Mother's Day & Ascension Weekend!

Last Sunday the 29th was Mother's Day. We had a nice outing in the afternoon to a parc way way up looking over Nice. It was hot and deserted.





Here's a photo from the same park, 4 years ago. Estelle's not the only one who looks younger!
Back to the present:



Back at the ranch:
Shelling peas:
My mother's day card:
My mother's day framed art:

Ascension: Thursday (2 days ago) was Ascension - a national holiday here. Most everyone takes Friday off to make it a 4-day weekend. Schools are all closed. So far we've had 3 great days together as a family.
Thursday: bad weather in the morning, but by mid-afternoon things were looking up. We headed out to the beach at about 5:15. Our favorite: Villefranche.
Our first trip to the beach this season. What a difference - Léna is so much older!












Léna's not the only one growing up:

Estelle, after swimming lessons twice a week for the entire school year, is no longer afraid of the sea:




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Friday/Yesterday at lunch we met up with old friends who have moved away....
Sylvianne and I were pregnant together 5 years ago. Some faithful blog followers might recognize her. When pregnant with #2, she & her husband moved back to central France where she is from.

Here's an old photo of Estelle, Pauline & her dad Philippe and Eliott too....
Another old photo with the same trio...
Estelle and Pauline jumped right into playing together as if they see each other every day - and yet it has been 2 years! Estelle is about 6 weeks older than Pauline. Funny it makes no difference now, but back when we were all pregnant, we all knew exactly WHO was due WHEN.
Here they are in late June 2008, just before Sylvianne moved.
Now, back to the present: here's Nils asleep - he's 2 months older than Léna (who was also asleep in her stroller!)
We met for a picnic yesterday with Sylvianne & Philippe, Pauline & Nils while they are here visiting. We had a blast.
Best mother's day present from last Sunday: my daughter, asleep wearing a Runaway Pond t-shirt, holding a doll that one of my incredibly talented sisters made me about 37 years ago.
Mother's Day morning video. (Think I look groggy? out til 2 a.m. the night before but Thomas actually let me sleep until 8:45! Can you imagine! Me, the early bird. 8:45. Decadence).

More to come: Veronique's 40th birthday party last wkend (hence out til 2 a.m.) and Louise's baptism today (tipsy priest and all).

English Jewish Wedding!

Finally, a few shots from the wonderful wedding we attended recently across the English Channel.
After a few days in London with our friend Simon, we headed up to Manchester by car on a Sunday mid-day. Here's what we saw when we arrived at the synagogue (almost the last ones!)

Under the "chuppah", Andrew (the groom) is with the Rabbi (who ironically was a New Yorker who has lived in Manchester 25 years - he told me when he finished "rabbi school" in Israel, Manchester was were they needed a rabbi, and he's been there ever since) and the "chazzan", the singer-guy.
It was funny because the Rabbi was a real show-man. Funny, cracking jokes, very entertaining. It was like a Woody Allen movie. Later everyone kept saying "Wasn't he great that AMERICAN rabbi!" Andrew put on this blanket-type thing that he wore that had things tied on the 4 corners made by Amy that signified something.
This is after Amy entered. Now, I must apologize for the photos during the ceremony, all of which were taken by Thomas who had my camera in his pocket (wouldn't fit in my 1960's retro purse) and of course we had no idea that we would be SEPARATED when seated in the synagogue so I found myself with NO CAMERA. Check out the rabbi's hat. Love it.
Here are Andrew and Amy under the chuppah. This was after he had read aloud the marriage contract and then gone and checked Amy out in some other room to make sure it was not her sister hiding under the veil (a biblical story). He had returned to us and then the traditional wedding procession begins with maid of honor, etc and she was walked in by her mom.
The view above is Thomas looking from the BOYS SIDE over to the GIRLS SIDE. Thru the wooden alter-thingy separating us, you can see me and my blue flower. Below: they leave the synagogue and go to some other room where they have time alone.
During the hour-long photo shoot, the guests were entertained with cocktails and canapés. The wedding colors were orange and fuchsia - and thus the drinks to match: mimosas and.....cosmopolitans. I just about laid down for joy. With all this foreign-ness of the Jewish ceremony, finally, something that looked familiar - my favorite drink! Ames found me after and said "I knew you'd be thrilled, Jules."


