Old Friends and Birthday whatnot

 A few weeks ago on a Friday night, we had the pleasure of a visit from Craig & Doug.  The girls enjoyed attacking Doug before the 4 of us left them in the capable hands of our babysitter Hippolyte and went out for dinner.

2 nights ago my daughters got to meet our friend Peter Henry - who used to work with me here in Nice in 2003-2004. Thomas has seen him more recently as Peter has spent the past 3 summers in France leading bike tours. But I haven't seen him since I was expecting Estelle! We celebrated by an 8 p.m. dip in the sea wearing Thomas' bathing suit.

It was refreshing!

So great to catch up with Peter again!

And not to be forgotten, on my bday Wednesday:  look at this lovely cake Thomas bought at Lac chocolatier - it's called Perle.  So good.

 I'd like to note that I have since had my roots dyed. 

Sunday was also Eliott's birthday party, up in a park.  Fransiska & Arnaud did a pretty great job developing a series of challenges and tests, all around the theme of finding and slaying an evil dragon.
There was 1 King (Crowned on left, Arnaud, Eliott's dad) and 2 Knights - Lud -Eva & Louise's dad, and that's Thomas far right, standing.
 
They had some great ideas.

First challenge for the little Knights:  slay the other Big knight with your jousting plunger....

Fransiska and Arnaud have recently done some huge additions/renovations in their flat by purchasing what had been the concierge apartment (now becoming a thing of the past, or of luxury in some buildings) on the other side of the wall.  This means they've got a lot of cardboard lying around.  And plungers, I guess?

This knight would spin around once you hit him, and if you got hit with his bath poof, you were considered "dead".  Here's Knight Thomas giving it his best shot.

Eliott's buddies from his school, with our friend Loup with the curly hair.

Next challenge:  Attack the Knights, 2 by 2.

Eva and Estelle have a go at their dads.

Next challenge:  Go find the shield needed to protect them from the dragon.  These things were all spread out in this big public park, by Fransiska (see her in the distance holding Basile?)....

Eva found the shield in the tree....

Here's the King Arnaud explaining a few thing about the shield:

 
Next step, off to find King Arthur's rock to each retrieve a sword.

 Eliott has his sword.

 They had to answer questions to get pieces of a puzzle that spelled the next clue (which was the merry-go-round -"manege" nearby!)

So the next step was 2 rides for everybody to DragonLand, and the way to get there was on the merry-go-round (manege).

 

 Estelle & Eva

 And finally, the ultimate challenge in Dragon Land: blindfolded and armed with their shield, they had to pin the sword on the dragon.

Once the Dragon had been slayed, everyone got their reward:  candy kabobs and a dragon tooth necklace which you can sort of see around Estelle's neck.

 What else would someone from Holland make but...Dutch Apple Pie with a 6 on it!  Yummy yummy!

 Thomas had his hands full with Louise & Lena.  We were in an olive grove.

Then we ate cake and opened presents and raced to our cars before the skies opened up.

And finally, here's Estelle with Frederique, her piano teacher. One more lesson to go next week.

Happy Birthday to Me!

Things are off to a very good start here in Nice today:
Thomas left for work at 7:45 this morning, and about 10 minutes later the street buzzer rang with a voice that said "It's the babysitter!".  Ha ha!  He had taken the day off.

 Opening cards from America after breakfast.

 Thanks Martha, Mom & Lisa!

 Then I was presented with a lovely card from the girls and a new bathing suit that they helped Thomas pick out at Galeries Lafayette.  Estelle said "It reminds me of the Blueberry Pie Elf" (favorite book of mine)....  

Life is good!

Mother's Day

Today is Mother's Day in France: Estelle recited a wonderful poem for me by heart, and also gave me this great portrait of myself, with a bouquet of flowers and lavender. Quite professionally mounted I must say.

I got a lovely letter in my mailbox from Estelle. Her teacher actually took all the kids to the post office to mail them. Very sweet. I'll let all of you enjoy testing your French skills by reading it.

We were at Eva's postponed birthday party all afternoon and a good time was had by all baking under the Mediterranean sun. Holy cow summer is here.

Léna's Bday Celebration

2 weeks ago on May 12th, Léna got to have a special afternoon to celebrate her 3rd birthday in style since she wasn't in Nice on her real big day.

Léna invited Louise to spend the afternoon.  First Eva stopped by to drop off Louise and help give Léna her gift:  Disney Dancing Cinderella!  She was a hit!

Then we took Léna & Louise (& Estelle!) to see a little marionnette show.

This was exciting and fun!

Afterwards we went to a nice ice cream parlor for some real treats!

This ice cream parlor is also quite well known as a patissier - baked delicacies and pastries.  Thomas got one of his favorites, called a "Religieuse", because it looks like a bishop, or a pope, or something.

