Bonjour à toutes et à tous.

It has been quite a year.  

When we wrote last December, we reported that Beverley, Leslie’s father Hugh’s partner, had been diagnosed with cancer, a large tumour in her abdomen. The initial radiation treatments provided significant relief and we, doctors included, were briefly optimistic that further treatment would bring Beverley some positive results.  With that hope top of mind, she had a lovely family Christmas. Unfortunately, the disease continued to take its toll and she passed away on February 11.  It has been a year of adjustment for Hugh, and fortunately Leslie and her siblings have been able to spend some time helping with the transition.

On our side, we started the year with our usual two-week winter vacation, this time to Turkey.  Since we had already spent a long weekend in Istanbul, we stayed on the oriental side of the Bosphorus and fully indulged our love of ancient ruins.  It is said that if you want to see Greek ruins...go to Turkey.  That is no exaggeration!  We started in Ankara, renting a car, and travelled through Goreme, with its crazy land formations, and along the Mediterranean and Aegean coasts.  An amazing vacation!
More here.

In the spring, we took advantage of the Easter break to visit a part of France that has been on our bucket list: the Dordogne.  Stunning landscapes, numerous prehistoric caves including the famous Lascaux which has been brilliantly reproduced so that you can visit without ruining the original, and delicious food...especially anything involving a duck.  As a bonus, we stayed in Perigueux where Lauren stayed with the Brignon family on her 8th grade student exchange...and we were able to meet up with César, her exchange partner.  Spoiler alert for those who remember him...he grew up!  He is now an architecture student in Nancy. 

In May, we had Lauren & Collin with us, comme d’habitude...and what a nice habit it is.  They stayed for five weeks, and Meghan was able to come along and join us for three of them.  As usual, we did some tripping together, hitting Barcelona before driving across northern Spain to Portugal and spending a week in Aix-en-Provence where Andrew has a regular business meeting.

Lauren got some great news while we were in Aix so I will take a moment here to catch you up on the kids.  Lauren was on tenterhooks until May 17, waiting to hear if she had been accepted into a masters program in occupational therapy.  Her boyfriend, Collin, also heading into a masters program, had long since had to make a decision and accepted an offer from York to study philosophy.  We were all pretty happy when she was offered a place at Queens in Kingston where she is now enjoying the first semester of her two-year program. (Collin speaks about studying philosphy at Trent U in this clip.)

A whole lot of graduating happened/is happening. Meghan is close to graduating from her masters program at Concordia.  The thesis is written and will be defended early in the new year. What comes next? Who knows. Her partner, David, continues in the same job in Montreal, at Cerence (previously Nuance). They moved into a bigger, nicer (and cheaper) apartment in Griffintown, Montreal and are enjoying their more adult digs.

Gosaye continues to live and work in Ottawa.  He changes jobs frequently and always has interesting projects on the go.  Recently, he collaborated with a longtime friend, Aayush Das, to enter a short docs contest at TVO. They didn't win, but their mini-doc was well-done and well-received. 21 and Homeless

Meanwhile, Biniyam continues to live and work in Saskatoon.  He is a DJ at a country rock bar, graduated in the spring from a program at Saskatchewan Polytechnic, and has even done a little modelling on the side for Colors of India in Saskatoon.  

While the kids were moving and changing, so were we. Our Paris apartment was sold after our landlady passed away (expected at some point) so we moved out of the city and into a cute little house in Suresnes. Leslie took daily trips throughout July with car loads of things so we were able to accomplish most of the move on our own. After that warm up, Leslie went to Canada in August, rented a U-Haul and helped to move a dining room set from Deep River to Montréal, and with Meghan's help, Lauren from Peterborough to Kingston.

Andrew continues to enjoy the challenges of working at the Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA) of the OECD.  It has been a year of change with some of his colleagues completing their terms, and he has been looking after additional activities while replacement staff are found.  A quieter 2020 will be welcome.  We try to take advantage of his long weekends to see different parts of Europe.  This year, our trips have included a once-in-20-year wine festival in Switzerland, sightseeing in Vilnius, an NFL game in London, war memorials in Ypres, and an armagnac celebration in Gascony.  We are also planning to get into the spirit of the season at the Christmas markets in Krakow.