Dear Santa ... Love, Carter

Dear Santa,

I hope that things are going well with you. I have been pretty good this year, helping in the house and at school. At home I help clear the table and I get ready for school quickly, and at school I pick up jackets and stuff from the ground and put it in the trash (I don't put the jackets in the trash). I would like a Wii, a Lego Eiffel Tower, and some Pokemon cards, and maybe a Rubik's Cube as well.

Sincerely, Carter

P.S. I might also like some Pokemon movies, a Lego Concorde, and a Death Star Transformer.

A pageant clip

Here's some video of the boys during last Sunday's Christmas pageant at the American Cathedral. Yes, that's Carter, with a sword. Calvin's toward the back left, darting in and out of his place. Probably chasing sheep, right?

Dear Santa ... Love, Calvin

Dear Santa,

I have been good this year and I helped bring in pans from the table to the kitchen for Mom. I pick up jackets at school sometimes. I think that's all. Oh, I'm nice to my brother, most of the time. I want a toy car that's remote-control, a Star Wars puzzle, and a package of bubble gum. And I want some money to buy things in Florence. And a pair of light-up shoes with Batman on them!

I hope that the elves are doing good on the toys.

I live in Paris at La Motte Piquet - Grenelle. And we have a chimney so you can come in that way.

Love, Calvin

Forinash Family Album 2007

This is how it's going to press - well, without the music, but you get the idea. I haven't smoothed out all the kinks yet. When you go to the movie's page, you'll see black. That's because the first frames are black, sorry. Just click play and let the 17Mb load and it'll go!

I also finally figured out how to get the book pages as "just" a slideshow. Voila, as they say.

Florence on gmaps

I'm putting together a little google map of places we want to visit in Florence later this month. Check it out below, and I think you can edit it either directly there or through this link.


View Larger Map

Test - our family album in movie form

Turns out iPhoto can export a book as a movie, so I'm testing that with the draft of our 2007 family album. What do you think?

Santa's a-comin'

The countdown here officially began today, with the (FINALLY, dad!) unwrapping of the advent calendars - one lego, one choco. The boys have decided to alternate days - it took a Bali-level of negotiation, and if advent calendars went 25 days instead of 24, I swear they would have had to agree to split a lego guy and the last piece of chocolate. But, day 1 has been unveiled, without the expected bloodshed. The apartment doesn't exactly look Christmas-y yet though. We can't get a tree - well, at least not this early. Christmas trees are sold here with two 1x2 boards nailed X-fashion to their bases, and water-holding tree stands seem to be unknown. (The top of the odd list of not-available-here's is now window screens, peanut butter, and tree stands.) The tree I picked last year was not only ridicu-large in our apartment, but was nearly de-needled at least a week before Christmas, and practically self-immolating by the holiday. So that, along with our departure this year on Christmas day, means we will either get a very small tree, or maybe a Norfolk pine or other non-cut one. (I hesitate to say live, given that it'll probably only last a month under my care.)

Most of our Christmas shopping for us is done - it's pretty limited, and we'll give the boys (and each other) some cash to blow in Florence. I have a couple of things in mind to send to folks there, and will finish that this week. We're also almost done with our 2007 year book, and will try to post it here as well as print some copies.

Well them's the highlights from here. Boys' weekend is going as expected - except for Calvin up barfing last night. Betsy called in from Copenhagen today and they seem to be enjoying themselves, despite it getting pitch dark by 4:30pm. We're off to church tomorrow, assuming the forecast 100 km/h winds don't deter us, then maybe to a movie before heading to David's for dinner with the boys. Then it's back to the school week and the fun that brings - whee!

Oh, almost forgot. We LOVE the Santa tracker that NORAD has done for, it turns out, over 50 years. You may have heard us tell of last year, when I was showing it and (geek alert) realized from the URLs that you could preview the next stop or two. So it was maybe 9pm, and I showed the midnight clip which was of Santa flying past the Eiffel Tower. Well Calvin took one look, his eyes got wide, and he BOLTED down the hall to jump in bed. He knows where his bread is buttered - no way he was letting Santa peek in his window and pass by! Anyway, here's a nice story about the tracker I read today.