Back to Life in Sunny Q8

Yes, I know, it's been a long time since I've updated this blog but I've made a resolution to keep it up. We've recently returned from a three-month vacation back "home" in France. I have to say, I never tire of Europe. Who could get tired of this?

 A vineyard behind our house

 The Château d'Amboise

 A scene from a bike trail in the Loire Valley

 Apples getting ripe, in the yard of friends who live in Ile de France (that's the region around Paris!)

The Bambino having fun in a tub of water in our lusciously green front yard on an August day.

Or what about about this?

A hilltop view from the village of Montflanquin the region of Lot-et-Garonne in Southwestern France.

And don't forget about this! We don't get this stuff in Kuwait! I think I averaged at least one glass of wine per day this summer. Maybe more. And dead pig. There was especially lots of wine, and dead pig in all its glorious forms - from saussison sec to shaved ham to barbeque pork sausage, at the village festivals that took place almost every weekend.

In Kuwait, there's no wine and there's no dead pig. At all. Not even in special stores for expats (Nope, this is not Dubai). There are no castles, no grassy hills, no apple orchards, no narrow cobblestone streets, and certainly no vineyards.

But there's the hot dry sun and the beach club.

There are the feral cats that visit our house and periodically produce a litter of kittens:

We pass by some incredible car wrecks that (sadly enough) provide entertainment for us (honestly, we can't even imagine how the car could have possibly ended up that way):

And there's the desert:

And best of all, the kids are back in school (yes)! 

And I have my computer again, so I'll be updating this blog more often.