FRENCH WORD-A-DAY

You are a gift and blessing in our lives. Congratulations! Stay, grow, and illuminate, wonderful moments together!

Happy Birthday to you all! Have a very special day! Very best wishes for the next 10 coming years, we'll be there to celebrate your success!

Hugs from Reunion Island.

What a lovely tribute by Jean-Marc and best wishes for the future.On a separate note, you have many American friends and family -some who write here in the comment box -thinking of you and hoping that you are all safe from Hurricane Sandy.So sad for lives disrupted and homes destroyed.

Merci for all those years. I started saving them in April of 2009 and have 400 of them saved! From time to time I go back and read them again.....going over the phrases again. I look forward to many more years.

Congratulations! Well deserved success. Thank you for providing a newsletter that assists in my never ending desire to speak French (I'm from Brooklyn NY, come on...French, really?), but the insight to your experience as an expat is an added plus that one cannot put a value on. Thank you for sharing your life and family. Jamie

I love this site and feel a part of your extended family. Having lived in France as a student majoring in French, I relive that wonderful time in my life through reading your posts. I really like the pieces with each sentence in French with the English translation below. I see you making the French part in audio so we can listen along while we read!!!

Félicitations, Kristin! I haven't been a part of the entire 10 years, but it's been at least 8 and I've always loved waking up and finding a post from you. Looking forward to the next 10!

Thanks you for an entertaining and informative bit of France for all this time.

Hi Kristin, I have only discovered you in the last few months, but what a joy it has been to read your posts and see your pictures. I have looked back at your archives, and plan to do some more reviewing. For the next 10 years, I hope you continue your blog. It will be fun to hear what your children do for college, and about any new interests you and Jean-Marc discover. I hope also that you are able to publish more books. And one day I hope to meet you, as you have become like a friend I look forward to hearing from across the miles.

Karene in So. Calif.

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY KRISTI -

I remember this day ten years ago. So many little events led up to this fateful day ten years ago. I remember the little desk/work station Jean-Marc had set up in the little hallway-entrance into your home in Les Arcs...it was orginally JM's office space as he was busy working for a very large vinyard taking care of their marketing. Nobody paid attention to what you were doing, you would sneak a moment here and there on JM's computer when he was at work. Then of course you hit the wall when everyone in your family said NO YOU CAN'T WRITE ABOUT YOUR PERSONAL LIFE AND FAMILY ON THE INTERNET! Except for me of course who was always encouraging you to be free.

Throughout your life you have surprised us all - you are truly the little turtle that could - and did leave the hare in the dust as he/she proded (sp?) along determined to follow your own path.

I enjoy reading your first years work - your inesense (sp?)and pure heart has been your greatest asset throughout this journey.

Of course as your Mother I have patiently been waiting for you to finally grab that brass ring waiting for you as you glide around your lovely merry-go-round - yes I still see a great fictional novel set in the forest near the sea in Provence. Perhaps this will come forth over the next ten years. You are finally in an area of France where the action of a novel could ignite all of our imaganations - the seedy and glamorous streets of Marseille, the enchanting village of Cassis, St. Cyr-sur-Mer, Bandol, Toulon, St. Tropez, Nice etc. The history of this area of Provence is a novel in itself. Oh Please Kristi - over the next ten years open up this project for your poor old Mom...!!!

O.K. I will stop ranting - it's just that you have all of the skills to move into this level of writing, plus I have never known anyone with an imagination on par with yours, you had it as a young child...once you open up this pathway out of your beautiful mind we will all be enriched.

Oh Honey - I love you and your life and your beautiful mind.

XOXO

MOM

Congratulations! Well - that's a tough question. I think your blog has a life of it's own and may possibly evolve quite differently from what you expect. I am looking forward to seeing how it pans out. This come to you from South Africa

Congratulations, Kristin! This is such a terrific achievement. We've all learned so much, thanks to your inspired jottings, beautiful photos and infectious enthusiasm. Thanks for allowing us the chance to glimpse into your life. A toast to your next ten years!

I look forward to every posting, from both of you, and carefully save them. What no one has commented on here is the comment: "should one day the Internet cease to work." This for me opens up a whole new part of life that hasn't been discussed - the unsustainability of our financial system, and its implications in your life, which, by the way, are the same for many of us as well. I would so love to hear a bit more about what is behind that comment. Especially what is happening in your lives related to austerity measures, etc.

Felicitations. I do hope you continue the blog and to write more books as well. It sounds to me as if Jules should write the novel that she wants you to write!

Happy Day!!! Ten years goes by so fast and yeet look at what you have accomplished and created. Congratulation!

Congratulations on ten years! Maybe if you need a change of pace, Jean Marc should take over writing the blog for a year! He is doing a great job.

Congratulations on 10 successful years of writing! Since the question concerning future blogs came up, perhaps writing about local places, people, and cultural customs in your area of southern France would be a possibility. My students and I enjoy the local pictures, recipes, architecture, plants, etc... Many thanks for all you do with French-word-a-day!!
Bises,
Julie
San Diego, Ca

Happy Anniversary! Congratulations! and Happy Halloween!
Kristi, As I've said on more than one occasion, you and French-Word-A-Day bring more joy to my days than you could every imagine. Your lovely, heartfelt stories and beautiful photos are my escape. And, yes, I enjoy your books too. In fact, I go back to them often, just for a quick read. Thank you for sharing your talents and your life. I look forward to many more years of this joy!

Myra, New Orleans, LA
and, For your Dad: 64 degrees and beautiful sunshine here in our fair city!

