Congrats to @wandergrammed for winning the Bastille Day giveaway! • For me it was a weekend of the most gorgeous sunsets with family at the lake. Every time we got in the boat, I looked at the lily pads along shore and I thought of Monet. I blame my mother and god-mother for my obsession with all things French. I also thank them. After all, when I was younger and lesser traveled, a lake would have just been a lake. However, because of their stories and their love of the language and their dreams/hopes/fantasies that they poured into me -- now the family lake home is a portal to other places I've been and loved so that when I'm there, I feel closer to France. When I'm in France, I still feel close to my family. When I sit on the boat now, holding my nephew in my lap, I wonder about his future and if he'll be a traveler like his mother and I. But most of all, I just hope he is curious; I hope that he appreciates beauty, always seeing the good (in people and in things) more than the bad. ...