Olivia's "first" Christmas

She had a tough incident yesterday but is doing fine.

Whenever I squat down to take a photo at her level, she often squats down with me as well.

While Sarah was in the kitchen the other day she kept hearing Olivia say "uh-oh." When Sarah came to investigate, this is what she found.

Christmas has been a wonderful opportunity to discover new toys and re-discover old ones. Thank you to everyone for your generosity! Here is a sample of pictures from Christmas. You'll see she's wearing many different outfits, partly because we spread the holidays out and opened many gifts as they came, and also because she was so excited by her outfits that we had to keep trying things on. Enjoy:

December Visitors

We were lucky this month to have visits from my (Dave's) mom and then my dad. In early December my mom was able to arrange a weekend layover on her way home from meetings in Washington DC. My dad was here until yesterday, spending Christmas week with us. Here are some photos:

Update

I know it's been a long time since we've updated the blog; sorry for that! Here are a month's worth of pictures for you to enjoy (in chronological order).

New looks

Last week I got a new hearing aid (finally) and Sarah got a new haircut. My two girls only get cuter and cuter.

Jumping Olivia

Jumping along with her dvd

The funny thing about this video is that for a few months now she has been saying "Papy" (grandpa) everytime she sees this BBQ sauce. Now she's even started kissing him. Notice that if she turns the bottle around she finds Nanny! What a great bottle. What do you think, does this look like my (david's) dad or Sarah's mom?

New pics

Her halloween doggy costume. She insisted on wearing Sarah's brown hat

she loves moving her elmo chair everywhere

She loves her new froggy boots and we love this dress my (david's) mom made.

our 2 new craigslist chairs

The smallest turtle we've ever seen

We're already busting out the winter gear

The view from our front door - Olivia heading straight for the swings

No canvas can contain her artistic talent

More dancing videos

Nothing gets her moving like the nutracker

It just so happens that the Beastie Boys is next on itunes after one of her children's albums, so we end up dancing to this song quite often. As you can see, she loves it!

Notre petite artiste en herbe aime beaucoup plus jouer a la maison que dessiner!

juste avant d'aller faire la sieste...

O dance avec son papa!

We got a couple of foam chairs for O- and she LOVES them! She often requests our company. She likes to know she is a big girl!

This has got to be the goofiest picture of O this month. O ne sort jamais sans le collier de Nanny et porte toujours le petit bonnet de nouveau-ne tricote par Grandma.

L'autre jour, je me suis retournee et O avait disparu-- juste a 50 metres- au terrain de jeux devant notre maison.

I have a decoy keyboard set up on my computer for O...I wish I could find a cool mouse that she would fall for too!

Ann Arbor, Michigan

Olivia loves wearing hats, including the hat in the picture above which belongs to Sarah and the hat in the picture below which might have fit her 1 year ago.

This is in front of our apartment.

After getting settled we made the four hour trip west and explored Chicago. It was a lot of fun. Here we are in Grant Park.

Chapel Hill

Our first stop back in the US after nearly 3 months in France was Chapel Hill, NC where we stayed with my (Dave's) dad. Olivia loved being with her papy, including swimming in his pool. Just like in Nice, she did all should could to try and figure out how to get convince us to go swimming, including constantly wearing her swimming gear even if we weren't going.

Nice

Our last few days in France were spent in Nice, aka, Paradise. We went to the beach at least once a day, sometimes more. You can see in one of these pictures that Olivia found her swimming diaper and is trying to put it on herself. She also enjoyed trying on the hats and bags that belonged to Sarah's Grandmother, and insisted that Papy Jacques try the hat on as well.

Back in Toulouse

After leaving Brittany and before heading back to the US we spent a week and a half in the south, including many days at Sarah's parents in the Toulouse area. As you can see, Olivia had a blast!

Some Paris Photos

Le Mont St. Michel

My mom and step-dad were able to visit us in France for a week, and we had a great time exploring the area. One of the places we went to was Mont St. Michel, this beautiful tourist-trap of a city that is situated in a unique spot in which the height of the water around it fluctuates by more than 40 feet with the tide. On the day we went the tide was completely out. Here are some pics of our trip:

Here's a picture of the "island" completely surrounded by water. Notice that our parking place doesn't exist.

Beaches of Normandy

One week after the 65th anniversary of D-Day and the visit of President Obama and President Sarkozy, we were able to visit the beaches of Normandy. It was a beautiful and humbling experience. On d-day itself I ran more than 10 miles through Rennes, on streets named after Winston Churchill and General Patton, among others. I learned that Rennes was liberated by General Patton in August of 1944, a couple months after D-Day. It's interesting to consider how all these events have affected my life. Would Sarah's dad have ended up in France and doing graduate work in Canada where he met Sarah's mom? Would there have been a Sarah to come to Montreal where we met?

