like 3 mini games. No matter what team...

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I only had like 4 meetings today! Haha. More rain today. Soccer games tomorrow for Inga and Ivy and Eric. Zari and Dio and I will probably go to another movie! We got a "panier surprise" via 2Good2Go--I haven't done this in a while--and it was excellent! 6 pastries, 1 fruit/yogurt/granola cup, 1 large whole grain baguette, 2 smaller baguettes, 3 large sandwiches, and 1 large salade Niçoise...for 4 Euros total! I should do this more often. createSummaryAndThumb("summary5871464568933531405"); Read more ... ...

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6 meetings

I had 6 meetings scheduled today from 10:30 am - 10:30 pm. Phew! Definitely a record day, or close to it, for me. I got enough motivation to do my sprint intervals this morning. And we had sun! Rain arrived early evening but it was glorious to have hours of sunlight. And dry laundry. createSummaryAndThumb("summary8348453470646215053"); Read more ... ...

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I'm so tired that I can't even think of what to write. Soccer afternoon for half the family. Lots of computer-based work for me, much of it feeling like swimming against the current (trying to figure things out but with slow progress). I have meetings all day and into the late evening tomorrow! I need to make sure I exercise or otherwise get outside. createSummaryAndThumb("summary5434912866431430344"); Read more ... ...

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Best in show

Zari's drawing of Ivy was submitted to an art show at our public library. Zari's drawing won 1st place... AND, Tri-Kappa Choice... AND, Best in Show. We just got the news today. More rain today. Dio, Inga, and Eric came back from soccer practice totally soaked. I'm doing laundry but it will be wetter after I hang it up! My parents and their visitors will be in Italy for a week, and unfortunately the forecast is several centimeters of rain each day! Normally the weather is sunny and gorgeous this...

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My brain is really foggy tonight due to fasting. I'm definitely feeling it more than usual today! I had work-related errands this morning (and I saw the sun!). Eric and I took a walk in the afternoon before the rain started up again. We had to cancel Freeze Family Foot. Ivy got really frustrated this evening because she wanted to "do" something (make/craft). We got out all sorts of craft supplies but we either didn't have all of the supplies for a project, or she tried something and it didn't work...

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Wind and rain

All of the city parks were closed today because of the wind. It wasn't extraordinarily windy. We always laugh when things close down because of wind. It started raining mid-afternoon and hasn't stopped. We have two loads of laundry getting washed again outdoors on the lines. Oh well, the price we pay for living here. Zari played in the rain and they tied 0-0, which is a vast improvement over some of their losses. We all ate together with my parents and their visitors: green beans, Tuscan butter gnocchi, and...

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While Eric, Ivy, and Inga had a super soccer Saturday and were gone all day until 6 pm, the other half of us had a nice lazy day. Well, lazy for the kids. I did taxes! I got them off by early afternoon and there was much rejoicing. Then the 3 of us went to a movie. Zari has a Pass Culture, which gives her several hundred dollars towards cultural events, books, performances, movies, etc. She and Dio went on her pass and I bought a ticket. We saw "A...

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Taxes

On top of all my other duties, I've been doing our taxes. It's not an easy feat because we have so many expenditures and receipts to track and of course I'm doing it all by hand. But...it's almost done and ready to send off to our tax person! Dinner was sauteed vegetables and hamburgers (Ivy's request) and some cookies I found at Aldi. Fasting day for me so I got to prep but not eat! Dio's soccer cleats came completely apart. After multiple gluings, they could not be resuscitated so he...

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My day:

yawn run shower work taxes meetings dinner socialize read write yawn createSummaryAndThumb("summary5353631253823420689"); Read more ... ...

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My parents have their second set of visitors. They'll be hosting guests for almost the rest of their stay! We all ate dinner together, managing to cram 10 people around our dining table. Inga's flooring in the back of her room has 2 coats of finish installed. I'll see if it needs a third coat tomorrow. Then we're mostly wrapped up for home improvement projects this year, except for the kitchen counters and perhaps some repairs in the staircase and common areas. Maybe. We keep saying we want to get...

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Ivy woke up feeling much better. She was so relieved because her class had a Carnaval party and people could dress up. She was a spear fisher, dressed in a wetsuit, diving mask, weight belt, accroche poisson (with paper fish attached!), and flippers. She won a prize for the most original costume. I got the flooring in the back of Inga's room done--first I had to fix the wood cleats to the wall with threaded rods, then fit and glue the plywood in place. We were going to install hardwood...

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Happy 14th birthday, Inga! (yesterday)

We had a busy weekend and birthday. On Saturday, both girls had soccer games. Then we had a HUGE gathering at our house with 4 other families and all of their kids for a potluck dinner. It was incredibly fun and incredibly noisy. We all then walked together to the beach to watch the burning of the king and the fireworks. Then yesterday, Inga's birthday, we started the day with a pancake breakfast. Dio then had a soccer game in the morning (winning 3-0, which I watched). Zari had a...

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Many Zoom meetings today...comme d'hab! I captured a candid camera video of Inga and Dio goofing around speaking with very bad accents. 3 out of 4 kids had soccer today. Oh--great news--Zari got accepted into Trinity College at the University of Toronto with a first year scholarship that would cover tuition and a bit more! She also is accepted at the University of Ottawa. All of the other places she's still waiting to hear back from, but so far these are both excellent choices and very interesting to her. It's still going to be...

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We've made some delicious cookies yesterday and today: apricot butter cookies (like my German grandma used to make), also with another flavor variation of red currant filling, plus thin mint cookies. My day was filled with breech work (lots of meetings, working on the video analysis project & a new twin publication, video captioning), plus treating some mold that was growing on some spots on the walls. I did go running, which I haven't done for a while. Dinner was roasted potatoes with creamy herbed pork chops. Lots of homework...

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Back to normal life...7 am wakeup, school, work. We had some tired children this morning! I got a lot of things checked off on my to-do list, which was satisfying. Zari has her appointment at the Prefecture tomorrow morning, for which we had to print almost 150 pages of supporting documents. Our attorney advised us to go along with her; I'm hoping they'll let us in since the "convocation" doesn't name us specifically, just her. They can be like that at the Prefecture. createSummaryAndThumb("summary1966459990117054326"); Read more ... ...

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Some wins, some losses

Everyone but Ivy had soccer games today. I went to Dio's this morning, and his team won 3-0. Inga and Zari had afternoon games. Inga's team won 3-1 with Inga scoring one beautiful goal. Zari's team lost 5-0. My mom made an amazing dinner, which I couldn't eat because today is my fasting day. It will be so good tomorrow! Mixed greens with beets, goat cheese, pistachios, pomegranate seeds, and a homemade dressing Roasted butternut squash Lemon basil salmon Molten lava cakes with whipping cream I'm feeling a bit fuzzy headed but that's probably...

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Home

Except for a super long line at the Mont Blanc tunnel, we had an uneventful drive home with no stops required. Lots of goofiness in the car, sometimes too much noise (from Dio and Inga), many snacks consumed. I'll deal with putting all of the ski gear away tomorrow. Right now our living room is stuffed with bags of equipment. I forgot that I'd turned the water heater on vacation mode, so we have a lineup of kids who want to shower but no hot water. Two soccer games tomorrow,...

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Chamonix day 6

We had a lovely last day of skiing. Sunny, calm, and probably the warmest day yet. The bottom slopes were like skiing on a "granita" (slushy drink)! We stayed up top as much as possible and the snow was still good almost everywhere. No one got injured, which is always a stressor during ski vacation. I feel like I'm holding my breath until day 6 has passed and then I can finally relax :) Pictures at the very top with Mont Blanc in the background createSummaryAndThumb("summary53043470094021461"); Read more ... ...

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