Surprise!

Well, not for us... but Christine and Alex were pretty surprised when Ryan showed up at the dinner table Monday night! He flew standby so we weren't entirely sure how that was going to work out. He didn't get on the first flight he tried, Friday, but managed to get on the Saturday flight and arrived on Sunday morning.

Christine, Alex, and Christine's mother Melinda arrived Monday afternoon. Tuesday they visited Paris, and Wednesday morning we took them to see the castle ruins at La Ferté-Milon and walked along the canals.




We're going to have to keep having company so we can get more family pictures.

At 15 1/2 months, Noah is trying to beat his brother in the slow-to-walk category, but he will now walk a few steps with us holding onto his hands, and Frederic says Noah took one step today before losing his balance and falling down. So maybe it won't be too long now.

So he doesn't walk yet, but he zooms around, crawling like a little speed demon, and looks just like a little wind-up toy baby we used to have that wiggled its behind back and forth when it crawled. He also climbs on anything he can, including the couch, the coffee table, the kids' rocking chair upstairs, the bench in the dining room, and us, and this child is the definition of perpetual motion!

He also tries to kick the soccer ball with his foot - not an easy feat when one can't walk yet!