Congratulations, Kristi. I'm not sure how long I've been reading FWAD. I can trace when I first figured out how to save audio files to 2006, but that wasn't the beginning. I like Mom's idea of your writing a novel, if that appeals to YOU, of course.

I read Jean-Marc's story all the way through in French before going back to the translation. These days I'm getting a good sense of written material in French, if not too slangy, even though not an exact translation. Since I'm of an age where I practically forget my own name, it surprises me that I seem to be absorbing more and more French (although I get tongue-tied at a direct question).

May you have ten years and more of bringing us vignettes from your life.

What I find perhaps most attractive about this journal, Kristi, is your openness and courage to risk disclosures of your adventures and feelings as your lives proceed on "day by day". I appreciate also your family's willingness to be part of this disclosure.
I can't predict at all what might happen in your lives, or in our lives here, over the next ten years. I think what makes life interesting is its very unpredictability and I'm glad about that. I hope to keep reading your Word-A-Day journal. Thanks for the privilege, Kristi, you wonderful lively young lady you.

Each of your posts is a contemplation that I take into my day Kristi. You put into words observations (with both natures) of life's adventures in experience that I can clearly relate to. The comments from "Rompre" moved me deeply. Thank you and follow your inner nudges from day to day as always.

Kristi deserves all your sweet notes. She has been working hard on those post and nobody could replace her

...and it is good to see you here as well JM! Your input adds yet another dimension to a World Class Blog! Aloha, Bill

I forgot to ask, why is Jean-Marc writing for you these days. Are you okay?

Ah, the sweet scent of your success! On this joyous occasion {blessed anniversary!} I took a moment to pull out the café letters you had written me from Le Grand Café in 1999! Feeling grateful for your presence in my life and that you are still writing. You have just grown more beautiful and cherished over time.

What a beautiful gift you have given all of us, your writing. I so enjoy hearing about all your adventures, good, bad and sometimes sad. Sharing your life with us takes courage. I wish I could remember how I found the blog all those years ago but my mind just can't bring it back. ha ha

I am so honored to call you my friend.

xoxo

Congratulations Kristi! I have thoroughly enjoyed both of your books and came to your blog that way. You certainly have a gift with words and keen emotional IQ. I can't believe the letters you were sent recently that you alluded to in your last post. Incomprehensible! Keep up the good work, you enrich many people's lives. All the best for your future for both you and your family.
Karen NZ

Congratulations! More of the same please. It is wonderful! Merci beacoup

Joyeax Anniversaire - well done you - for having started 'it', but even more so - 10 years later you are still doing 'it'.... :)

Congratulations on your 10 year anniversary. I always look forward to reading your blog and seeing your beautiful photos and hope to do so for many more years to come.

J-M and Kristi - Congratulations on a decade of hard work and just rewards. J-M - I would like to hear more about the planning and work that will go into creating a new vineyard, complete with lessons learned from your prior vineyard. And Kristi - of course more vignettes from the South of France. But honestly, I see you writing a novel under the nom de plume of Smokey Doodle, based on a dog's observations of French life from a very lucky dog's point of view. I sometimes write letters from my own dog to friends, and find it a very freeing experience ... a dog can say and think just about anything and get away with it! Whatever the next decade holds, I look forward to sharing it with the Espinasse family!

Touts les jours, j'attends l'arrive du blog de Kristin. J'espere que vous continurez a écrire de votre vie en France.

Kristi,
Congratulations on 10 years. I think that I have been reading you for at least 9 years if not all 10 years. You gave so much of yourself that all of us feel that we are part of your family. You have not been afraid to write about mishaps or personal things about you or your family. I would read parts of your FWAD to my husband and to me you seemed like a really good friend. When we finally were able to meet you at Rouge - Bleu and then again in Paris, you made us feel so welcome and like old friends. Thank you for all that you have given of yourself, your family and your friends, as well as those two furry family members with who I fell in love, even before meeting them.
Thank you again.

Kathleen

on this halloween night, i am catching up with your wonderful blog....i feel so lucky to be able to keep up with your wonderful family......and also be able to listen to french in my ever fleeting wish to understand a beautiful language...thank you again for your sharing

Dix ans deja?!! Pas possible, Kristi! ... So many Espinasse treasures now stored up in your words and images, and so VERY many more -- unique and exquisite gems -- to come. "French-Word-A-Day/3 times a week" means to me: the LIGHT of my week with its Candour, Word magic, Sunshine/Shadow, Love and delightful surprises.

I just love your blog. I love France and hope to return. I imagine myself living there through your stories and photos. You have a lovely family and beautiful property.
Happy Birthday French Word a Day.

Joyeux anniversaire! I think I've been getting the FWAD for about 6 years and have really enjoyed following the family Espinasse and trying to translate the writings of Jean-Marc. Have your books also. Hope you will lead us through the Bandol years with descriptions of the area and the people; take us to the growth of a new vineyard; update us on your children's progress and keep those great photos coming. We feel very attached to Braise and Smokey and hope you discover many interesting places and people in these next 10 years. We are ready when you are. Merci. Kristi.

Félicitations et "Bon Anniversaire"!! Dix ans déjà!?! C'est pas possible!

Félicitations !!! Congratulations!!!
Je suis très heureuse d'avoir découvert French-word-a-day.
Best wishes for the future.

From the beginning, it's all been a wonderful joie de vivre experience. Thank you so much Kristi for sharing your life, your heart, your family, and your country. I remember the first time I found you online. You had just begun. You are brave, and I applaud you and your family. :-)
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