Vive la France....

No more waiting in lines to renew my work permit for this girl. 

THANK GOD!

It's official, je suis française!

Here's the Proof.. me and Monsieur the Préfet du Calvados

And no, I didn't match the marble flooring on purpose. 

It was just written in the stars....

A day in Paris

 I had a day to myself in Paris in late October. I walked and walked and walked. I didn't take the metro once. It's a great way to see the city. I did take a break to check out one of our favorite folk art muséums (this expo was on Japanese folk art) and later had an asian noodle soup to recharge my batteries. 

It was pure coincidence mind you. The Asian / Japanese thème.....

Anyhoo, here are some shots from the amazing expo. 

 These origami animals were made from leaves.

These reminded me of Stephane's freak banners.

This artist had about 50 of these miniature appliances made out of paper with magazine images glued on them. They were great! Only about 6-8 inches tall, 

washing machines, Whirlpool freezers, stoves...

Some crazy pencil work. This was like 5 feet tall....

Crazy detailed cardboard vehicles slightly larger than a matchbox car.

This last shot was just one part of a paneled installation maybe 20 feet long by 5 feet tall. All in colored pen and marker, of different Japanese neighborhoods in this mind blowing détail. 

Crazy stuff and a jolly good show.

Boxing day dish washing music

Today, Boxing day, was a dinner of our leftover seafood. 

We can never tire of seafood.  Tomorrow will be crab cakes. 

So leftovers you'd think not too many dishes, right?  

Yet somehow we managed, 9 plates (3 dinner, 3 cheese and 3 dessert)  three glasses, two wine glasses plus the silverware. 

That's almost all of the 9 1/2 minute extended version of

plus a bit of.....

I'm hooked on this song not because I think it's a great song, 

but over the vacation we watched season 1 of the British séries ...

and it was the opening song. I am hoping a season two is in the works and highly recommend it. Romain invasions of the Gauls, sacrifices to the gods by the Druids....a young girl who can stop all the maddness. I was hooked.

Merry Merry......

Yum...our seafood dinner on the 24th and

 leg of lamb at Annick's on Christmas day.

Yes, I had a hard time moving today 

on the basketball court with Seb.

A HUGE thank you to everyone for your thoughts,

 gifts, cards, holiday wishes. 

It still isn't the same as being there with Aunt Milly snapping away 

but you are with us every second! 

Mom's visit

 We had a great time while my Mom was here for a visit.

 Gambling, walking, 

more gambling, more walking. 

 We snapped these few pictures the moring she was leaving. 

And these are the only ones we took the whole visit. 

But you know, it was great living in the moment, 

not documenting everything every second. 

Just great......

kinda funny

This milimeter thick watch band that Stephane ordered,

arrived in this enormous box. 

And this sign stating NO DUMPING complete 

with the bag of garbage just waiting underneath.

Gotta go....

All that lovely blue and yellow pursuaded us to tile the walls as opposed to wasting our time scraping and priming. Soo very happy with the results.

We still need to change the floor, 

but otherwise the toliet is finished. 

Seb's portrait in colored pencil done by a friend of ours ALMOST 

makes me want to spend some extra time in there. 

But that's just not me. 

who knew.....

 Who knew that all it would take was a complete remodel of our bathroom for Sebastian to be willing and eager to shower daily. Well, it's true. 

Feast your eyes.

The sliding door is a great space saver. 

Measuring in at 2.5 sq meters it was pretty impossible to get a complete shot from the inside seeing as I don't have a wide angle lense, but you get the idea. 

 The old bathroom was so outdated, 

I guess I never took any photos, so you'll just have to imagine. 

We are all enjoying the new digs.