Visit from Francois Besseyre

 The day after we returned from skiing, we had a visit from Francois Besseyre.  Francois is Estelle's godfather.

 He and his wife Aurelie and their daughter Clea and son Gabin live in Clermont-Ferrand, a long way from Nice.  But Aurelie has a brother in Cannes, and they come usually in February for one week.  They came to see us for the day and brought Aurelie's 10 year old nephew Yannis.

 After a really big American style brunch (pancakes, muffins, poached eggs, bacon, fruit salad), we got ready to go to Carnival:

 Clea is in between Estelle & Léna.

 Aurelie is expecting #3 for July.

 Francois is one of Thomas' oldest friends.  He's a great godfather to Estelle.

 And here's Thomas, a great father!

 Wednesday morning, the girls had their breakfast at the "café" in Léna's bedroom:

 This was very exciting.

Thursday, it was time for sisterly reading in the little reading corner.

 Thursday after school, Estelle came home and enjoyed some quiet time while Léna was at dance with her magazine/cd subscription she gets each month "J'aime lire".

 She's quite a little reader!  :-)

 

Chantal and the Chalet

 Shortly before our ski week, we had a visit from my friend Chantal and her grandson Paul.  I had made another black & white cheesecake.   It had been 1 1/2 years since I had seen Chantal.  Sadly, her husband Michel died last summer of mouth cancer and so her life since the last time we saw them (Michel did not know he was ill when we saw them) has been in quite a state of upheaval.
I met Chantal in 2001, when I was a chaperone for a middle school trip (DC school where I did some student teaching) in the northern city of Amiens - she was the school nurse at the exchange school.  We met one evening during that stay at a dinner, and discovered we were both from families of 11 children.  She has a place in nearby Antibes - and so we have stayed in contact.

 Michel was Chantal's 2nd husband.  She was widowed as a young mother of 3 children when her 1st husband died suddenly at the age of 32.   In short, she's been thru a lot and we were so happy to be able to make her a nice meal and spend the day with her and Paul (whom I met 12 years ago when he was a baby!)

 Meanwhile - finally downloaded photos from my camera.  All the other photos on this blog from that ski week were all taken with my iPhone!

 Our chalet was called "The Red Shutters". Now you know why!

 Snow.   So much fun!   Below - our driveway.

 Estelle on Sunday, before she knew she'd become a ski bunny.

 What a great time we had in this chalet.  Those top shuttered windows was the girls' room.  Below, Guy & Andrée, and upstairs on the other side, Thomas & I - our view every morning of the mountains was spectacular!

Thursday & Friday on the Mountain

I was so tired, bumped and otherwise beat after yesterday on the mountain that I couldn't bring myself to post photos. But here we are, Friday night, and well show some shots from yesterday and today.
 Thursday morning we woke to beautiful sunshine and a few inches of fresh snow that had fallen in the night.

Thurday:  drop off the girls at their lessons and hit the slopes.

Thomas and I striking out in the beautiful sunshine.

Thomas doing something that, needless to say, I will never, ever do.  Skiing thru some shortcut trail.

This photo was taken first thing on top of the mountain Thursday.  Before things "went awry".

Thomas and I had taken a T-bar that we hadn't tried yet, which took us up the far side of the mountain and gave us a great view over the main face and the rest of the trails.  It was a great perspective! 

After this we tried a new trail completely on the other side of the mountain, and I was on a trail I wasn't quite ready for, fell a few times, finally got down, got on the T-bar which was really long and carries you up over a red trail - except I fell, and had no other choice but to go down, or take off my skis.  It was quite a challenge and we were quite high.  I cried, I screamed, I fell, over and over, and I swore, loudly, in both languages.  I appealed to the sky, to my father, to God.  I panicked.  Finally, finally, got down, then had no other choice but to get back on that damn T-bar in order to get out of this no-man's land on the mountain and get back to a blue trail.  I was so absolutely terrified of falling off the T-bar again and having to go down that red trail again that I was tense, tense tense the whole ride up (the T-bar actually turns at a 90 degree angle at one point) and so when finally, finally we reached the top, I burst out sobbing and cried for like 5 minutes.  Real hard crying.  So ridiculous.  I still can't believe it.  Poor Thomas.  He stuck right with me.  Then it was time to get the girls.  I was S-H-O-T.

After the ski lessons, Léna went straight home with Andrée & Guy - here she is with Lousie after her lesson on Thursday:

 Thomas, Estelle & I headed right up on the chairlift to the top of the mountain.  We had a picnic in a backpack and so we skied down a ways to a great spot in the sun. 

This photo is Thomas guiding Estelle down.

This was the first time I saw Estelle skiing from the top of the mountain.  It was amazing.  Especially given my trying experience in the morning.

I kept having what I felt like was an out-of-body experience, because #1 I was skiing down this mountain and #2 there's my 6-year-old flying down in front of me, fearless, and yet, in control.

Despite my rather trying morning and our busy afternoon picnicing and skiing with Estelle, we went down to Marie's Dad's chalet, where the whole gang was to celebrate Marie's bday.

11 kids and 5 couples = a lot of people singing Happy Birthday to Marie.  This is why Eliott and Milo are covering their ears!  It was then that I realized the T-bar I had fallen off is actually classified as "extremely difficult" and everyone else found it hard too (though no one else had fallen).

Friday (this) morning:  after dropping off the girls, Manu & Thomas & I hit the slopes.  It was fabulous.

We went right back to that hard trail, this time I managed to get down with no falls, and I went right back for a little hair of the dog that bit me.  I stared that T-bar down and up the three of us went. I sang I've Been Working on the Railroad and Old Dan Tucker, out loud, to try and keep from tensing up since I was pretty scared of falling again.  I made it all the way up, no problem!  So happy.

Léna on the little Mighty Mite T-Bar.

Meanwhile, here's Léna in the  Piou Piou class, riding up the rolling carpet. 

Sometimes, we'd run into Estelle out with her group.

Today at the end of the lessons, the girls got their little medals for passing a level.  Below, Léna gets her pin from Benoit.

Estelle gets her pin from Damien.

Estelle & Damien.

We love Damien.   What's not to love?

Same thing as yesterday.  Léna whisked off and Estelle hits the chairlift with Thomas & I, picnic in hand.   We got the one picnic table on the whole mountain. 

These photos were on the chairlift.

Proud of their accomplishments:

Despite the lack of sun this afternoon, and a cold wind, Estelle went up that long chairlift 4 times this afternoon and took 3 blue trails.  She fell a lot on the steepest part, but she did great.  I, meanwhile, almost never fell anymore.  What an amazing week for all of us - so fun!  It was hard to turn in the skis for Estelle - she stopped dead in her tracks when she realized she was on her last run - she didn't want it to end.  In 5 short days, we've created a ski monster.