Chamonix and doppelgängers and swimming

Our school year is winding down--only one week left! Eric and I are already getting nostalgic and a bit depressed about leaving France. We fly home on August 5th and won't be back until early May next year.

At a school festival

Dio trying to pop a water balloon with a pair of scissors

Facepainting

Property managing

We found an American family to rent our apartment from the end of August until the end of April. They have three kids ages 7,9, and 12. We're hoping they will adapt well to life here. None of them speak French, but they decided to put their kids in the French public schools (private international schools were too expensive).

During the first few weeks of August when we're gone, we already have the place booked as a vacation rental. So we are really glad that everything is taken care of until we come back. Crossing our fingers, of course, that we have no emergencies!

We've had our share of emergencies back home with our various properties. Our boiler back home--almost brand new--went out during the worst cold snap this winter and didn't get replaced for 2 weeks. In our rental properties we've also had a leaking roof (fortunately, an easy repair) and a caving foundation wall (not so easy of a repair, but at least it seems to have stabilized enough that our repair people, will be working on it as soon as the rain dries up).

Chamonix

Eric drove to Chamonix, near Mont Blanc, to visit a writer's workshop. He gave a reading and had a blast meeting the authors who were teaching the workshop, including Cheryl Strayed (author of Wild, which was recently made into a movie starring Reese Witherspoon) and Pam Houston.

He used Blablacar, a ridesharing service similar to Uber, and was able to find people to ride with him both there and back. One was an artist who lives in Chamonix, and the other was a French Canadian woman. I was glad that he had company-- I always worry when he's driving long distances alone with no one to make sure he stays awake.

Meeting Ryxi

While Eric was gone, I hosted some unexpected guests. I know a shaman/earth healer named Ryxi (aka Renee Shaw in real life) and she just happened to be traveling in the Swiss/Italian Alps not too far from where Eric was. I saw her update about it on Facebook. Turns out she was planning on coming to Nice next, so I invited her and a young woman traveling with her to visit.

They stayed for 3 days, and we had great conversations about religion and the environment. They did an energy healing session on me--why not?--and both of them independently picked up on a hip injury I've had for the past year. Ryxi put a yarn "dreadlock" into Zari's hair in her favorite color, turquoise. Zari's friends love it. So yeah, good times with my new-Age doppelgänger Ryxi.

Swimming

We've been going to the beach almost every afternoon after school. Two weeks ago Eric found a GoPro Hero4 Silver on the ocean floor 60 feet below the surface. It still worked! We've been having fun playing around with the camera and documenting our everyday lives. I put together some of the footage into a little film about our family at the beach. Enjoy!



A random picture of us at church...

A day's catch from spearfishing...