A Little Fall Update. And some other stuff.

Well. Hello again!
Apparently my ability to regularly update a blog is lacking. A lot.
But I'm here now. So I'll give you a brief update of our comings and goings.
Olivia is super happy at school. Her social calendar is mind-boggling. After years
of having just one or two girlfriends, though, this is a good thing. It's hard to believe
she's already in 7th grade, and will be 12 in 2 months. Wow! She is playing basketball at school, and also taking dance class. She starts choir in November, and is really looking forward to it :)
Alexandra started at a new school last week. It is the French public school in our village. She LOVES it! We are so thrilled. She has made several new friends and gets to eat in a real lunchroom (where they serve totally weird food like fish steak and strange mushy vegetables!) and she loves going through the line and picking all her stuff. In France, dessert for them is either fruit, yogurt or cheese. To Lexi this is totally normal. Sometimes I forget that she never had the U.S. lunchroom experience-chocolate milk, pizza, ice cream bars, etc. They have basically a four course meal each day, and teaching them how to eat properly is part of the educational experience. So far, she has tried everything they've offered. Her favorite so far was the Chicken Provencal and Basil Gnocchi. She is continuing her Hip-Hop class this year, and her sweet friend Sophie is in her class again, as well as a girl in her new class at school!

As for Teal and I, we survived the 347 hour drive to Portugal for our Annual Staff Conference. He says it was only 21 hours, but I don't believe him. We, along with the children, spent a night in Barcelona (love, love, love that city), then Madrid (ate at an American type food court thing that was awesome) and then drove into some podunk little town on the beach for our conference. I love podunk beach towns. Our time in Portugal was really good, and on the way home we drove through Biarritz, France. Beautiful little city-I'd LOVE to go back.

We are off to a busy Fall already. Both of us are back in French class, which is really good. I finally feel like I'm getting the hang of it, and this time, my class is fun. I have a great teacher and we laugh a lot. Totally different environment than the first year of classes!
We've had gobs of guests, which has been great! We have a little break this month, but are hoping our sweet friends, the Joneses will be with us in November for at least a few nights.

I think that's all for now. If any one is passing through Aix, give us a call!!! We'd love to see you!