Vermont

Connected to the internet for 5 minutes, so a few photos for the family back in France!
Estelle and Grammie read "Madeline" and tell each other 'shush'!

Estelle tries on my Vermont hat

Cousin Cole's 4th birthday party - getting into the presents!

Estelle meets her cousin Jesse for the first time ever! Jesse is my oldest nephew, born in 1983!

Estelle gets to see my college roommate Bec:

Aunt Mary babysat Estelle so I could go see nephew Addison starring as Pippin in the musical "Pippin" at my old high school! Niece Alex was also in the show. They were AMAZING! Eliza was there too and joined in the photo.

Estelle visits Aunt Mary's goats, named Peter & Paul! Also in the photo are Aunt Martha

Aunt Mary babysat Uncle Edwin's baby Elijah, who I finally got to hold since I'm not sick anymore!

Uncle Cedric reads a book to Estelle

Estelle plays around with her cousin Lillian

In Vermont

Snow, Easter, family, syrup. And sickness! A ferocious 10-day illness for me and cold/fever for her highness adds up to a big dent in our fun, but we are still living it up.




We are in Vermont with no quick access to fast internet and lots of snow.
Faithful readers, stand by.

Holy Hotel, Batman

Yesterday morning I got thrown into teaching part of a week-long intensive English week at a 5-star hotel near Monaco that is, well, fancy.
I couldn't teach the whole week since we leave for America Thursday. Try as I might to get out of this due to the 792 other tasks I am juggling in a span of about 96 hours, my boss at the Chamber wouldn't take no for an answer. Off I went, dressed in my best St. Patrick's Day nonsense, the ringer American who has experience working in a big hotel in America, dressed to impress...or something. There were 6 professional who work at the hotel in the course. We had a blast for 3 hours. I remember how much I enjoy entertaining in person, not just via a blog!
You think you have seen money, and the way rich people spend it, when you have worked for certain individuals that I have had the pleasure of working for and being friends with in my life. The you step into a place like this, not even visible from the road, really - easy to not even know it is there.
This hotel, which I daren't even name here for fear of somehow getting in trouble, has been closed for 7 months for renovations. It reopens next month. It has 50 suites, which go for upwards of 4000 euros per night - that means 6000 American dollars. Yes, you read that right. I just kept waiting to Cary Grant to step out of an alcove and head down to the water to continue shooting "To Catch a Theif".

Built in 1908 on several acres on the tip of a peninsula jutting out into the Mediterranean, the views in yesterday's brilliant sunshine took me out of my little bubble of Nice and scooter noise and babyfood.

This, folks, is how the other half lives. Here are a few photos that I dared (barely) to take when I was leaving at 12:15 and no one was around or looking at me because they were all eating lunch. The pool club literally hangs off the cliff at the end of this drive - nothing between your chaise lounge and the azure sea, except air.

Maxence and Estelle Ride Again, The Sequel

The Ides of March - yesterday marked not only the anniversary of Ceasar's assasination, but also a visit from Paris by Estelle's favorite little friend, Maxence.
To prepare, she read a book:

Then off we went to Parc Phoenix, a big tropical animal zoo-type place with playgrounds and picnic areas. You pay only 2€ and in you go. So I organized a get-together of all our old pals from Lamaze class. A few photos of Estelle exploring:


The gang - Estelle, Pauline, Alessandro (who's mother is expecting), Lucille (born on the same day as Estelle), Elliot, Thomas and Maxence.

Back at the roost, these gals enjoyed each others company.

They were having some fun together last night. Check it out!

Standing Man, Lying Down

This video is horizontal, but it was the only way to get the full effect of our new piece of furniture delivered today, an "Homme Debout" (a standing man).
So, lie down to watch it, or just "regarder" with your head turned!

Morning Fun

Belly

A few key words you'll need for this film:
"là-bas" = over there
"voila" = think everybody knows this one - it can mean "here you go", or "now you've gone and done it" or simply "here it is!" or even "ta da!"
"il est là!" = "it's right here!"

Clown

Estelle not only likes her pink shoes, but mine as well.

Getting Dressed

Here's a video of Estelle who I discovered trying to put on her dress over her clothes. This kept her busy quite a while. Also a few photos of her waking up from her nap.

