Great Joy. Great Sorrow.

Earlier this month we spent some time in Florida with Tony's family. There we celebrated the wedding of Tony's youngest brother Scott and his bride Lauren.

The wedding was beautiful and personal. Lauren had planned every detail and the result was lovely.

At the reception Grayson turned out to be quite the dancer. Here he is with Mima.

And here he is with everyone else. The boy danced with every beautiful lady at the party - and his Daddy too.

I took so many pictures - more than I could ever post here - so I've uploaded them all to Shutterfly. Just click here to see them. You should be able to view the pictures without joining or signing into Shutterfly. And if you'd like me to send you a photo for you to print just let me know.

Our visit home was also very sad. We mourned the passing of Tony and Scott's middle brother, Rob, who died in an accident at the young age of 28. Rob was charasmatic, athletic, and charming. He loved his family very much, and had a special place in his heart for his only nephew. We love him. We will miss him forever.

Tony, Rob, and Scott, December 2007

The Sky Is Falling

Yesterday afternoon Grayson and Castalie were playing in Grayson's room, bouncing on his bed, reading his books, and having a grand old time. Right as Séverine was about to leave she realized she had lost Sophie, a little giraffe that Auxence loves.


So I started running from room to room trying to find little Sophie, and of course Grayson was right behind me.

My last place to look was Grayson's room, but Sophie wasn't there. Right as I was about to leave his room I heard this horrible, loud crashing noise. It all happened so suddenly, I had no idea what was happening. A second later as I was darting for the door something really hard hit the back of my head and shoulder and fell to the ground. I made it out the door, the noise stopped, and I realized I was covered in dust.

Stunned, I called for Séverine who helped brush me off and then slowly tip-toed into Grayson's room to see what had happened.

Here is what had happened:

A piece of the plaster ceiling, approximately 5 feet by 6 feet, had come crashing down.

We think that it dislodged first on the back end and sort of swung forward while still attached to the front, before finally coming apart all together and falling to the ground, because most of the debris was not up in our loft storage area - most of it was on the floor in Grayson's room.

It appears the cause was some sort of water damage. It has probably been leaking for a long, long time, slowly causing the plaster to get heavier and heavier.

Because what fell to the ground was completely water-logged, weighed a ton, and smelled awful.

Once I finally came to my senses and realized what had happened, all I could do was thank God that neither Grayson nor Castalie had been in the room when this happened.

What we were left with was what Grayson called "The Big Mess." We called our landlord, and he sent someone this morning to clean up the debris. He says they will start to repair the ceiling on Monday. Meanwhile, it smells musty and wet in there, not to mention that I don't trust more of the ceiling to not fall.

Today Séverine told me that ever since yesterday Castalie has been asking about Grayson's room. Why did it happen. Where will Grayson sleep? She is really concerned.

Meanwhile, Grayson seems really excited about all the people coming to see and work in his room! When he walked in from school today he wanted to see "The Big Mess" and actually seemed a bit disappointed that it had been all cleaned up.