Joe has family who has 202 acres of land in Mariposa, CA, not too far from Yosemite. They were kind enough to let us camp there and even had picnic tables and barbecues set up near a swimming hole. It was like having our own private campground and was great fun!

In this video you can see Sophia and Kai sliding into the swimming hole. They can, apparently, spend the whole afternoon doing this. Let me tell you, that water was COLD!

Julien actually spent most of the time outside of the water until we introduced him to a smaller pool that became his own private playground.

And here is Julien as he embarks on a s’mores food coma. Because if you are camping, you must eat s’mores. I think it’s a law, or something.

because I made it myself. I am so stoked!

My aunt and I were in a fabric store last week when I mentioned that I had wanted to make one of the skirts in the Sew What! Skirts book. The only problem was that I hadn’t figured out which one, yet, so I didn’t know how much fabric I would need. I was quite content to browse through the fabric and come back later.

My aunt was not. She pointed out that one of the fabrics that we liked was on sale and would soon be out and that I needed to buy it RIGHT NOW.

So the next thing I knew, I was walking out of the store with 2 yards of fabric and no idea what I was going to do with it.

But having the fabric at home was quite an inspiration because it kept calling to me to do something creative with it. I spent all day last Wednesday working on it and I’m really happy with the result.

I should note that it wouldn’t have taken me nearly as long if I was fluent in sewing and my personal sewing machine. Every step that I went through to make this skirt required reading the Sew What book, The Sewing Bible by Ruth Singer and the manual to my sewing machine. I’m assuming that my next project will go much quicker — provided that I don’t wait several years to pull out the sewing machine again.

Now, what will that next project be???

This is the artwork that Julien brought home from preschool yesterday.

The kids painted their taxi and then told the teacher where it was going, which she wrote down. Sophia had said that her taxi was going to the beach. If you look at the photo above you can see that Julien’s artwork says:

Mon taxi va à la prison. My taxi is going to the prison.

This gave Joe and I pause, and the refrain to that song “Dad I’m in jail” kept popping into my head.

We were somewhat relieved to learn that Julien had said there were bad guys in his taxi and that they were the ones going to jail, but still. What will this kid think of next?

After it’s been established that I didn’t live in Paris, my new acquaintance will more often than not get that dreamy, faraway look back into their eyes and ask with a sigh, “Did you take cooking classes?”

Me: No. I had young children with me pretty much all the time.

Acquaintance: Oh.

And once again, the dreamy, faraway look goes away rather quickly.

I think it’s pretty funny that so many people seem to think that living in France should be synonymous with taking cooking lessons. I do know at least one person who has done it, but I know a whole lot more who haven’t.

But while I didn’t take cooking classes while living in France, I certainly was schooled in food. This is a country where food is taken seriously. And I mean seriously.

The produce stand where I shopped told me what county my food was grown in — not the country, the county (OK, it did tell me the country if it wasn’t grown in France). There is still a tradition of local farmer’s markets in each village and, of course, the bakeries are amazing.

Those stereotypical photos of a French person with a baguette on their bike or in their bag? Totally true — on any given day you will see people from all walks of life walking (or cycling) along with their baguette tucked under their arm, neatly wrapped in paper.

But I digress.

Between the produce stand telling me what was local and in season and my vast collection of cookbooks, I was able to teach myself quite a bit about cooking. And I am grateful that I was able to do it in a country that has such an impressive food culture. Food is not about refueling in France as it can be in the US. It is meant to be fresh, seasonal and shared with family and friends.

All good lessons to learn, I think.

When I tell a new acquaintance that I used to live in France, they will often get that dreamy, faraway look in their eye and then ask with a sigh, “Did you live in Paris?”

Me: No, I lived in the south, near the border of Italy.

Acquaintance: Oh.

The dreamy, faraway look goes away pretty quickly, like nowhere in France could possibly be as dreamy or as romantic as Paris.

Oh well.

