Giving out winning prizes at our "Extravaganza" extreme sports competition in 2002 in Castanet.

Here we are in Paris before leaving for the States and starting a new chapter in our lives.

The end of July 2003 finds us on the last day of our second annual portable skate park, named DEx (Dream Extreme), in Fowlerville, Michigan. Benjamin, a new family addition, joined us in our extreme sports endeavors.

Pittsburgh, PA in February 2005 on a day trip to the Carnegie Science Center. We live in St. Clairsville, Ohio, an hour southwest of Pittsburgh and eight miles west of Wheeling, West Virginia. We have our eyes on some choice abandoned warehouses along the Ohio River...

Here is a little about each of us:

Andrée (Lepérou) Weimer, 37, of Rennes, France.

I have always liked taking care of people. I learned to inline skate with my husband, David, in Cookeville, Tennessee and on trails around the Stuttgart Flughafen (airport) in Germany.

Here I am, cutting Guillaume's hair in our Michigan home.

I am the youngest of three children. My brother, Eric, is six years older and lives in Rennes with his wife, son and daughter. My sister, Isabelle, is one year older and lives near Saint Malo on the coast of France with her husband and two daughters. My father and stepmother live in Southern France. My mother lives in Rennes.

I enjoy travelling and meeting people. When I was growing up in Bretagne (Brittany) on the coast of France, I stayed in Rennes or in Saint Malo at my grandmother's house right on the ocean.

Since then, I have driven across Africa with a friend in a Rover, slept in castles in Scotland, camped across Europe and the U.S. and visited Victoria Island, Canada (one of my favorite places).

In 1986 I moved to Berlin to be an au pair mädchen (nanny) for a year. I learned German watching "Sesame Strasse" (Sesame Street) with the three-year-old girl I was taking care of.

I lived in Berlin eight years. I was there when the wall was standing and I watched it fall. I have lifelong friends in Berlin and warm memories of my time there.

In 1992, I graduated from the Techniche Fachhochschule Berlin with a degree in computer programing (Diplom-Informatikerin).

In 1994, I moved to Stuttgart, in southwest Germany to work as a computer programing consultant for CSC Ploenzke, and eventually, to be a software teacher for IBM in Germany and Switzerland.

I learned a great deal about France and Bretagne while living in Germany!

My German colleagues and friends needed help with making travel arangements to France. I began reading about the history of Bretagne, a place I had known well but not known about.

In 1999, my American pen-pal, David, flew over from the States to visit me on the same day of the solar eclipse. We had been writing for 18 years. You can read our story.

We were married in April 2000, in Sparta, Tennessee, U.S.A.

Guillaume, our first son, was born in October 2000, in Filderstadt, Germany and Benjamin, our second son, was born in January 2004, in Howell, Michigan, U.S.A.

We are quite the international family.

Guillaume Weimer, 4-years-old

My parents live with me in St. Clairsville, Ohio. This picture is at our skate park in Fowlerville. I like skate parks. I grew up in skate parks. My grandparents live in France and here in America.

I was born in Filderklinik, in a town called Filderstadt, southeast of Stuttgart, Germany. I am fluent in English and I hear French a lot from my mom and German when she talks to her friends in Germany. I also understand baby talk, which is Benjamin's language.

I've lived in Germany, France, Michigan and now Ohio. I like my preschool class now. I ride the bus to school each day.

I like dinosaurs, cars and knights. I can do a backflip off of anything (with Dad's help). I like playgrounds and I can't wait for our next skate park.

Benjamin Weimer, 1-year-old

My parents live with me in St. Clairsville, Ohio and do everything I tell them to. I like everything dangerous. I talk all the time.

I was born in Howell, Michigan at St. Joseph Mercy Hospital near Fowlerville.

I like to follow my brother around everywhere and do everything he does. I like to eat. My specialty is giving a good hug and laughing my head off.

My all-time-favorite activity is taking a bath. I can splash anyone within sight of the bathtub. I also like my brother's dinosaurs, cars and knights. And I can't wait for our next skate park, either.

David Weimer, 38, of Fowlerville, Michigan, U.S.A.

I started inline skating in Pittsburgh, in 1996. I put a lot of miles on my K2 skates--20 a day, on average. Skating every day, nearly all day, I went from absolute beginner to pretty competent. I could go down steps, jump, and cruise at 35 miles an hour

I encountered a new dimension called CURVED in skate parks in and around Stuttgart, Germany. No longer a flatlander, I encountered mini-pipes, pyramids, fun-boxes and rails. Concrete, wood, metal--I skated on parks made of all different materials. Wood is the best, of course.

By the time I left Stuttgart, I skated in a giant vert ramp at an extreme sports exposition, dropped in, I mean, not just swimming around in the bottom. I could do pretty much everything in a half-pipe except grind (handstands, 360 spins in both directions, hand grabs, etc.).

When we moved to France, I had a nose for finding the local skate parks around Toulouse. I've been to Montpellier, Lyon, Palavas Les Flots and Paris, skating in giant vert ramps and on street courses and on streets. I started doing a front flip out of a quarter ramp here, as well as some pretty crazy drop ins.

Will it end? With skating, you only get better... and older.

I am the oldest of three children. My brother, Pat, is three years younger and lives in Iceland with his wife, two sons and a daughter. My sister, Anne, is one year younger, and lives in Cookeville, Tennessee with her husband, son and daughter. My mother and her husband live in Rochester Hills, Michigan.

I graduated from Fowlerville High School in 1985 with a great feeling of relief. I am fluent in English, comfortably fluent in German and able to get along just fine in French. I took a class in French in eighth grade for a week before switching to typing--long enough to sign up for a pen-pal.

I joined the Army after high school, and was stationed in Fliegerhorst Kaserne, near Frankfurt, Germany for almost two years.

While there, I visited my French pen-pal in Rennes. In 1987, she moved to Berlin and shortly after that, I returned to the States, working as a land surveyor in Lake City, Florida.

In 1991, I graduated from Lake City Community College with an associate of arts Degree and moved to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. In 1994, I graduated from the University of Pittsburgh with a bachelor of arts degree.

I'm a newspaper reporter, philosophy group leader, carpenter and writer. I've skydived and jumped out of helicopters. I was in the Army National Guard for 10 years.

In 1998, I was a graduate student going for my master's degree in the University of Memphis' Department of English teaching assistantship program. The next year, I visited Andrée in Stuttgart during a summer break in classes. Second chances don't come along often. I withdrew from classes in Memphis, boxed up my things and moved to Germany.

In the spring of 2000 we got married.

I learned about myself and my country by living far away

The past two years, we have been running a summer skate park in Fowlerville. A portable, free skate park open to all. Last year, we had a mini half-pipe, BMX dirt trails, three grind rails, 22 skate park modules, a sound system, refreshments and more activity than we imagined. Too bad we moved!

I'm working on grinding and a couple other tricks. A backflip is near the top on my to-do list. I practiced a couple of years ago on a trampoline on skates and got pretty good. I needed a more vertical quarter ramp to get the lift I needed. I can grind in a half-pipe and on curbs, rails and anything else that's smooth. I wouldn't say I'm very good, but I can actually slide.

Landing a 540 is my next reachable goal on my top three list of things I'm working on: Backflip, grinding and a 540. Got to have a goal.

We're looking at warehouses in the Wheeling area to open a skate park and bistro. The same idea as you'll see if you look at "The Park" tab on our main homepage. A great sanctuary for extreme sports AND something for the family--with a European twist.

No matter where it is, or when we open it, we'll call our park

The One and Only

.

Here I am on our skate park in Saint-Lys, France. Check out what we built over there. Or check out what we've done over here.