Funny videos

Rennes!

Olivia and I in front of our summer home/my office. We live at the French school of public health where I am doing research on pedestrian/bicycle safety issues in Rennes. We're having a ton of fun and feel so lucky to be here. Everyone at the school has been so great to us. Here's a picture of our living room/our bedroom. There is another bedroom with a double bed, but it's not the most comfortable, so we actually sleep on the trundle beds in the living room and put Olivia's pack 'n play in the "master bedroom."


The comforts of home...baby signing time. Anyone that's visited us knows what an important part of her daily routine this is. I wish we could capture on video all the signs she currently knows and uses, she's incredible.

When we first got here we really didn't know how to best feed Olivia. She's a very big girl, but not quite old enough to sit in a chair on her own yet. Fortunately the school had a high chair they lent us (like I said, everyone has been so nice to us here). As you can see though, sitting her in a high chair doesn't mean she stays clean.

Rennes is a beautiful city with many buildings and facades preserved from as far back as the 1600s. We have just barely scratched the surface of all the parks and beautiful areas in Rennes and Bretagne. It's hard to believe we only have 5 more weeks until we have to leave.

Family Reunion

EVERYONE came to Toulouse for a Sacuto family reunion, including two of Sarah's sisters who live in eastern Canada, a sister in eastern France, a brother in Hong Kong, and us in the US, as well as all their spouses, fiances, and children. Not a single person was missing. As you can imagine, we had a blast! Here is just a sample of photos:

We took a boat ride on Le Canal du Midi that runs through Toulouse. It's a pretty impressive Canal, built in 1667 to connect the Atlantic and the Mediterranean.

Olivia LOVED being with her older cousins

Guillaume and Estelle drove the metro for us; they did a great job.

A little quiet time in Toulouse

Olivia catching up on some much needed sleep:

Our last couple weeks in Chapel Hill were pretty intense. I was finishing a few major papers and projects for the end of my master's degree. Sarah was tending another baby much of the day 3-4 days per week. We had a constant stream of visitors coming to celebrate graduation and Olivia's birthday. On top of all that we had to get ready to head to France and get all our stuff ready to move and be shipped off to Michigan. The tricky part was having enough stuff that we could be comfortable in France, but only as much as we could physically carry, and then fit in our little car once we arrive back in NC and head north to Michigan. Our reward for finally getting it all done was a full day of flying, including an overnight flight from JFK to Heathrow, and then 6 hours of jetlag.

All in all Olivia handled it extremely well, just like she does with everything. The hardest part for me was that once we got to Europe we split up, with Sarah and Olivia going straight to Toulouse and me going to London and then Rennes. As it turned out, the Thursday and Friday of my first work week were a holiday, so I took the train to Paris and then boarded the night train to Toulouse where I got to sleep on a bunk. I was so excited to finally arrive at Sarah's parents house after 10 days without seeing my girls. We had a few days to ourselves before the rest of Sarah's family arrived for the reunion.

London!

After a few crazy weeks finishing my degree, packing, entertaining a string of guests, etc, we finally made it to Europe. The excitement was tempered by the fact that it meant I wouldn't see Olivia and Sarah for two weeks. They went to straight to Sarah's family in Toulouse while I came to Rennes to start my work. I treated myself to two days in London on the way and really enjoyed myself. Maybe it was the jet lag, but I found London to be a pretty overwhelming city. I am from an overwhelming city, but this felt different. Just when I got comfortable, I would step out from the curb and a car would come flying from the opposite direction. It was harder to get used to that than I thought. I had a blast though, saw tons of things, did two long runs (of 7 miles and 9 miles), but mostly missed my girls.


The train station I left from on my way to Paris


Standing where the players and coaches watch the game at Stamford Bridge, home of the Chelsea Football Club.

My post game press conference

Sarah was understandably dissapointed she couldn't tour London with me. I asked what she would have wanted to see and promised a picture of myself there. Here I am at the London Bridge.

It just so happened that Sigmund Freud used to live up the street from my hostel. It was a nice but non-descript house in a quiet residential neighborhood. Whatever you think of his work, he was certainly very influential. It always inspires me when I see that such important work was done in such regular locations. Why couldn't great things be accomplished in a studio apt in Rennes, or student family housing in Chapel Hill and Ann Arbor?