Setting out For A Family Gap Year

Our year long family sabbatical is upon us with a departure in just a few days … We will first go to my parents' home in Carpentras, for some home cooked meals, walks, tennis, biking and picking up a car, before visiting a cousin, briefly checking out the small village we will be staying in in the Pyrenees, a couple weeks of beach time with hopefully some surfing and then finally to the house we will be renting out for the kids' school year.

Many logistics remain, including setting up the kids with their public schools and different sports, but on this end, here in Reno, this upcoming gap year has led us to do a massive house and yard cleanup, which is making everything feel lighter.

With schools here in Reno starting in just a few weeks, it will also be an extended summer for the boys, which to me feels like planning for a faraway camping trip.

Sal and Seb are having their last play dates, while Kari and Maseco did great in their Pyramid Lake triathlon this morning after months of training. I’ve been interviewing a friend in Abidjan over WhatsApp for what will be one of my projects over the next year, to write my first book and try to get it published.

In the little stuff I have for the plane there is a small bag with Zizou’s ashes to bring and disperse.

It will be nice to get away to reset, to rethink our present and future, to do more sports, to breathe in a green valley mountain environment, to experience a family adventure in one of my favorite areas I’ve come across in my life, harkening back to when my parents took me there for a muddy vacation in a farm when I was about Sal's age.

Last summer, some people seemed to enjoy my updates when we did our recon trip, so as I love writing in both English and French, Ill be doing these as an evolving diary on my Facebook here and on my still existing blogspot called Third Rate in the Tropics. Bon voyage to us! And much love to everyone.