Thanksgiving and Advent

Mermaid dress and homemade cape from Aunt Martha are always fun to wear on the weekend! 

 

Playing all the time makes you tired:

 Oboe Mermaid:

 Meanwhile:

 We had a lovely Thanksgiving meal with my friend Leslie and her family.  Leslie is American from NYC and her husband is English.  It was a great time. 

This is why I love Leslie:  if your Menora is in storage, make one out of a banana and aluminum foil.  Brilliant.

 

I was amazed that Leslie knew by heart all the Hebrew/Yiddish things to say, and Zelda repeated them with what sounded like perfect pronunciation.  Sounded beautiful.

The next day:  time to paint.

And more oboe!

Christmas package comes from Joanie.  After my initial shock at the price of the postage, we finally opened it up!

Yes those are 4 Koffee Kup Krullers and yes I have eaten them all - gave one bite to Thomas.  Everyone agreed in the family that the most prudent thing to do was to let Mommy have ALL of them.  For the good of the family.

This year's Hallmark recorded book from the family:  Rudolph!

We love it!  Thanks to all!

Gretchen's Artwork

Does everyone know that our cousin Gretchen Alexander is a very talented artist?  Check out her blog post about her artwork showing locally.
Millstone Artworks: Show at Richmond Family Medicine

Old Photos from Phone

Finally got around to emptying out the photos on my phone.

 This was the last days of Léna's 1st year at school, in June.

 This was her great teacher, Cathy.

 This summer, the girls went to Paulette's for their haircut!

 They spent one day (after I was robbed) swimming with Maxence and Berenice in Cannes.

 ...and their little sister, Sixtine.

 We hikes in some gorges with friends.

 We say a street theatre festival.

 Thomas and I went to London.

 Saw the Globe theatre.

 And attended Simon's wedding, with our friend Amy (who has since had a baby girl).

 Beach time.

 Visits to Fransiska and Basile.

 A day with Chantal.

 Léna's coathook at school.

 Patrimony Day - a visit to a chapel that is normally closed.

 An art exhibit.

 Estelle got a magician set from her godfather, Francois.

 The oboe adventure began in September.

 I watched Eliza's wedding on Skype.

 More days at the beach.

 Bike riding around the city.

 Léna devours coleslaw.

 My students in Monaco try to put together a puzzle of the 50 states.

 The new big huge park that his disrupted the center of the city for 3 years finally opened at the end of October.  It is incredible.  And HUGE.

 This was one of the ceremonies for its opening.

 We gathered olives as we do each year.

 On Veteran's Day (WWI = Armistice here), we had a great visit from Claudine & Roland, from Angers.  We saw a neat exhibit.

 How school was during WWI.

 Look at the weather on November 11th!

 Nap time.

 Ken finally has some clothes from Estelle's fake birthday party.

 December 1st - the advent calendar's begin.

That's all, folks!