Saturday, December 26, 2009

Moving made easy!


Reader comment: "...you guys have done it again! What an ingenious way to streamline your moving and packing all at once!"

(Thank you once again, Bjorcks! You totally understand!
)

Friday, December 25, 2009

Evan's first Christmas...

...was filled with moving boxes! This is our third Christmas in a row where we have been moving, and so Christmas has felt more far away than ever this year. Somehow, the Christmas spirit still found us today, though, and we took the time to take the following photo...


We can't wait to be back in the USA soon. The best Christmas present of all will be to introduce Evan to our family!


A few things Evan can do for his first Christmas: crawl (I predicted he would be crawling by Christmas, and he's officially moving forward on hands and knees this week), sit up on his own, pull himself up to a full stand, and talk baby talk. His favorite thing to say today was "mimmimmimmimm..."


We hand over the keys to our apartment on Wednesday, then we're in a hotel for a bit, and we fly out on January 9th. With 3 large duffels, 3 carry-on items, 2 cats, and Evan, Mark, and me, we'll be a traveling circus! Wish us luck!

Wednesday, December 2, 2009

Evan and the Carousel, the sequel...

What I didn't tell you last time about Evan's first ride on a merry-go-round...


As our friends the Bjorcks (the people who snapped this photo) put it, "...and then, Mark showed Evan a REALLY good time by magically freeing his stallion and taking to the skies!"

Sunday, November 29, 2009

Evan at the Christmas market

Yesterday we had a very fun afternoon at a Christmas market here in Lyon. Evan had his first ride on a Carousel...




Mark and I were the only two adults on the merry-go-round, and I think we were smiling more and having more fun than any of the kids (including Evan, who kept a dead-pan face the entire time)! Evan bounced on Mark's knee during the entire ride, so combined with the up-and-down of the carousel horse, he had a fun ride. He definitely required bouncing, though, because it was too tame for him without it!

I must say....Christmas is twice the magic when you have a little one to share it with!

There was an exhibit at the market of characters from various children's stories. They had a cast of mannequines there, dressed up as various characters. There was a distinct difference in how the characters were portrayed, though. In America, the male characters would have been muscular and have a heroic posture, and the female characters would have had an appearance of kindly innocence. That's not what we saw yesterday!

First, we have Spiderman, with really bad posture and anything but super-human strength.

Next, let me present the tall, leggy, and lost Alice-in-Wonderland.

Here we have the sassy and not-so-little Red Riding Hood.

And finally, my favorite, here is a sexy Snow White, who is seducing the dwarves with her apple...

Mark and I walked home with a great big "HUH???" in our minds...

One final photo...Mark and I noticed the following billboard yesterday and thought it was hilarious:

They sure didn't let Evan have a passport photo like this!

Sunday, November 22, 2009

Evan's first Thanksgiving...

...can be seen on Kari's blog!

http://jkmassonfrance.blogspot.com/2009/11/le-thanksgiving.html

...and more phtoos here:




Thanks to Kari and Jonathan for hosting such a great meal! Some of those recipes will go down in history, I know it. I can't wait to make Kari's sweet potato recipe for all you Baxters/Butlers! Mark and I were sad going home, knowing this would be our last Thanksgiving with our expat "family." There is no other community like it, and I think that will be the thing I miss the most about France. Thanksgiving is extra special, living in a foreign country, because people have to come together and create it for themselves. That's the perfect petri dish for thankfulness!

We're deep into our moving plans, but I still have a ton of blogworthy stuff to post. Be back soon!

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

A whole new level of mess...

Evan and I sat down to have lunch this afternoon. I prepared some squash for him, and he spit it out faster than anything else I've seen (I was quite surprised he could spit something out with such agility, actually). I wanted to enjoy my lunch, but I knew I would have no hope of that unless I found something else for Evan to munch on too. Otherwise, Evan would loudly tell me all about his displeasure. So, I took one bite out of the perfectly ripe, juicy pear I was saving for dessert, and then handed it to Evan, thinking he would only nibble a bit. Oh dear, was I wrong!!...

The pear was so ripe, that it was perfectly sweet and perfectly squishable at the same time. This was a magic combination for Evan!

He loved squishing the pear his hands, putting his hands in his mouth, and then spreading the rest all over his high chair.

Evan's wearing both squash and pear.

Content

Round two...

...fascinating...

Where did it go?

Over the edge...

...and onto the floor (barely missing the file with important documents that silly Mommy put there).

