a moment...

Our friends live in a village nearby and the road to get there passes through the most beautiful countryside and farmland.  Recently the fields just exploded with these incredible yellow flowers, so we had to stop and have a moment with the flowers.  Here's a little video and below is a link to more photos.

Click here to see more photos with the flowers.

10k...

Lately Brook and I have been trying to embrace exercise as much as we embrace French wine, bread and cheese (the scales are still heavily tilted toward the latter), so when I saw information about a 10K road race in Fontainebleau, I insisted that we sign up.  I'm not sure either of us was fully prepared for a 10K, but we did it and lived to tell.  It was actually fun because it wound through the center of town and the finish line was directly in front of the big chateau.  

Post-race, looking sweaty but proud of ourselves

The finish line

all the way from tucson...

Max's Papa came all the way from Tucson to visit him!  We had a great time together... Brook and Ric ate dinner at the local restaurant in our village and we (minus Max) also went to a Belgian restaurant for crepes.  The weather cooperated for the most part and it was a really fun visit.

Click here to see pictures of an outing to the park.

trip to chablis...

While my mom was visiting I was able to sneak away to join some friends on a wine tasting excursion to Chablis in the Burgundy region.  It was such a great way to spend a day - the drive to Chablis and around Burgundy alone was beautiful!  As this was my first official wine tasting trip, it was quite an education for me.  After we left the Jean-Marc Brocard vineyard, we went on to visit Vezelay, an ancient town known for its massive cathedral (where the crusades are said to have begun?).  Really amazing.

Click here to see photos.

grammie's visit...

My mom spent the first two weeks of April here and - despite all the rain - we had a fantastic time exploring some nearby towns and generally just relaxing in the French countryside.

Click here to see photos of our afternoon in Moret-sur-Loing.

Click here to see photos of our afternoon in Barbizon.

in the backyard...

We haven't posted anything in a little while because we've been too busy doing fun things with my mom... I'll post some photos of our recent adventures and day trips soon but in the meantime, here is a funny clip of Max with my mom in the backyard.  Enjoy!

in the neighborhood...

Recently I've taken some context photos for those of you interested in catching a glimpse of our village (Bourron-Marlotte) or of Fontainebleau (where INSEAD is).  The links are below.  The weather has been interesting here lately, one hour it could look like it will rain for the rest of the day, the next hour there is bright sun, and occasionally these changes are followed by a random hail storm.  But, it's beginning to change to Spring so there are more flowers everywhere and generally the days are getting warmer (there are some 70 degree days in the forecast for Paris this week!).

Click here to see some photos of Fontainebleau (there are only a few and they are mostly of a day at the fresh market that happens three times each week ... we really are lucky).

Click here to see some photos of Bourron-Marlotte.