Time FLIES!

I'm not sure where it's been flying to, but the space between blogs seems to indicate that time's been flying somewhere far, far away. Yikes! Anyway, since I haven't been able to keep up on a more regualr basis, here are a few photos - not at all in chronological order - of moments and things that've happened since our return from Tuscany...

We'll start with a few birthday pictures for/of/concerning my now-37-year-old sweety. Joyeux anniversaire, mon tchoups !
His family-birthday meal (almost entirely concocted by Chengy) was so delicious* that I'm salivating just writing this sentence. The first picture is the first course: (my) fig-and-ham rolls and Jean-Philippe's roquette salad. Then came the incredibly delicious (Jean-Philippe's) osso-bocco and risotto (seriously, you wouldn't have beLIEVED how delicious this was). And lastly, there was an amaretto cream-thing which deserves much more than my impaired retention of names suggests. Of course, we adults drank delicious wines with it all, while the bairns drank their apple-mango juice... Monsters, Inc. serves to pass the time as Chengy prepares dessert (& no, he's not preparing said dessert in the next photo. He's opening one of the gifts that we can't wait to taste... heh! heh!): Here're my three boys, not long before two of them were jamma'd and tucked in. I think the camera was set at 800 or 1600 or something, but it really was early evening. And pouring rain! So the light was low...*******
Here's a picture of my 5€ find at the end of the French Soldes (sales) season, and of the delicious Feta-Roquette-Pine-Nuts Pizza I made that night, and which is a part of my culinary comeback* of late:
* The trouble started in the kitchen on the very last day of the last year, as I was preparing food for our party; and the downward slope continued for about six months - ?! - until, very recently, things not only started perking up, but... well, I don't know how to describe it, exactly... so I'll just say that things have got Very Tasty around here. And it's not just me! Jean-Philippe's been bitten by the bug, as well!
*******
Our wee ones in their dining table tent, watching A Bug's Life (the boys were SO excited about this wee adventure; it was extREMEly cute to watch it all come together) and a corner of my presently favourite corner of our terrace, with one of my from-seed plantations (poppies): *******
And some scenes from our long weekend of camping, dancing, theatre-going and more in Bussang (in the Vosges) with Caroline and Fred and their two sweetkins...

When the accordian came out towards the end of our evening at the inn high up in the mountains above our campsite, Tomi began swaying happily in his seat. I asked him if he'd like to dance with me, and thus began a happy hour of dancing and laughing. Happy, that is, for everyone but Leo, who was utterly rejected by his beloved Lara:p.s. The man behind her isn't berating Lara for not dancing with Leo; he was talking to their table's resident dog...

I love this image of Dylan and his daddy - and also this one of Caro! Another couple of our personal faves: The second of these photos is one of many beautiful moments, watching my Tiny Tims at their favourite passtime, and the first represents one of the most beautiful moments I've witnessed in a long time. The background for it is long and involved, but involves, among many other factors, having a step-mom step in (& in the middle of a VERY complicated situation that had otherwise nothing to do with her) a couple of years ago... So anyway... Dylan was drawing (really swank) houses, and telling stories to go along with them. When we asked him to draw "his house" (as in: his dream house) he made a comment that it took us a while to catch onto. After a couple of extra seconds, we realised that he was actually talking about "himself" or his interior. Just as we realised this, he said that he'd draw his dad's house for us (in other words, "his" house). As you can probably imagine, we watched with not a little anticipation to see what was going to appear before our eyes. First, a kind of tree form... then a "strong roof, and nice, too" ("Ahh!" says the child psychologist in all of us) and then... a banana shape as a front window, about which he said, "This is Caroline's laughter, all around ..." and as he said it he was looking at the "laughter" and he smiled an utterly unconscious smile, lost for a moment in happy reverie. I don't know about you, but I think he's realised how lucky he got, when his dad met Caro... A couple of UTOs (Unidentified Tented Objects): A funny moment from the next (gorgeous) day, after having finally landed on Planet Wonder, at the top of the top of the top of Beauty's mountains: And some family photos, taken by our budding photographer, Leo: I would love to wax poetic on the inn that we found on this day, and the innkeeper, and the view and the food and the drink and the lovely time we had... (It was INCREDIBLE, all of it!) I would also love to linger on some of the other lovely little details of the past few weeks... But this has got to be posted. Otherwise... it will suffer the same fate as numerous other tries at posting over the past few weeks, which is: oblivion. As you can see, it's already taken me more than a week to get this one up (I started it the 31st, but it's now 7 August...), and so, with that: a very happy Tuesday (or -night, depends where you are) to you!
*******
To all of you who didn't take that bridge that day: thank you!

