Wilson found some woods!

To Wilson's surprise there is a forest right across the main street from our house. This is a huge necessity for the likes of Wilson. He is a strapping young pup with loads of energy and so he needs a regular session of off-leash running. Without it, he sometimes just runs circles in the backyard until he runs out of breath.

Our house is in the big red circle in the upper right. Entrance to park is the little red circle. Downtown is under the name "Orsay"

It has be a little rainy lately, but with our boots on, hiking through it is a pleasure. We pass by other couples, and leash-less dogs. Everyone fawns over Lilah. There might even be a way to hike through this to get to town. A path leads under the highway and up to a bluff overlooking the city. Downtown Orsay is located along the banks of a little river and these woods mount the south side of the valley.

Lilah mesmerized by the leaf-less trees against the sky.

Peek-a-boo

We are looking forward to the spring, when the woods will drastically shift in appearance.

Sunset

Orsay

We live in a small town called Orsay, it's located Southwest of Paris and Southeast of Versailles.  Before moving here, we worked with an organization that helps scientific researchers move to France; they had a number of apartments available for us to rent - we chose ours in Orsay because it was the closest option to Versailles, where Chris will be working.

Here's the outside of our French cottage.  We live on the top floor.  Our downstairs neighbor is very nice and has a black lab who Wilson gets along with well.

Orsay is a very quaint super cute town.  We are about a 10-15 minute walk into the city center, which consists of many shops including my favorites: the butcher, fish monger, bakeries, cheese shops, cafes, wine stores, and chocolate shops. There is also a super market, clothing stores, bars, restaurants, pharmacies, etc. My new favorite pastime is going into town, trying some cheeses, picking up a new one and a fresh baguette, and then walking to the wine store and asking what to pair with it.  Obviously this can't last forever, but it is really fun for now!

Here are some pictures in town:

Little path on the walk:

Fromagerie:

Boucharie:

The hardest part (and also something I enjoy) about living in Orsay is that nothing is in English, so the language barrier is really rough at times.  We bring our phrasebook everywhere but it's still pretty difficult to communicate with people.  Luckily we really haven't experienced the stereotypical rude French attitudes, most people we interact with are very friendly and don't laugh at our broken French; they try to speak to us in English, or pantomime with us. Maybe it's because we usually walk around with either a baby or dog, or sometimes both.  We are working on our French, and I think we're getting a little better every day.

In other news, today is Lilah's 6 month birthday, I can't believe it!  She's doing great.  She's a very smiley baby (although not for pictures it seems), she loves to eat bananas, and we started her on apples this week.  She's sitting up on her own, babbling a ton, giggling and squealing at us (and Wilson).

Here she is while we were unpacking the other day.