But what I find funny about this exchange is my response. In truth, we lived on the French Riviera, but I don’t want to tell people that. For some reason, it feels like bragging and a bit like false advertising. I mean, we lived in a small town that was a bit inland. We had a toddler and an infant. I say “French Riviera” and even I conjure up images of sipping champagne with celebrities on some expensive yacht in the bay. That was so far away from our reality that it almost doesn’t feel like I lived on the French Riviera (oh, except the weather was nice and the beaches were wonderful)!

So the other day I decided to come clean and the next time someone asked me if I had lived in Paris I told them, no, that I had lived on the French Riviera.

His response?

Acquaintance: I think I hate you now.

Hmmm. I think I’ll just stick with “in the south, near Italy.”

I actually finished this little guy almost a month ago, but I was sending it as a gift to a friend in France and didn’t want to spoil the surprise.

I’ve been working on the garden for several months now, mainly focusing on the vegetable garden. We’ve been feasting on sugar snap peas and carrots for weeks and are now waiting for the tomatoes and zucchini. The tomatoes were actually planted pretty late this year since it has been such a cold summer, but I may have gotten carried away because I planted 8(!) plants. I’ve also recently planted a peach tree, fig tree, raspberries and blueberries.

The kids helped me start the seeds for the tomatoes this spring. The result of that “help” is that I know these are heirloom tomatoes, but I have no idea which type — they’ll either be Black Krims, Sweet Persimmons or Costoluto.

I think I need to start looking up recipes for all of the tomatoes and zucchini that we’ll have in a few weeks!

I started a new running program on a Monday last July and noticed that Jesse was lagging behind a bit. When we went out again on Wednesday, he was lagging a bit more. When we went out on Friday, I realized that I was running at a pretty good clip. Too bad for me that the dog was lagging so far behind that I might as well have been walking with the distance that I was covering! I got so fed up that I stopped, turned around and yanked on Jesse’s leash to get him to keep up with me. His response? He dug his front two paws into the ground and yanked back in the opposite direction. He almost made it out of his collar!

We kept running, but he always lagged behind and I would marvel at other people who had dogs that sprinted out in front of them.

The next time that we went to the vet, she called Jesse fat. I mentioned that we had started running and she responded with, “Oh he probably doesn’t like that at all because he’s so heavy.” It had never occurred to me that his weight would be a factor (and I was shocked to learn that he was up around 90 pounds), but we put him on a diet dog food and as he slimmed down a bit he started to keep up a little better — still not great, but better.

Then we moved back to California and he started losing his hair. He also developed a nasty skin infection and was finally diagnosed with hypothyroidism. This condition can cause weight gain, hair loss and an inability to maintain temperature. We now suspect that this had been going on for quite a while. The poor guy.

So he’s been on his medication for a while now and all of his hair has grown back. He has slimmed down to around 70 pounds and he once again jumps on everyone who walks in the door and licks people incessantly (those last two I could do without, oh well).

And it makes me smile to see him out ahead of me whenever we go for a run.

We were driving on the freeway in Ohio and had just run over some bands in the road to warn of an upcoming turn.

Sophia: What was that?

Me: Those were bands in the road. They make noise to make sure that we know that there is a big turn coming up.

Sophia: That’s no fun!

Me: No, I guess not.

Sophia (turning to Julien): Julien, do you know what is fun? Wiggling!

Sophia: Let’s wiggle!

And they both proceeded to wiggle from their heads to their toes (as much as they could while strapped into their car seats) and all I could think was that wiggling was indeed more fun and that maybe we all need to wiggle a bit more!

We just got back from a 4th of July/family reunion trip to Ohio. We had a lovely time visiting with family and experiencing many firsts:

First pony rides.

First time milking a cow.

First baseball game for the kids (and the first in more than 20 years for me).

First sips of champagne (just kidding, of course).

But the trip was capped off with the biggest bottle of champagne that I’ve ever seen and I’m happy to report that I did my part to make sure that it didn’t go to waste.