The beautiful blushing bride - she is wearing 10-inch heels. Normally her head is at my hipbone. The next morning at brunch she said "Last night I feared I had done some life-long damage to my feet. But today things are much better". Imagine someone saying that with an accent like the Queen, or at least Maggie Smith or Judy Dench. Brilliant.
Thomas and Simon show off their new personalized-for-the-occasion yamakas. They were orange suede. Inside they were monogrammed with Amy & Andrew and the date. Some of the older men there had their own yamakas on.
Then, the reception downstairs in the synagogue hall - these arches were used to welcome the bride and groom as they were announced.
Challah bread under a special napkin and there was a moment in the evening to cut it and eat it.
The whole reception began with wild dancing. It lasted a long time. I was amazed. Though heavily focused on the groom and all the men, there was a moment for Amy with this beautiful white umbrella/parasol streamer thing, so lovely. She was up in a chair.


Here they both held the same cloth that had been over the challah bread - both up on chairs.
Meanwhile, back at the "Gentile Table" (me, Simon, Thomas and 10 other people who had no clue what was going on! So fun! - we discovered it together).
Later on, the three buddies from a decade ago in Nice get their dancing toes on:

Amy's poor mom got thrown up on the chair. She's howling for her life in this photo.
These 2 goons had way too much fun all weekend:
Interlocking dancing circles for the men:
And a couple who's "old hat" at being married, shucks, they even got married twice:
What a GREAT fun wedding! We loved every second and FINALLY got to meet Andrew! We are so glad we went, and who do we have to thank:
MERCI Papy & Manou qui sont venus garder les filles pour 3 nuits et 4 jours. Sans eux, on n'aurait pas pu y aller!!!!!

Amy's Wedding

Just a few shots from our 4-day trip to England this past weekend....more to follow on another day!
Amy & Andrew's wedding at a synagogue in Manchester.





10 years ago, Simon and Amy met in Nice. Here we are a decade later!

Hot Rabbit

Bet most of you never knew who Dominique Strauss-Kahn was before yesterday, did you?
"DSK", as he is known here, was the person my husband intended to vote for in next year's Presidential race.
But now, "ain't gonna happen"...
Sarkosy got divorced after being elected (for the 2nd time) and then married a divorced top model. No body cares in France. What you do in private is your business as long as you run the country, or your company, well. The French could never understand why everyone in the USA got so upset over Monica Lewinsky.
Having affairs and getting divorced is one thing - but attacking a hotel maid is another.
The country was reeling yesterday, and still is as the Socialist Party scrambles to collect their wits.
Yesterday as we drove to a birthday party (life goes on, despite politics), every radio station we tuned in to was talking about this scandal. I repeatedly heard the reports and political pundits refer to DSK as a "lapin chaud", and that everyone knows he is a "lapin chaud". This is my new favorite French expression. I think I don't need to translate.

10

10 years ago today we said goodbye to my Dad.
A decade appears too big a word, yet, it is true. One quarter of my life has now been lived without my father.

Some people in my life here have been faced this year with a diagnosis of cancer for one of their parents. I always feel like I am getting punched in the stomach. I see the whole unfurling of the process in my memory, the stages of ups, downs, remission, hoping, doctors, treatments, bottles of pills and special diets, denial, forgetting, and the crippling moment if you find out it is back, again.

As his obituary says, Dad handled his cancer with formidable grace and spirit.
Today my mother and siblings will gather in Vermont for a memorial mass at our church, brunch at my sister's and after a "work bee" in the cemetery around his own grave and others that need attention. The way he would have wanted - productivity, have something to show for yourself at the end of the day. As a historian and genealogist, he certainly was always looking into the past, but never with tears and sorrow and so we try and follow his example - not easy shoes to fill.

Steeplebush Farewell

Nostalgia all around this weekend. We feel very far away.
Jericho, Vermont: The family who bought my childhood home that my father designed and built in 1960 have sold after 22 years. They move out today. The Jones have been so kind to us all these years. Here are the views that my father knew, in 1960, would become a million dollar property.


Good luck to the Jones. Hope the rest of the world can "keep up"!