When it rains, it pours......

Good news first: we have a house.  We will not sign the lease until next week.  Our new address will be: 

16 Allee Mouille Fetu, Chatou, 78400.

To read about our new house, please go to this link.

http://www.seloger.co.uk/detail.htm?cp=78400&euro=1&idpays=250&idtt=1&idtypebien=2&nb_pieces=%2b4&px_loyermax=4500&surfacemin=180&IMMOBW_ANN_QRYpg=11

The back story.  We visited our first choice house in Le Vesinet on Friday and met the owner where we were told that they had a few offers and would make a decision over the weekend.  When we had not received an answer by early afternoon on Monday we started making more appointments to see houses on Tuesday morning.

The first two houses we saw were in Le Vesinet and both were nice but had issues that could be overcome but were still issues.  While we were visiting the third house of the morning in Chatou, Julia's phone rang and she noticed that it was the agent for the house in Le Vesinet but she let it go to voicemail.  She let it go to voicemail because we were falling in love with the house we were viewing.  More specifically we were falling in love with our view of the Seine. There is a gate at the bottom of our backyard.  If you walk out the gate the only thing separating you from the river is a paved path and a little bit of grass.

It is a modern house with tile floors and white walls. Oh, did  I mention that it has a pool?  Not a very large pool but enough for us to get wet and for Samuel to splash around.  The living room has a working fireplace, though we have no idea where to acquire firewood in Chatou.

There is a very nice guest room on the 1st floor with an individual entrance to the yard.  There is also a shower with multiple nozzles, shower heads and knobs.  By the time someone visits we hope to have figured out how it works.

The master bedroom is good sized with a small terrace with a nice view of the river.

After we handed our dossier to the agent, we returned to our car to check Julia's messages and we discovered that we were being offered our first choice house in Le Vesinet.  At this point we had a very difficult decision in front of us.  We decided to drive around Chatou and discover the lay of the land before we made a final decision.  This almost made the decision easy as it was very difficult to navigate around Chatou with very narrow roads.  We did discover a small strip of shops just 2 blocks away but learned that they were closing so that a newer commerce area could be built in 2010.  Bummer.

After having difficulty finding what we were looking for we drove to the Mairie(city hall) and asked for help.  they provided a map and suggestions as to where to look for boulangeries, butchers and markets.  With the map we were able to find what we were looking for but the shops are not as convenient as the shops near our choice in Le Vesinet.

In the end the deciding factors came down to the following:

1) From Chatou Julia will have an easier commute with more options available to her should traffic be delayed in one area.

2)In Chatou we will have a smaller, not as nice garden, but we will have the garden to ourselves.  In Le Vesinet we would have shared the garden with the owners.

3)The wonderful, peaceful view of the Seine.  We were both imagining sitting on our bedroom terrace on a Sunday morning eating our pain au chocolate and croissant, drinking our hot chocolate while watching the river roll slowly by.

Then came the difficult part of the day.  Calling back the agent for the Le Vesinet house and telling her we had found something else.  This is when I am glad that Julia speaks french much better than me.

Youtube videos

With a very cute child we have decided to be very, very careful.  When we post a video to youtube it will be under their private label.  This means that you need to be a youtube "friend" in order to see the video.

We have sent out some friend invites.  If we missed you on the original invitation list, we apologize.  If you did not receive an invite and would like one(in order to view videos) please let us know and we will correct our error and send you an invite.

Samuel's second tooth

Samuel's second tooth broke the surface today.  I know I promised pictures of the first tooth a month ago but it is still so small that we cannot get a good picture.  As soon as we can capture a good picture we will post it.

Video on youtube

We are slowly joining the 21st century.  Having finally mastered the task of downloading our videos to our Mac we set about the next step of uploading a video to you tube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QWsO_m-WWzY

This is supposed to be a link to a video of Samuel on the beach in Punta Cana.  Please let me know if there are any problems viewing the video.

First family trip to the emergency room

The trip was not for Samuel.  It was not for Julia.  Unfortunately it was for me. Edited-not too mean that it wold be fortunate if Samuel or Julia had to go to the emergency room.  I do have a concussion, so forgive me.

This morning(sunday) we were sitting on the couch at 0830 when Julia moved toward the bedroom to return to bed since she had been up early to feed and care for Samuel.  Samuel was on the floor.  I went to follow her to the bedroom to change so that Samuel and I could do our Sunday morning shopping.  Unfortunately as I began to step over Samuel he moved(he is surprisingly fast and getting faster) so I lengthened my step which led me to step onto Samuel's bouncy seat.  The bouncy seat moved and I subsequently lost my balance and fell forward.  My first thought was to avoid falling on Samuel and my head eventually ending up meeting the edge of our living room table. A large gash of about 2 inches was opened and bleeding profusely as Julia came running back into the room.  I asked for help and she went into the kitchen and returned with a paper towel(even if it had been a bounty towel it would not have been absorbent enough to soak up all the blood).  Julia then returned with a towel and I got myself to the couch and laid down while Julia called the emergency number.

The ambulance arrived within 10 minutes.  I was shocked when a 4 person crew walked into the apartment.  The 2 male members of the crew appeared to be about 13 years of age.  These 2 youngsters did all of the talking and the triage as the two older, female members were clearly supervising.

The good news is that in the end no stitches were necessary as the gash was perfectly straight and the doctor was able to glue it shut and I should be scar free in about 2 weeks.

Julia received a great deal of sympathy in the waiting room as apparently Samuel had a great deal of energy and some people also waiting commented on how active he was.

One positive was that I was able to understand about half of the questions that I was asked.  I also added to my growing vocabulary with the french words for nausea, consciousness and dizzy.

Packages mailed to Paris

We have experienced difficulties in receiving packages mailed to us at our Neuilly address.  We have had at least 3 packages, that we are aware of, that have failed to arrive.  If you send us a package please advise us through e-mail that it has been sent so that we can  look for the package.