Back to our flat in France

Bonjour mes amis,

When we returned from our ten-day trip to Greece and Turkey, our daughter, Natasha, and granddaughtger, Annika, had already arrived (earlier the same day) from England. Our son-in-law, Lawrence, arrived as few days later.

Some of Natasha and Lawrence's friends, Pierre and Jessica (from England; Pierre had also been at UC Santa Barbara with them), had been dog-sitting Niko during our time away and spent a couple of days with us after our return. Great young couple! Pierre is off in two weeks for the Congo where he'll be doing public relations for an NGO named Oxfam.

We are enjoying immensely Natasha, Lawrence and Annika's visit. Our ten-month little granddaughter is, of course, the center of our daily routines these days. She is utterly adorable (as you would expect any doting grandfather to say), crawling all over the place, standing up and sitting herself back down all the time. She works hard at exploring her environment, with an insatiable curiosity about virtually everything and an inborn desire to touch, pull, push and, in some way, handle everything. She's a great sleeper which is a blessing for all of us.

We continue to have sessions with three different conversation partners, each of whom is able to help us in different ways. One of them--Nicole--has invited us to visit her at her family home some 90 minutes from here, which we are planning on doing this week end. Her family home is apparently in a small village with lots of history and appeal.

Fortunately for Yvette and me, Natasha and Lawrence seem to love cooking. They have meals planned for both tonight and tomorrow night's World Cup soccer matches. Tonight it is Holland vs. Uruguay; tomorrow night, Germany and Spain. It's both fun and exciting to see all the cafes on the rues and boulevards with their TVs tuned into World Cup soccer when the games are on. These games bear all kinds of meaning to the participating nations and to the various allegiances of sports fans around the world.

The summer heat is definitely with us here in Aix at this point. We hear that a heat wave has fallen upon the east coast as well over the July 4th weekend. Of course, in Miami, heat is our way of life.

If you haven't already, check out Yvette's blog today for her reflections on a most interesting outing she had with her painting class (her teacher, Monique, is apparently a one-of-a-kind sort of personality, in addition to being a skillful instructor). The class had a picnic/ painting outing more than an hour from Aix ... and all I know is that Niko and I were waiting for Yvette when she arrived home around 12:30 a.m. Apparently a great time was had by all.

As the world turns in Aix-en-Provence. We feel so fortunate to be able to spend this special time with Natasha and her budding-young family from England. Lots to be thankful for and lots to look forward to as well.

A bientot for now ...