Toussaint/Halloween in Angers

For lack of energy to take photos of the new apartment (and shame of the disorder and boxes), here's a post with photos of our 6 days in Angers just 3 weeks ago.
Day One: Family time raking leaves:


Estelle LOVED going for a walk with Manou and getting her to run.
Shelling chestnuts from Calvinet was fun for Estelle:
They soak them in water once shelled and if they float, they're no good (or something like that).
This was hilarious for Estelle:
Another stroll.
A visit from good friends Claudine and Roland Saulnier (to my family: their daughter Virginie is the one in Wisconsin with the Cabot connection who came to the VT wedding with no luggage).

At the bakery, choosing bonbons to bring to the Halloween party at the English Library of Angers (which I never knew about until this trip).
See the meringues on the top shelf? Homemade.
Thursday the 29th, we attended a little Halloween celebration at the American/English library. It was for 3-5 yr olds so perfect for Estelle. I got tipped off to it by Tania Romanoff, who was my neighbor growing up in Jericho, VT, and who, after living in Poland and China, has landed in Angers of all places with her husband and 3 kids.
Above: Estelle as Scooby Doo. Below: Agnieska, (Polish version of Agnes), Tania's oldest child. My family will no doubt see the Romanoff resemblance!
Thomas and our little pumpkin, who was the youngest attendee at the party.
Here's Tania and her son Dominic, who was quite a clown.
There were 9 little girls dressed as princesses. And one Scooby Doo.

Dominic read Charlie Brown's Great Pumpkin to Estelle. How bizarre: my kid and Tania Romanoff's kid, together on Halloween in Angers, France. If someone had predicted that 30 years ago........
Here are her 3 - the middle girl's name is Malina (she told me this is Polish for raspberry!)
Back at the ranch, what had been Guy's office (and prior to that his own father's bedroom), was converted back into a bedroom for us. They worked a lot to redo, strip paper, build closets and paint the entire thing and it looks like a magazine!
Lena has her own little corner:
Looking into our room from the back yard:
Outside our bedroom we can see Estelle's swing:

And here's Estelle's room, which is always morphing:
This was Thomas' bed when he was young:
Friday afternoon, there was a little champagne party in Léna's honor. All of the family's good friends came, like Myriam, grandmother to Merlin.

Here's are other good friends and neighbors:
Get out the fine china!
These beautiful roses grow sideways: (sorry, can't make this photo behave!)
A table set for a queen:
Guy's touch with wooden letters:
And of course, CAKE!
One chocolate, the other, berries....

Friday night Agnes arrived from Paris, and Halloween morning we went for a walk along the Maine.
Here's the famous bridge the Americans used to liberate the area during WWII.


A boat on the Maine...
Here's the plaque explaining the history of the bridge.
We had a visit from Celine, good family friend, who had a baby boy Merlin late in August.
Merlin's older sister Lison enjoyed playing with Estelle:


Manou and Léna:
Estelle likes Papi's cozy lap:

Poor Papy didn't get much of a break with Estelle around:
Here I am looking into Estelle's room:
Agnes & Léna:
Like I said, no rest for the weary:
A visit from Anne, good family friend. She had 3 daughters, here are the two older ones, Annaelle and Capucine:
And the youngest, Philomene, trying to grab Léna's foot:
On the plane heading home - she looks happy now but an hour later she was throwing up all over. Ouch!
It was a busy 6 days!

Girls

So today I bought batteries, here's a few shots:


Watching Peter Rabbit ballet from W, C, & H.


Video of our bedroom, don't mind my stuffy sniffle voice and baby banter!

The Move

The calm before the storm - reading books with Manou on the eve of the move.
Also Sunday afternoon Estelle had a birthday party to go to. She was excited:
If I had any more energy I'd compliment these pictures with witty commentary, however, loading photos is all I can muster.
Below, the "monte-meubles", the machine they used to get our stuff out of the apartment, over the balcony, and down 5 floors to the street where it was put in a truck.
This is what is looked like from the street:He looks scary but he was really nice. He made a lot of jokes that I couldn't get. I laughed at each one to stay on his good side.
These "valises" are foam lined and it's what they used to move all our breakables - dishes, glass, lamps. Very cool. We didn't do a thing, no wrapping stuff in newspaper!
There's the owner waiting for the machine to descend with another load.
Just a sample of what the place looked like - this is part of Estelle's room.
There's the fridge about to make the plunge down.
Here's the chocolate cake we had after our lunch at the Brasserie in between the loading and the unloading. That's what you gotta lunch about the French - no eating cold cuts and chips on paper plates. No way. Take an hour and a half for a proper hot lunch, start to finish. And Pastis.Here's the truck, after it was unloaded, driving away from the new place the wrong way down a one-way street. Love it.
A little video - not much, but you get the idea. Sorry the 2nd one of the fridge is horizontal.


Today is a national holiday so Thomas is home and his parents are here for one more day.
No shots yet of the new place, can't find the box with the batteries.
Good news is the heat and hot water got turned on yesterday. And the new washer got delivered. Then Estelle threw-up all over in her bed at 10:30 p.m. last night. And I almost burned her in the bathtub cause I'm not used to the way the faucet is yet. Also we hadn't hooked the dishwasher up correctly thus had two huge floods in the kitchen, couldn't find the box with the rags, etc. You get the picture...... It's an adventure!