And to Jack: get well SOON!

p.s. A few good photos of our Prodigal Härry's two-day return are coming up next...

Presently Playing: Woke on a Whaleheart (Bill Callahan, a.k.a, Smog)
(Thanks for the idea, Amber!)

*******(end post)

And So! Two Months Later...

And... where were we? Ah! Yes! Two months ago, we were still in Strasbourg when end-of-the-school-year activities began pouring in for two members of our wee family (les jumeaux) and work began raining down on the other two members (moi et le Chengy). It was a very-VERY hectic eight weeks or more. And then: it was all over! And we were on our way to Tuscany with six friends, big and small. The boys missed the very last days of school; Jean-Philippe missed a couple of important days at work; and the book that Muriel and I had jointly given birth to came off the press in the evening of our first day in Italy; but we'd left all of our hopes and worries and walnuts behind, and were beginning nine/ten days of beauty in the Tuscan sun...

Not before we'd tested the waters of the gorgeous Swiss lakes along the way, though. And then it was, "Ah! In Italy at last!" If you ever have the chance to visit Il Lago d'Orta, we all highly - HIGHLY - recommend it...
Bandits with their beverages...& innocent bystanders with theirs: This first night out in Lucca was short but sweet. We were serenaded at the outer gates to the city by an opera singer in full throttle in one of the flats looking over the park & parking area. Then, when we'd walked about 100 meters, we were waylaid by a wonderful seller of fine wines and meats and so on. He served us so well and so much as we chose our vino & victuals to take back to the villa for consumption over next few days that we could hardly get the (again: wonderful) three course meal down that we (accidentally - there was no way you'd've believed that you'd get a fine, three course meal for this price) ended up with at the wine bar, later!

Images from a day on the beach at Viareggio:And a sweet image from bedtime for the four bonzos that night:
A statue and her little girl at the gardens in a village nearby, followed by a scene from the pirates' taking over the situation a few moments later:
Scenes from Adults' Night Out in Lucca (having left the kids in the able hands of Sveva, the sexy lawyer-babysitter who can handle four English-French-speaking children under eight all evening with 10 words of English and 0 words of French):
While some went to Florence for the day, others went to Pinocchio Land. Here are the kids, making hats, and the lovely woman who helped with the stapling and such:And then, while two played the 3D Alice in Wonderland Memory Game, three went behind the scenes, exclaiming loudly, "WHY DON'T THEY TAKE THESE TWO, HERE?! THESE TWO ARE THE SAME!!" and so on... heh! heh!
While the other six lounged by the poolside, we four went up into the hills above our villa and discovered many's the treasure, including the place where we would go for the second of our two Adults' Nights Out: a gorgeous café & restaurant that serves everybody the same series of down-home Italian dishes every night, serves wine from the tiny village behind it, and serves you up a breathtaking view of the valley below, to boot. There are many reasons for which I'm hoping that we'll be able to get back to this area, and this wee wayside inn is most definately one of them...
The chillins exploring Barga in their own, special way; yet another magnificent pizza; and our pied prince(sse) of Casa Maria:
Last laughs in Lecco:
One last look at the lake:
And then it was home again! home again! jiggity-joo-ja (as Tomi would say)!

