Camping in Vendée

We went camping for two weeks on the west coast. The area of France is called Vendée. The campsite was in a sandy pine forest and just a five minute walk to the beach. In two weeks it only rained twice, not to bad. The water was pretty warm for the Atlantic. On one of the days we went to a "petting farm". Had a ride on a tractor, ponies and fed the animals. Typical farm stuff.

Summer is here!

London Baby!

During Easter holidays we made a trip to England to visit a few friends. Here we are on the P&O Ferry. The kids loved the ferry ride and we had fish and chips for lunch, what else.

Here they are at Tower Bridge. Man did we walk a lot.

Just stopped by to visit the Queen, she wasn't in.

Alyssa and Joséphine found a friend at the Natural History Museum.

Western Party

Patrick just had his 8th birthday on the 12th of April. We threw him a western theme Party. He invited all the kids from his class and we ended up with 22 kids. Some came as cowboys and cowgirls and some as Indians. Here's the whole gang. We got some hay from a local farmer, we made a "Saloon" sign, a cactus, some dynamite cases, got a saddle for the kids to ride and even the skull of a cow. It was lots of fun.

Here's the invitation that we gave to all the kids.


We made a "Mexican" man who had a bit too much to drink. He was put at the entrance of the property.

Here's the saddle that we got. We stuck it on an old dog house, stuck on the kids horse head et voilà.

Here's our sack race, Cowboys vs Indians. Notice the tepee in the background. We also had egg races, lasso the pole and pin the mustache on the cowboy.

The three little rascals. Patrick 8 and Joséphine 2 with auntie Héloïse 9.

Here's the sheriff, keeping an eye on things.

We made a carriage cake, this bandito likes it.

It's the sheriff and the Bandito. We made him some chaps and a vest.

Hockey

For those who didn't know, I like hockey. I play in a club here in Paris called the Coyotes. I'm a left wing on the first line. My jersey is #17.

"Les Habitants"

Patrick 7 & Joséphine 2

My Little Cowgirl

Josephine with "T-Bear"

Merry Christmas

This year's Christmas show was a mix of different songs and dance from the four corners of the world. We had Latin, Celtic, Traditional, Broadway and Classical. Michael and Sophie made the backdrops and we printed them on 2m x 3m plastic canvas. Agnes, Michael and Heidi made all the costumes (one interesting thing to point out is that in the corsets, Michael put some of his old bass strings to use as "bars") Benedicte, Celeste and Angelique did all the choreography and arrangements and Samuel, Monica and Chesco helped with making props and the set-up. The show went very well.