YUMMY!  The girls had ice cream.  You can see my treat lower right - tarte à l'orange brulée - like orange cream with a carmalized top.  Incredible. 

And then back home for some costumed piano magic.

What a great way to spend being 3.  Louise is really Léna's only "friend" besides the little girl at her nanny's (who we don't really know socially), and Louise and Léna will start school together in September so this was a nice occasion to spend some time together.

86

Today is my dad's birthday. If he was still alive, he'd be 86.

For whatever reason, this morning when I woke up I was thinking about his absence in a different way. What about the positive things that have happened that might NOT have if he had lived longer? When I think of my siblings at large, I can hypothesize about the good choices/decisions everyone has made since 2001 which were born of losing him.
For me, one thing's for sure: if my father had still been alive when I first came to France in 2001, I would never have stayed a second year after the Fulbright. My first year in Nice was one of change. My flight out of DC was 2 days after the airports re-opened after 911 in September, 4 months after Dad's death. A feeling of anything can happen was prevalent, and so at 31 I walked away from DC, my life there, and turned toward a new risk that was definitely, though unconsciously at the time, fueled by having lost my father. If cancer hadn't taken him, I would have come back on that plane at the end of the Fulbright and taken up my life again, too afraid to plunge into the abyss of the unknown and building a life abroad.

Brave, or stupid? But I remember thinking I had nothing to lose. Had I not decided one year was not enough, I would never have met Thomas, and would never have embarked on this wild, challenging, interesting, self-defining adventure of living, working, and raising children in a foreign country, language and culture. My father was nothing if not independent, and living overseas, totally anonymously, has made me not necessarily successful but fiercely independent, more productive, courageous, and persistent. 
Every cloud has a silver lining - Happy birthday anyway, Dad! May your wishes come true.

11

11 years gone by. Seems like more, seems like less.

Taken around 1994, at my Aunt Becky's. Wish he could have met my husband. Wish he could have seen my children. Wish he was alive to tell me to get myself over to La Rochelle and start researching more on the Perrons. Last night I dreamed Becky was cracking jokes about him telling me I should be sleeping on a foam mattress. Funny, the subconscious. Here's to remembering a life well-lived!

Bonne Fete Estelle! Birthday Cupcakes and the Tooth Faire

Today, May 11th, is Estelle's "fete" - her saint's day.  Here are some photos of her on Wednesday morning when she woke up to find her note from the tooth fairy.

Wednesday we baked cupcakes from scratch with homemade buttercream frosting for Léna's belated bday celebration.  We had fun.

It's so nice to take naps on Wednesdays.

Today, Friday, Estelle took lollipops to school to share with her whole class to celebrate her fete.  Yesterday Léna took the cupcakes to the nanny's to celebrate her bday since she was away for the real day.  I forgot how much work cupcakes are (in a small kitchen).  But dang they're good.

Video of girls!

Click here to see a video entitled:  
Estelle's loses Tooth #5

Girls Home!

The new blogger format has me totally upended.  Between that and my new camera, I may never learn to blog again!

Sorry for these rather abrupt blogs, but this is all a little tricky for me.

Sunday afternoon we drove to Aix to get the girls!

We met Andrée and Guy at Pascal (Thomas' cousin) & Sylvie's house in Saint Cannat, just next to Aix.  Yvette & Dédé (Pascal's parents) also arrived (they live in Aix now) with Agathe & Aurore (Pascal's daughters), who had spent the night with them.

There was a LOT of cool stuff at this house. 

When we got home, Léna had cards to open - Martha, Lisa, Joanie, W & C & H - thanks everyone!

I found this gift for Léna at the church shop for 2 euros.  You can imagine my absolute DELIGHT. Excellent condition.  Though only included 2 dogs and 2 pieces of the fence.  Who cares.  We love it.  At least the door "moos" and Léna loves that!  Vintage Fisher Price!

Finally were able to bring back some of the girls' Xmas gifts that had been up in Angers...

Above:  homemade cream puffs, courtesy of Yvette.  Amazing - we filled them with strawberries and fresh cream.
Below:  Andrée & Yvette (sisters), Thomas, brother-in-laws Dédé & Guy (lucky enough to be married to those sisters!)

ok sorry for the lame photo order but need to spend some time with this new blog format!

 Pascal has a zipline - Estelle couldn't get enough

 I tried to explain to her that she had to not break her neck on this!

 Léna came to give me a hug

 Not happy to be told to take a break from the trampoline!

 Today was a national holiday - Thomas had the day off and the girls did a LOT of bike riding, Estelle lost ANOTHER tooth (makes 5 total) and now is a big toothless grinner.  A riot.