I realised, once we were home, that I hadn't got any pictures of the incredible villa that Clare had found for us. It was so amazing, so gorgeous, so... I wouldn't even know where to begin describing it, to be honest. The villa itself was an immense brick and stone structure, with huge rooms, including a kitchen the size of our entire living-dining-studio-area-room. Each couple and each pair of kids had their own beautiful room, and each room had its own bath. Outside, there was a dining and lounging terrace where we ate pretty much every meal made at "home." Behind this, there was a play area for the children, a washroom and an area to hang things out to dry. To our right, as we exited by the kitchen door, there was a romantic hillside garden which led to the olive tree groves and down to a pond, complete with palm trees and singing frogs. To our left, on the other hand, was a long, rolling garden, which finished at the swimming pool, which in turn was surrounded by olive trees and chaises longues, as well as a bamboo screen against the constant, golden sun. It really was hard to go home after living in this beauty for even a week, and after the fabulous meals, wines and wanderings we were able to do. I'm tempted to say that it was hardest for the children, who got along so famously, and who never tired of running and leaping and inventing new uses for plastic swords and new ways of encouraging adults to kick footballs around and lose against them. (heh! heh!)

And so: here's to Neil, whithout whose 40th birthday, none of this would have happened; and here's to Clare, who made it happen! Two fantasic friends who are great crack - and who are the parents of two fabulous kids ("Hear! hear!" say Leo and Tomi).

Back in the Saddle Again (?)

Well... It's going to take a bit of time to catch up, but just so's you know: we were so caught up in work, school, life in general and then (at last!) vacation that we hardly had time to brush our teeth, so... so blogging was out of the question for quite some time. Even taking the time out to browse my favourite blogs was out of the question! Oy-yoy-yoy!

I've put a few pages of one of the things I was racing to finish (before we left for Tuscany on 29 June) up on my work blog - the one that I hadn't mentioned up to now, because I haven't had the time to get much of anything up on it, as of yet. Perhaps my mentioning it here will push me to get it up to par. Who knows? At any rate, you can click on My Other Portfolio, on the right-hand side of this blog space. At the rate I've been going with that site, Oh ! La vache ! will be in its #1 spot for another century...

Speaking of which: for anybody interested in a copy of Oh ! La vache ! there are still a few copies left, and we are selling them for 9 € apiece. And if you are interested in knowing more about the project and everything that went into it, please contact me, and I'll send you the letter that Muriel, my co-conspirator, wrote. Hopefully, I'll have the time to translate the letter into English in the next few days or weeks...

It's going to take several days to get even the slightest bit caught up, here, but here are a few images from June, if only to appease Gramma's hungery eyes:

Here's Leo drawing "A boy... a wrocket... an' a... a SOLEIL (sun)!" The boys've been peppering their phrases with French words, if they can't remember the English one, or if they're speaking too quickly. Often times, when Leo does so, the French word comes out sounding like a victorious proclamation. It's quite cute. The last picture is of him using their Mix and Match Animal Faces game. I wish I'd thought of this first! It's way swank.

Here's Tomi eating yoghurt on the sun-drenched terrace, wearing one of his many improvised Bat-capes. That was the day that we were talking about things we were going to do over the summer, and he asked me to make, "CORNS!" It took me until he stuck his fingers up beside his ears for me to realise that he was saying "horns" in Anglicised French. I promised him I'd do my best, but I'm thinking I'll end up going to the party/costume store down the way... The other picture is from the morning Tomi was posing all over the house and giggling, calling out, "Mommy! Look! I up here! You take my picture!" (Or, "I over here!" or "I under here!" or...)

Before I finally drag myself off to bed, I would like to mention that as I was typing this, a much-awaited storm (it went from a high of 14°C at the beginning of last week to a high of 34°C at the end of the week...) clapped its thunder and rolled through town. As the thunder ended, I could actually hear the rain begin waltzing down the street, from one end to the other. And as it did so, a lovely breeze wafted through the flat. A beautiful moment...