April, usually a beautiful month full of sunshine and spring flowers has been turned on it's head and spilling rain everyday, but a few. Nothing worse than a gray rainy April. Another lesson in living in the now as that is all we have. 
Living in the present is something that Jean and I have been pursuing for awhile now, but every once in awhile it seems to become even more important. The more we get ahead of ourselves, the more we persist, the more something resists.
Coming down the homestretch of Jean's dissertation he ran into a HUGE - BIG _ GRAND - snafu, in which some data was later submitted by a lab resulting in Jean having to redo all his data analysis. This is the time when emotions have to be put aside and the work just has to be done. Being present in the moment is required. April rain didn't help either!
Zoé’s February vacation quickly descended upon us. Heading off to Geneva we started our journey by visiting some dear friends, Debby and Mark, whom I met in graduate school umpteen years ago Together with our other friends Kathy and Don in Salinas, we used to meet each February for almost ten years to cross country ski at Royal Gorge in Tahoe. Life moves on and we haven’t seen them for quite awhile and Mark is now working at the World Health Organization and Debby is enjoying the life of an expat in Geneva while their young adult girls are starting a life of their own. 
Our first stop was the town of Geneva where Zoé immediately spotted the 150 meter water spout shooting into the sky.
“Where does she learn this stuff?” I asked Jean.
“Her comic books, her kid’s newspaper. Who knows? She knows more than we do these days.”
Her interest in not just comic books, but non-fiction and pieces of historic information amaze us. Who would think she would know about this water spout and how tall it was?
Toussant (All Saints Day) is celebrated by a long weekend for those working and a ten day vacation for the schools. The French love celebrating their saints and so who is to complain. Toussant, Nov 1 is the day after Halloween when everyone buys hugs plants of fall flowers and visits the graveyards of their ancestors, picnicing, praying, and enjoying the sun. The ancient stone cemeteries are full of life and colored with orange, yellow, purple and bordeaux colored flowers.
Taking advantage of the vacation we headed down to Costa Brava and Barcelona for a few days. Costa Brava is the bay of beaches between the French Border and Barcelona. Roses the largest bay is a grand bay with miles and miles of white sandy beaches. Stretching down the coast further are small bays, beaches, fishing villages and inlets cut between jagged cliffs and expensive homes built on the edge of the coast. Similar to many beautiful places it especially reminded us of the California Northern coastline. 