2013 - What a year

I was talking to my friends daughter on New Years Eve about writing a blog.  I showed her my blog and then realized I hadn't updated it since last January.  Pathetic.  So, one of my goals for 2014 is to update it regularly.  The only problem is that our life here in France is pretty simple and to some, maybe a bit boring.  But, I'll do my best to write about some interesting things!

But this post will be about 2013.  Just a little re-cap of our year.

The winter here was horrible.  Starting in November of 2012 it was cold, it continued through December and in January snow.  We headed to Spain to find some sun and do some climbing.  Once you drove over the Pyrénées into Spain in was sunny and much warmer.  We spent 5 days there.

The road to our house.

Not everyone was unhappy.

Stella with her snow balls.

A small traffic jam in sunny Spain.

In February we headed to Paris for 4 days to attend some camp fairs.  It was freezing and sleeting most of the time.  Not fun.  After Paris we headed towards Nice for another camp fair.  The weather was much nicer and we spent a couple extra days climbing at Chateauvert and we also visited the Picasso museum outside of Nice.

Spent most of the time in Paris underground.

Bruce and his favorite Artist.

Sun and warm in southeast France.

At the end of February we headed back to Spain with our friends Mike and Nicci for some hiking, mountain biking and climbing, spent a week there,  good times.

In Spain with our good friends.

In March we had 2 visitors.  First was our good friend Chris who came for 3 weeks from Colorado to climb.  We climbed here for the first 2 weeks and then headed back to Spain for another week of climbing.  At the end of February our friend Paul came from Los Angeles for 10 days, he's also a climber and we stayed around here as the weather was getting better.  It was good to have both of them here.

April was quiet, weather wasn't so bad, so we did loads of climbing, hiking and running.

Always a good day when we're climbing.

In May we had our adult culinary retreat with Chef Carol Cotner Thompson.  We had a great group of women from Los Angeles for the week.  It was filled with great food, good wine and loads of laughter.

Chef Carol with some of her students cutting up whole ducks.

In June, Bruce went back to Paris to meet his good friend Kevin who scored tickets to the French Open.  He spent 4 days in Paris and the two had a great time.  Our good friends B and B arrived from Los Angeles for the summer.  We met them 5 years ago in Los Angeles, right before we moved to France. Little did we know they owned a house in our village, we've been great friends ever since. They only come here in the summer, it was so good to see them.  We then spent the rest of June climbing and getting the house ready for our teen art retreats, which started the last week of June.

Me and Bruce (not my Bruce, but the "other" Bruce)

Bruce and Kevin in Paris at the Luxembourg Gardens in Paris.

July and August were super busy.  We had (3) teen art retreats, each 16 days long, with a 2 day break in-between.  It's non-stop 24/, but we love it!  We had amazing teens from all over the world come and stay with us and they created some fantastic art.  We had a girl from Hong Kong come for all 3 sessions (she was with us for 7 weeks).  She was like our adopted child.  I cried when she left.  At the end of August we hosted (3) families here at Haute Serre.  Our good friends Brant and Tia came with their 2 boys and they brought (2) other couples and their (4) kids.  They spent a week with us, kids doing art in the mornings and in the afternoons we toured them around our region.  A wonderful week with great people.

In September I turned 50!  Our "family" retreat was here and I got (5) cakes.  Two of the girls made (2) cakes and Bruce bought (3).  After the family retreat ended, Bruce and I headed over to Millau to do some rock climbing in the Gorges du Tarn. We spent a week exploring, hiking and climbing.  A perfect birthday.  We came home from my birthday week we were outside and heard a cry.....we took a flashlight and walked around the back of the house and down the road.  Bruce and I could hear the cry but couldn't see anything, and then all of sudden we saw a little black kitten.  Dumped right on the side of the road, she was in the nettles, crying.  We took her in (we couldn't leave her out there) and she could fit in my hand.  We took her to the vet the next day and found out she was about 4 weeks old. We decided (we'll maybe she decided too) to keep her and now she's almost 5 months old.  Her name is Colette.

One of my fantastic cakes.

This is the love letter I got from Bruce....it ended with "50 things I love about you".

Our new addition to the pack.  Colette.

In October we headed back to Los Angeles to visit family and friends, as it had been over 2 years since we've been back.  We spent a week in Los Angeles and then headed out to Las Vegas to climb at Red Rocks.  Our friends (who we stayed with) daughter turned 14 when we came back from Vegas and she and Bruce spent an afternoon at Duff's Cakes making her birthday cake.  We spent another week in Los Angeles and then decided to go back to Vegas to do some more climbing for a few days.  While we were in Los Angeles, we saw family and good friends and spent quality time with our good friends E and K.  We also ate Mexican, Sushi, Vietnamese, Italian, etc....all the food we can't get here in France.  We were there a month. Thank goodness for our good friends Mike and Nicci who took care of the dogs while we were away, Gill who took in Colette and E and K who took us in for a month!

The cake!

Red Rocks, Las Vegas, NV

Love the red rocks and blue sky.

Tired after a long day of climbing.

Visiting friends in Malibu, Bruce was excited to get back in the ocean.

Famous Hinano's in Venice.

Back to France the week before Thanksgiving.  We had a quiet non-eventful Thanksgiving (we had duck breast) and were happy to be home.  The weather was wonderful and warm and dry.

We spent most of December climbing, as again, the weather was fantastic.  We did head over to Brantome to see our good friend Kim.  We hadn't seen her in a few years and it was good to catch up. Our Christmas was quiet too, just the two of us.  New Year's Eve was spent at our good friends house, with 12 others.  Lovely time and great food.  We actually stayed up until after midnight, the first in a long time.  We had kept a memory jar for 2013 and on the 1st we opened it and read all the notes we had put in to remind us of things that happened during the year.

Beautiful Brantöme

 Kim and I on our way to lunch.

Here's to 2014.  Hope all of you have a fantastic year.

Alisa

Change is good!

Mr. Owl at Le Sivadal

Our amazing view from the terrace

       

The "gang" in Penne

When we came home from our year sabbatical in October 09 we knew we needed to get back to France as soon as possible.   We've outgrown Los Angeles, it's too busy and too big, just not our style anymore. We want countryside, hardly any street lights, beautiful architecture...basically France.  10 years ago we said to each other "in ten years we'll move to France".  I always keep goals - 6 months, 1 year, 3 year, 5 years.  And each year I'd write down "we'll move to France".  It was hard getting back to the studio and back to business.  We love the kids but doing the same thing for 10 years was getting old.  We wanted to take what we know and move it outside of the classroom/studio.  Sometimes it's someone else looking in who opens your eyes and Kim did that for us.  Raison d'Art was born last summer and when we came back to Los Angeles we started to market our "summer camp" for teens. 

Last Monday we arrived home from our first trip to France with 9 teens.  18 days in the Tarn, 16 at the most amazing house in the country and 2 nights in Toulouse.  It was wonderful and exceeded our expectations!  We hope we changed some lives and/or opened some eyes.  If you're interested in reading about the trip and learning about our new business check it out here.

After being home for a month or so one of our clients asked us if we were interested in selling the studio.  Yes, we said.  Yes, yes, yes!  This client has sent her daughter to us for 4 years and believes in what we do and wants to expand on it.  Something we never wanted to do.  She's a very smart business woman and a good friend.  It was a perfect match.  We closed the deal in May and we are now Independent Contractors for her.  Still doing some camps and helping her as much as we can with training new teachers, understanding the daily office duties, etc...  We will work until the end of this week, take the month of August off (and spend it in Mammoth), come back in September and work through mid-October, but then after that we are moving back to France.  Yes, you read that right, we are moving back.  How long...hopefully for good.

We found an amazing house to rent in our favorite village St. Antonin Noble Val.  During the year we were there (as most of you know) we lived in Les Costes, a 200 year old stone farmhouse in the middle of the countryside.  Very little heat, very isolated, but amazing.  This time we want to rent in a village for a bit.  We think it will make the winters a bit easier, being around other people.  We'll rent for a year and in the meantime look for an place to buy.

Next year we'll be offering (2) women's retreats in May, with yoga, cooking classes, wine tasting, visits to museums, villages, etc... and then (4) summer camps for kids (1) for kids 11/12 and the other (3) for kids 13-17.  We'll rent the same house we rented this summer as it was so perfect for what we are doing.  It's call Le Sivadal and it's just outside of Cordes.

This business idea has become a reality and we can't wait to get over to France to start working on it.  We'll register as a french business so we can pay into the french system.  We want to be legit.  We are also thinking of offering some art classes for local kids on Wednesday and Saturday during the school year. 

Bruce is all set to paint, paint and paint.  I hope to get settled and get a wheel and a kiln and start throwing pottery again, as it's been almost 2 years since I've thrown.  The dogs are super excited too.  They had an amazing time during the year they lived there.  Nellie has never been but she'll love it too.

So loads of amazing things are happening to us.  We are excited, thrilled, a bit scared (because what if it doesn't work), but then so what, we'll figure something else out.  Sure we could stay here and try to open another studio in another area, but we don't want to do that and it's so expensive here.  What we pay 1 month in Los Angeles will cover us for 4-5  months in France.  Isnt' that crazy?  So, why not try and make this work.  Life's too short.

I will be updating this blog, as I've had many requests to keep my personal blog going.  As long as you are not bored with my everyday life, I'm happy to continue reporting, but keep checking our Raison d'Art blog (which also gives information about our programs) and pass it on to anyone you might think would be interested.  We are almost done with our website and I'll post that when it's ready.

It's good to be back.  I have missed my blogging, but I wasn't ready to announce the sale of the business until now and really didn't have much to talk about.  But new exciting stuff is on the horizon, so stay tuned.

Happy couple in Toulouse