After a half hour of scrubbing the floor and furniture and a change of clothes for Evan, life was back to normal (whatever that is)!!


Thursday, November 12, 2009

Evidently Evan...

Evan has been growing by leaps and bounds, even though I've been behind in blogging. Last week Mark and I weighed him on our scale at home, and he was 1/5th of a pound shy of 22 pounds! Yes, our 7-month old bouncing bundle of boy is nearly 22 pounds! He's making very good progress on crawling too. He lunges forward and reaches far with his hands, often resting on his hands and knees for a few seconds. When on his tummy, he pushes with his hands, which causes him to go backwards. These things, in combination with rolling, can usually get him where he wants to go (and quite far from the starting point). I'm scratching my head, wondering how our house can be baby proof when we're trying to move! Argh!

Here are a few exerpts of Evan's adventures...

Here is Evan wearing an outfit from his Grandma and Grandpa Baxter. The tag says "12 months" on it. Most of Evan's clothing now is 12-18 months, with the odd 9-months here and there.

The hat his cousin Jenna made for him still fits (barely)!

He likes clacking blocks together, but even more, he likes playing with the container!

A new winter coat

So cute in his overalls!

Superman pajamas!!

Evan was born on the exact same day as this beautiful baby girl (about 8 hours later, in fact). I am friends with her mother, and we would have never predicted that we would have our babies on the same day. Evan met her for the first time yesterday, and as soon as he was in close proximity to her, he immediately started trying to take off her socks (something he does multiple times a day with his own socks).

Evan looks like Santa Claus with his white "beard" (only dressed in blue).

Photo taken just today with our friend Xavier. The last time Xavier saw Evan can be seen if you click here. Xavier was impressed with how much Evan had grown since the last time they saw each other!

In other news, we bought our plane tickets back to the USA recently. We fly out of France on January 10th. That will be exactly 2 years and 1 day since the day we landed here.

Up next, Michelle and Dan's adventures in Lyon!!

Sunday, November 8, 2009

Germany

At the end of September, we flew over to Stuttgart, Germany to visit some good friends. We had a wonderful time!


We were greeted with a glass of my (now) new favorite beverage---carbonated water mixed with apple juice. So refreshing. Evan loved swinging in this swing, and we passed a couple of hours catching up with Valerie and Denis. (Photo taken by Valerie)

The next day we went into town. This is part of the old center of Stuttgart.


A family photo in front of the New Castle.


Evan smiles at Valerie...

Valerie smiles at Evan... I met Valerie during my junior year of high school. She was an exchange student who came all the way to Glenns Ferry, Idaho (of all places on this planet!) to live for a year. She gave Glenns Ferry a much-needed dose of the outside world, and Glenns Ferry gave her a second home in return. It was an incredible treat to see her in the context of her own original home, and I like Germany and Valerie all the more because of it!

Evan bounces on castle cobblestones.

The next day we went to the super sleek and modern Mercedes Museum.

There were SO MANY awesome cars there (enough for 20 blog posts!). These are just a couple of my favorite.


Yes, it was one of the cars used in the movie.

I loved how this car drove. Very smooth handling... :)


Next we went to Oktoberfest! Here we are in front of one of the beer tents.

We took turns going inside to see what was going on. When I was in, half of the people in the tent were on tables dancing to the song YMCA!

The next day we went to the old town of Esslingen.

We loved this church.


In the choir stalls we found a face carved into each of the armrests.


Valerie snapped this shot of us trying to entertain our little boy.

In the town square with Val. I'm ashamed to say that we somehow left without getting any photos with Denis (Val's husband). Scandalous (please give him our apologies, Val)!



Evan discovers the fun of bouncing in fall leaves.

We met Tiffany, Patrick, and Nicola the next day. They were our next door neighbors in Altadena. We had such a great time with them, commiserating over the joys and heartaches of living in a foreign country, and reminiscing about our time as neighbors (we have some pretty funny stories). Tiffany cooked a delicious dinner for us too (thanks, you guys!!!).

When Tiffany was holding Evan (photo above), we gazed out at this perfectly situated church.

We remember when Nicola was born (just before our 1st wedding anniversary), so it was quite a moment to see him holding Evan!



On our last day, Val gave us a tour of her university. Years ago, when she visited us in California, she gave us t-shirts with this building printed on them. It was quite fulfilling to see the actual building! It overlooks a beautiful botanical park.

Thanks, Val, for making us feel so welcome and for taking us everywhere. You were an awesome host!