Me No Write Long Time

THE BLOG IS BACK! Well, it will be shortly. It has been sparse couple of months but I have a good excuse. Really.

First, let me say that I am sitting at the Hotel du Cynge in Paris on Father's Day. I'm here, as I usually am this time of year, grading the Baccalaureate Exam and getting prepared for 3 full days of oral exams at the Lycée International in St. Germain-en-Laye. After a full day of marking exams today I stopped by the FIFA Fan Fest to watch the first half of the Italy-New Zealand match. Here's the view from my seat:
Now for the excuses. I'll just number them to make it easy (in no particular order).

1. As many of you know, I started a doctorate program last December which requires me to travel to Geneva every week. While the courses have been terrific (!!!), the travel and the amount of work has been, well, heavy. Lots of research papers and even a few exams just for fun. But I'm not done with the travel part of the program after 25 trips to Geneva since December 5. As you can imagine, I'm very happy to have this part of the program finished -- as much as I love Geneva!
2. As many of you also know, we have to be out of our house each summer because the owner uses it/rents it during mid-June through early September. That means we have to clean up and pack up the house each summer (and by 'we' I mean 5% me and 95% Kerri). The good news is that we have a place for this summer and it is in central Italy! We're looking forward to it.
3. Our car completely died about 6 weeks ago (you can read about that if you scroll down). That has meant hours and hours of searching for a new one (again, 5% me and 95% Kerri). But we have both wasted numerous hours traveling around the region looking at cars in various conditions. We finally settled on one -- partly by luck -- and are excited to get it in a few days.
4. It's the busy season at my school: preparing students for exams; giving bac blanc orals, grading the real bac, preparing for Paris, etc.

There are other things I could use as an excuse, but I'll leave it there. It's mostly the school and travel.

But once the summer arrives (remember, school doesn't end until July in these parts) I hope to be a little more regular -- not just because I enjoy sharing our experience with friends and family, but because this blog is a way to document this European Experiment that our family is in the midst of.

And yes, I just ended that sentence with an awkward preposition, but I'm in a rush...a colleague and I are headed out for dinner at Bistro Romain here in Paris.

Au revoir for now.