Carnaval!!!

Jaxon celebrated Carnaval at his school yesterday afternoon. Although we spyed several other indians, I am very confident that he was the only native American. Appropriate, isn't it?

With his friends, Julie and Cesar. Julie is one of Jaxon's favorite friends in his class; however, I am afraid that she is using him to get to Jonas...

In the parade

Jaxon, holding his teacher, Aurelie's, hand. I think he has a crush on her. She scared me a little at first because she isn't exactly smiley and bubbly, but Jaxon totally adores her and she has just been wonderful. I love his "maîtresse" and I love his school.

It was nice for him to have carnaval in the afternoon to offset a less than joyful morning spent at the prefecture, our least favorite place in France. We can be more than confident that we will always be informed of some unpleasant detail when we are there. This time, we discovered that I was issued the wrong visa initially by the consulate of Houston and I am at risk of being deported. Additionally, since we don't have our carte de sejours yet (no fault on our part) and our visas have expired, our planned trip to Egypt and Jordan (grâce à the head partner in Daniel's office, Phillippe) would require that we apply for visas to return to France, and would more likely cause us more pain than it was worth. So rather than add to our prefecture nightmares, we decided to change our airplane tickets to somewhere that they are unlikely to scrutinize our visas when we return: the U.S. We traded in tickets, at some cost, last night to go to Washington to see my family. The adventure factor is certainly lower, but the fun and relaxation factors are very high. Besides, it is where Jaxon wants to go. I asked him "Would you rather go see and ride the camels or go see Ryan?" (his cousin) He didn't even pause before responding, "See Ryan." Wow, why was the choice so much harder for me?

The pyramids and Petra have have survived thousands of years. They will be there later on when we want to go, hopefully still open to the public. Washington here we come!