New 'Do

For the first time in her life, Estelle has a hairdo today. Coincidentally, her city daycare had a sign up this afternoon saying "Parents, watch out, lice is back." That stopped me in my tracks once I figured out the translation. Heavens.


And here's a little short video of Estelle hollering out "I'm Madeline!"

Over the River and Thru the Woods

To grandmother's house we go.
Except this is the reverse, and Estelle's grandparents are here visiting us.
Lots of new clothes and books, DVD's and games and lots of fun times.
Here is a little video of her in her new cherry boots.

And here are a few photos taken with my cell phone this morning when we were in a big Sears-like store buying a new microwave as ours blew up last night. This corner of the store full of bedroom furniture for children was very interesting for Estelle:

Joyeux Anniversaire Papie!

Aujourd'hui c'est le 62eme anniversaire de notre bien aimé Papie d'Estelle, Guy. Vu que normallement Thomas oublie complètement les anniversaires des ses parents (!!!! moi j'en ai pour rien là, il y a des limites à ce que je peux faire pour lui quand même!!! non mais c'est scandaleux!), on a dit que notre petit Papie mérite bien un petit coucou publique sur le Blog pour récompenser pour tout les années ou son jour de naissance a passé sans mention. Quelle tristesse!
Donc, un petit tournage de madamoiselle la petite fille bien adoré qui souhaite un bonne anniversaire à son seul Papie adoré. Elle attends son visite avec sa Manou jeudi avec impatience!
Gros bisous Papie! On t'embrasse de loin, et on te souhaite encore au moins 62 ans!



Et voila un petit video pour Papie et Manou.....

Fete du Citron

While Carnival is going on here in Nice, another big festival is happenning nearby - the Citrus Festival in Menton.
Menton is the last town in France before the Italian border. It is very famous for it's boardwalk, beaches, mild climate and lemons and oranges. All kinds of oranges - clementines, mandarin oranges, blood oranges, bitter oranges, kumquats, and stuff I don't even know what the heck they are, as well as different kinds of lemons, and something called "cedrats", which are lemons as well (maybe?) Grapefruits and avocados are also on the menu.
Every year during Carnival, Menton offers up its own version of Carnival called the Fete du Citron. It consists of parades of floats made entirely out of lemons and oranges, plus huge gardens full of sculptures and displays made of....lemons and oranges.
7 years here and I had never been. Off we went on the train today with my friend Chantal and her 2 granddaughters.
Here are some photos. The whole experience made me feel like it was either Thanksgiving or New Year's Day and I was at the Rose Bowl or something - all thoses frigid holidays growing up in Vermont where you're sitting knee deep in snow watching TV specials where anchormen and women present those parades in parts of the USA I have never been to in my life- Florida and California. It had that whole feel to it - Tropicana, retired people, the early bird special.
This year's theme was "Islands of the World". Some of these "sculptures" are 10 meters high, and have up to 15 tons of citrus fruit on them.
This first photo is supposed to be a fishing boat on Tahiti. There were also enormous replicas of the famous big head statues on Easter Island but they were terrifying towers of citrus and Estelle was scared of them so no photos.

This is supposed to be a volcano in Sicily.

This is a pirate ship on the "Fantasy Island" for kids.

Orange trees:

More Sicily

Estelle in front of a wild boar ("sanglier" in French) that was part of the enormous Corsica spot. At least the boar wasn't made out of lemons.

This enormous turtle had a head that moved. He was very interesting to Estelle. Hiding behind him are the aforementioned terrifying Easter Island statues.

More turtle

For a solid 5 minutes, Estelle talked to the lemons. She kept leaning over and hollering "COUCOU LES CITRONS!". Loosely translated, this means "Hey there lemons!" This became a source of much entertainment for all the passers-by, and she got filmed and photographed by many a festival-goer, as she stood there bent over, squealing at a bed of lemons.

These last 2 photos show her glee about conversing with the lemons. She even put her hand to her ear as if they were responding to her. Maybe they were?


There was another part of the festival that was inside - and all ORCHIDS. Every orchid that exists in the world was in this expo. Since I kill every plant I own, I was sort of like "ok, moving on." But my friends were dazzled.