Happy New Year!

The Blog is back in business. We flew back to Nice yesterday just in time to ring in the new year with a unexpected visit from my 2002 colleague Paula (English) and her BF Thomas (Austrian). Paula and I hadn't seen each other in almost 3 years. It should be noted that Paula, along with Fate, is responsible for me meeting my own Thomas - she organized the happy hour evening on Oct 23, '02 that eventually steered our little group into Vieux Nice that night, and thus to me meeting "The Hockey Player". So what a treat to spend the evening in such international company, jumping from English to French to German (not me for that tongue, however!).

A recap of a wonderful 8 days in Angers looked a little like this:
Lots of eating and visiting with friends, and the children of friends, like this first shot with pals Annaelle, Capucine, Lison (at table with Estelle) and Feriole (little boy in vest). That's Brice, one of the dads, with a piece of something in front of Estelle. Notice that Estelle is the one climbing on other's people's furniture in the 2nd photo!


Perhaps Estelle's biggest gift, though undeclared, was a whole new redecorated bedroom at her grandparents' house. Like an idiot I never took photos of it, but boy is it cute! Here's a shot where you get the idea of what the whole room looks like. It was once Thomas' grandmother's bedroom when she lived with him.

And here's the grown-ups, opening gifts at 11 pm on Christmas Eve, after the evening mass. Note the closed shutters in the window. They are admiring a photo calendar made especially for them starring guess who. Also note father-in-law Guy who enjoyed his gingerbread man ribbon so much that he decided to go for the Indian look.

After the gifts it is of course time to eat around midnight. We had foie gras, bouche de la reine (hot pastries filled with veal giblets and other sundries), and topped it all off with, of course, buchettes! (see photo)

Flash forward to the next morning when her highness awoke to her shoes under the tree (as is the tradition, as opposed to stockings), and everything around it just for her!

Admiring a gift of cubes that make animal noises of whatever photo is matched up on one side. This is an amazing invention. Daddy especially enjoys it.

How many Ouillades does it take to put together a wooden bicylette?

Riding around in front of the fireplace (and the creche) on "Luna", the new velo!

Checking out a parc in downtown Angers with Tata Agnes and us too.

Even the parcs have cool ruins in them!

Back in Nice on New Year's Eve morning, we had tons of Christmas cards in our mailbox (thanks to everyone in the States!). One padded envelope also contained a gift from Aunt Martha, which turned out to make me cry when I opened it - a reproduction of an old Christmas book from my childhood that I had forgotten all about, The Sweet Smells of Christmas. Here is Estelle fresh off the plane, opening it up:


After a quick read of the new book, everyone got into their pajamas for a mid-morning nap--having been up since 4 am for our flight.(previous photo shows Estellle a bit "fatigué". But I knew that lots of packages awaited us at the post office so I cut my nap shorter and charged out the door with my pull-along granny cart to La Poste.....where I almost literally got my head chopped off by the descending overhead door when I slid in at 11:59 am after my nap-just at closing time. When I left, they had to raise the door back up for me to let me out. But they only raised it up about 5 1/2 feet (size of the average French woman, I guess), thus I was forced to LIMBO my way out of the post office hauling my loot. Heavens. Quite sure they were mocking me. Here's a photo of the sleepyheads enjoying opening gifts from Aunt Joanie upon my return (by the way, I also picked up a few BUCHETTES at the bakery on my way back).

Like grandfather, like granddaughter - getting into the "wear a ribbon on your head" act.

First yogurt of 2008. What a treat!

Our little family spent the first day of this year at Uncle Craig and Doug's for a yummy New Year's brunch, complete with everything you could ask for. Estelle got these glasses which were her favorite part, though she fought being photographed in them!

A good start to the New Year! My best gifts included a new suitcase, Krullers mailed from Vermont (oh, the bliss...), the new book about Rhett Butler, and a snow globe of Dracula's castle in Transylvania from my Romanian cleaning girl, which is hilarious. And, perhaps the greatest gift for the entire country of France, smoking is BANNED in all restaurants, bars, discos, casinos, etc, starting today. Shocking, but true. Such great news for those of us with kids.
Happy NEW YEAR to all!