Ignorance is Bliss

There's one person in our family who is oblivious to our upcoming move. All she needs is milk, mommy, and something to chew on:


Her big news is that she no longer needs a late-night 11 p.m. feed, and so is sleeping from 7 p.m. thru to give or take 6 a.m. We are happy to put her down before dinner and not have to attend to her until the next morning!
...though, if you HAD to attend to somebody, isn't this the baby you'd want to be saddled with? Is it me, or is she cute or WHAT?


A little video of nothing this evening whilst dinner was being prepared in the kitchen by Thomas and his Mom.

TOO BUSY TO POST

The Sheriff says "Get Packing, Mommy!"
Just back from Vacation in Angers and now 4 days away from moving = busy!
So just these 2 photos to remind you all of us over here.

7 Years Ago

Wednesday October 23rd, 2002. My English roommate Melissa and I left the apartment at 6:30 p.m. dressed for fun and headed to our colleague Paula's for pizza and Pictionary. There was a good crowd, a dozen or so.
After several thin-crust wood-fired pizzas and as many bottles of red, 5 of us headed for the Old Town at 9 to experience Ladies Night at Nice's legendary anglo bar, Wayne's. Our Scottish colleague, Alan, the lone guy in the group, begged and pleaded that we make a pit stop at a pub for a beer before being subject to Ladies Night.

Us girls finally gave in. "One beer, and then we leave." The pub was deserted except for a table of people in the corner. We hunkered down in a booth across the room, ordered a round, and gibber gabbered away. After about half and hour, a guy from the other booth got up and crossed the pub to go to the toilettes. I had conjunctivitis and so was wearing my Armani glasses, so my peripheral vision was not up to snuff, but I sensed, without looking directly at him, that they guy was taller than me. A rarity in Nice. When he returned from the toilet, I got a good look at him, and decided he was cute, to boot. I made my move.

So here we are, 3 weddings (French civil, French religious, Vermont) and 2 kids later.
I think often, every year on October 23rd, what if someone had whispered in my ear that day, before the pizza and the Pictionary, "tonight you will meet your husband". Or if the whisper included all the joy, and stress, of planning 2 weddings across oceans. The thrill of watching your husband score a goal across the ice! Of the heartbreak of a honeymoon that never was. If someone had whispered: "you will do everything you can think of and you will have girls, not boys, and it will just about kill you, and then you won't care in the least." Your husband will tell you that he thinks he knows your father because of the way you lose your temper and holler, even though neither he, nor your children, will ever know your father.

If someone had said, you will start your own free-lancing business, birth 2 children in a foreign culture, one coming in 34 minutes while you are screaming in a language that is not your mother tongue. You will miss out on countless milestones of family and friends back home, events big, and small. Your heart will ache at Halloween and the 4th of July. You will love being the novelty, the foreigner. If they had told me all that, while I was getting ready with Melissa, sipping a cosmopolitan, layering on my perfume, listening to the Jackson 5, tonight, 7 years ago, I probably would have stood in amazement, not known what to think, and then put on another coat of lipstick and skipped out the door.

Rainy Day Wednesday

Happy 3rd birthday to Miranda Sullivan in CT today! Hope she has a great day!
Yesterday we had some yucky weather. Since it was Wednesday (no school), we just relaxed at home in comfy clothes. (Until it was time to go sign the papers for our NEW APARTMENT that we are renting and moving into in 2 1/2 wks - another story).




It's all so much work. 2 kids, I mean. But it is starting to get fun. Estelle is amazingly patient, caring, and sweet with her sister. Clearly traits she gets from her father.

The Clown

Here's Estelle going to school in the morning:
And here's what she has to say when she comes back from school in the evening (get ready, it's a 4+ min video, dust off your French skills):

Weekend Fun

On Saturday, Marie came over to play with Estelle. She's a year older and they were at Cathy's together (the nanny). They see each other at school for recess, etc.
Marie's grandfather is the one with the pomengranite tree. Marie has incredible natural ringlets. She is my little Shirley Temple. I love her.
Notice Estelle's Green Eggs and Ham shirt from my friend Jane in Florida, which of course no one has any idea what the heck her shirt is - they all think it is some crazy graffiti shirt from a rap band or something. How exactly can one "explain" Dr. Seuss? I don't even try. I just say "It's a thing. From America." Not like you can translate Hop on Pop. Talk about lost in translation. Gheesh.
And here's our little Roller:
She thinks sitting up in the corner of the couch is FUN:

Recently Estelle has become fascinated with the quilt on her wall that Joan made for her when she was just a few months old. I often find her standing on her bed examining all the squares to see just Who is Who.
This is funny for us as she usually is talking to herself, outloud, in English, identifying characters on the fabric. I am so happy to hear her talking to herself in English, I could care less what it is about, I practically faint. It's a miracle I had the wherewithall to grab my camera (Thomas says "yeah, right" to that comment).
And finally, a little video with some playmat rolling action and squealing: