Bourg Saint Maurice

Skiing...the only time when, as an adult, you are allowed to wear a slippery nylon onesie (with our without suspenders) in public. Or pants that come up way above your belly button. In fact, it is expected and makes you look like you are totally cool.

This weekend, we went skiing in a little town called Bourg Saint Maurice in the French Alps. We stayed at Brian's co-worker's (Mathieu) chalet. It was what you might call, country rustic! But charming nonetheless.

Friday
I went to ski school for 2 hours and after almost killing my instructor on a blue slope (at one point, he was yelling "Jesus Christ!" while catching me), he advised that I needed 4 more hours of ski school and then just to play a little bit on the protected area. In other words, I failed ski school. So we took a family picture at Les Arcs 1600 (height) to make myself fell better:


While I was at ski school, Brian watched Michael and introduced him to snow as well as sliding down a snow hill on your butt. Both of them liked that. However, it was hard work on Brian.
Saturday
We dropped Michael off at a family friend's of Mathieu's and went off to Sainte-Foy, which we liked much better! They had a great mini slope for beginners which had a little motorized walkway next to it to get you back to the top once you skiied to the bottom. Plus they had a green slope!

It was beautiful there, not very crowded and had lots of Brits eating hotdogs. Here's a view of one of the ski trails in the station:

And here's a picture of Mathieu before he took Brian on a red slope. This resulted in Brian banging up his thumb a little bit, taking a tumble, and losing his skis. Apparently, there was a fork in the trail and as Brian was veering right quite quickly, Mathieu yelled "GO LEFT!". And voila, after a bit too much momentum later, Brian is still alive.

Sunday
We attempted to take Michael back to the same station because it had a fun luge and lots of kiddie things. But as luck would have it, he was extremely cranky and not at all in the mood for the luge or snow. I am not going to go into details about how it was the lowpoint of our trip...but it convinced us that next time we go skiing, we are getting him into the day care at the resort ASAP.

Monday
Departure day. We are sad to go, but a little happy as Michael has not been the most agreeable this trip. All our friends warned us that travelling with a toddler was much harder than travelling with a baby and we didn't understand. Now, we are getting a taste of why!

Anyways, we took pictures on the deck of Mathieu's chalet:
And then had lunch in town and then left to go back to Paris!

We stuffed ourselves FULL of the specialties of Savoie (the region). They are known for their amazing cheese. 3 nights in a row, we ate raclette cheese. This is where you buy a huge half wheel of cheese, place it under a heat lamp and melt the top layer of the cheese. You take a knife and scrape off this top layer onto some boiled potatoes. Repeat. Eat it with a charcuterie (cold meat cuts like prosciuitto and smoked ham), salad, and mini pickles. DIVINE. Who doesn't like potatoes smothered in hot cheese??? WHO???

Another specialty was something called tartiflette. Which involves...you guessed it...cheese and potatoes! It is potatoes baked with lardon (bacon), sour cream, onions, and a regional cheese called reblochon. Cholesterol heaven.

So...the couple we went with spent the entire week in bed sleeping because they were sick with the flu. While they were losing weight, we were putting it on with our melted cheese, potatoes, and bread.

Mmm....I think it was a succesful vacation.

Love,

P

Head Injury

Michael was running, tripped, and ran his head into the foot of my bed. I picked him up and there was blood. Not a lot, but enough to freak me out. So my friend helped me get an ambulance, and I went to the hospital. They said it looked like a superficial wound and to keep an eye on him. If he vomits or cries a lot or has a headache or change in behavior to bring him back to check for bleeding in brain. EEK. But so far, he is acting normally. Keep your fingers crossed! Only 40 more hours of monitoring to go!
He has some adhesive strips on his forehead and over that, a Bob the Builder bandaid.
P

What's it like to have the best husband? It's like waking up and seeing sunlight shine through flower petals. Warm and loved. Here's to you, B.

Too much hair

Phuong didn't tell you that Michael had to get his hair cut because he looked like this:

First Haircut!

Michael had his first haircut today at Sergio Bossi:


Dad came too! Thanks to Dad's "straight across the forehead" haircut, it still looks like Michael had a bowl haircut. Thank goodness today was FREE! ;o)

Michael started picking his nose about 4-5 days ago. Today, he stuck his finger too far up his nose and started to wince, but he kept doing it a couple more times to make sure it didn't feel good. Probably didn't help that he probably shoved some banana bits up there as well.

Michael has added "uh-oh" to his vocabulary too!

I think Bors is gonna be upset when he grows up and realizes we didn't keep a blog for him.

Love,
P

Michael has had a semi interesting month. He started talking! Duck came, then next Dad. But he loves Dad. When Brian comes home, as soon as he hears the lock turn, he runs to the door yelling DaDa Daddada REALLY loudly. He's basically screaming it around the house.

Michael helps out around the house A LOT. I would possibly venture even to say more so than Brian! ;o) Examples:

• He spilled some water in our room, went into the kitchen, grabbed a towel off the hanger, came back and cleaned it up.
• He helps load/unload the washer/dryer.
• He brings me shoes left in the foyer to be put away in the closet (this includes Brian's HUGE shoes).
• He helps to push the vacuum.
• When he sees me mopping, he grabs his washcloth and gets on the floor to help.
• When we come home, he knows the stroller needs to be put away. I found out when I turned around one day and saw the stroller coming right at me towards the closet. But since Michael is smaller, I didn't see him so it just looked like a magical moving stroller.

For an instant today, Michael was QUIET. Like so quiet you gotta go look and make sure he's still alive. So I went to find him and discovered him at the window in our living room watching the rain. He saw the drops falling onto the puddles in our balcony and spent 5-10 minutes just watching. He went from window to window just staring. And when I tried to bend down to look with him, he just pushed me away because he wanted to watch for himself.

THAT was worth a picture, but by the time I grabbed my camera/new lens it was over.

Love,
P

Brian is in the Kitchen

I was at Starbucks about a week ago getting a giant american-sized cup of coffee. I placed my order, and they asked for my name, so I said Brian. And the girl behind the counter, about 20, says, "Where's Brian? Brian is in the kitchen." I gave her a quizzical look so she explained to me that in the English textbooks the French use, when they learn about rooms of the house, Brian is in the kitchen.

I thought that was pretty funny. When I learned German, Elke was drinking erdbeerboule, Jens was playing chess and other assorted, oddly-named Germans were doing their daily activities. So I guess I have a weird English name that French people find amusing.

So I went to work the Monday after and was recounting this story to Augustin, the dude who works in my office. I told him the background of the story and then said how the girl asked me, "Where's Brian?" And without missing a beat, he replies "Brian is in the kitchen!"

Then I was down in Grenoble today for a meeting. During lunch, one of the French guys, about 35, was telling me how had expected me to be French because my name is Besancon (a very French name and name of a city)but was surprised to find out I was american. I said, well my name's Brian, that should be a clue that I'm not French, I mean, I'm in the kitchen. And he shoots back immediately, "and sometimes you open the windows."

Apparently I walk around the house doing normal day to day stuff. I wonder what other kind of stuff I do around the house. I know it doesn't have anything to do with being a handyman.