Happy Birthday Emilie !

An unexpected little gathering of friends around Emilie tonight :) We celebrated her birthday at their campgrounds ( Camping le Botanic ) over wood-oven pizzas and a makeshift cake out of little cookies :)

An impromptu wii match followed and then we all left the expectant mother to rest (hopefully the long awaited little girl won't take much longer to make her big entrance in the world).

A few pictures can be found here.

40 years ... plenty of reason to celebrate

La Grande Motte is 40 !!

And to celebrate they had a whole carnival !

With Hélène, Denis & Jeanne, we got to see the parade, got some free stuff, and took a stroll on the waterfront.

More pictures of the magical parade and other things here.

Catching up on old times

Lunch that turned into dinner that turned into saying goodnight at 1AM ;)

Today we hung out with Annick and Marcita as well as their friend Marie.

We got to see all sorts of pictures of when Mar was little and talk about old times in Collonges.

Thanks for having us over !! :)

Touching Olympic Gold

Joel with his daughter, posing with his gold medal.
On the back, a ring of Chinese white jade.
Joel Abati with his Olympic gold medal.
After church we were privy to a super treat :) We got to hold a real Olympic gold medal. Joel Abati plays on the French men's handball team. Though we didn't get to watch hardly any games while on the road between weddings, we did manage to listen as they covered all the French participants on the radio.

I didn't want to wear the medal (something about it not being earned by me ... I don't know how to explain it), but others did and took pictures :) When Matt asked Joel what was his greatest win (he's won the World Championship, European Championship and now Olympic gold) he said that each was special in its own right, but that the World Championship (his first) was probably the most memorable and sweetest.

Friends and family around the dinner table

Having friends and family around the dinner table is what we like best. Vanessa & Frank stopped at the house for the night, on their way back to Nice. Marjorie had the evening off and came for the fajitas. And Greg was in town as well as Guillaume, so why not make a big fajita feast for everyone ? :)

La Rochelle, a discovery tour

From La Rochelle Self Tour

A little trip to La Rochelle for a bit of sightseeing with Monique & Bernadette before they continue on their European trip. Click above and see what else we found.

Lunch anyone ?

The day after the celebration, most people are up around 10-11ish .... maybe ;)

And then everyone reunited for lunch ... at almost 2pm ;)

Either way, good food, good laughs, and a nice, easy way to say goodbye before taking off to everyone's respective home.

A few more pictures can be found here.

A new tradition ...

From Vanessa & Frank - Funny Faces

Traditions can be a fun thing in a family. We've started a new tradition, taking funny faces of family & guests at an event. This time we managed to get 99% of everyone who was at the dinner tonight in some sort of funny pose/facial expression.

The above picture, if you were having trouble figuring out, is of the newlyweds :) Click on it to see more of all those who were present.

Let's party !

From Reception Vanessa Frank

Would it really be a celebration if there weren't a party after ?

Click on the dancing couple to see more pictures of the evening

Only downside of the evening: I dropped my camera and broke the screen :( the camera still works, so I will continue taking pictures ... I just can't promise how good they'll turn out ;) ... kind of like with the 35mm cameras, huh ? :) Either way, I can't wait to get it fixed when we get back home.

Vanessa & Frank

From Mariage Vanessa Frank

Lots of emotions, smiles and tears of happiness. I could try to write about this full day of family and friends gathered around Vanessa & Frank, but I'll just let the pictures show the feeling of the day. Just click on the picture above.

Petite saucisse :)

Matt and his little "niece" (his cousin's daughter).

I entitled this post "petite saucisse" because after this picture Matt told little Chloé a bedtime story about a little sausage / hot dog :)

She liked the story and ended up dreaming about little hot dogs :) :)

Road-scapades

The big surprise of the day was that Matt and I helped get the rental car for Frank & Vanessa's wedding with another cousin. The three of us hopped in his little Mini Cooper and sped off to Bordeaux (about 1 1/2 - 2 hours away ... depending on traffic and how fast you drive ;) )

After getting the rental, we started the drive back to La Rochelle. But slight problem with the Mini, the tire had blown and we couldn't finish the rest of the trip with both cars. So we pulled over on the side of the highway and waited for the tow truck.

Once we spoke to a really nice tow-truck guy, who really hooked us up, we were on our way in the rental ... oh, did I mention that it was a BMW, hard-top convertible ? ;)

This is me, trying to keep my eyes open (because of the sun & because of my hair flapping around in the wind).
This is me when we stopped at a rest area.
This is the car with the top down ...
... with the top half way on ...
... and completely closed.

Church and lunch

Frank and Vanessa, the groom & bride

The day before Frank & Vanessa's big day, and as more and more friends and family arrive, we all went to church and had a big spaghetti lunch afterward.

More pictures of family & friends can be found here.

En route to French wedding #3

On the road, one last time.

This is us .............. driving ........ to La Rochelle :)

It's a long trip, but it's what we came here to do.

Shopping, friends and food

A little celebration in the south of France ... really little if you compare it to our festivities in Bayonne, but still nice. The morning was dedicated to shopping, the afternoon to visiting the Cassards (friends that are eagerly and anxiously awaiting the arrival of a little girl), and evening in Sête. A pizza, a coke, some ice tea, and ... a game of water polo ? The important thing is we got to see another side of France, got to walk around the town, and got in a lot of talking.

Web album: La Saint Louis

A Swiss visitor

A visitor from California via Switzerland :) We took Fabienne all over Montpellier to show her a little of the life in the south of France. Afterward, we were invited to eat over at Noémie's house were we had a great apéro, yummy supper, and finished off the evening around 1am with a game of "the 1st thing that you think of when you hear the word .... " :)

More pictures of the day can be found here.

Nice is nice :)

An evening on the town :)

We walked through an open market with lots of interesting things for sale, and then tasted some specialties of the area. We tried some interesting ice cream flavors (mine was jasmine, intense and wonderful :) ) as well as socca, a corn based crepe/gallette that is quite oily and quite good :) and some deep-fried squash flowers (donut style, very yummy).

Wanna see more pictures ? Click here.

Monaco ~ Munegu

From Monaco

Day trips are fun :) After rounding up the kids (and pulling the husbands off the computer ;) ), we all got in the cars and headed over to Monaco. A fun stroll, a little afternoon bottle and snack, watching the big & small boats and jet skis. Click on the picture above and see what our day out looked like :)

Old friends, new friends

Welcome to Nice
The city of ..... is that a clown ? ;)
Just an example of some of the architecture of the coastal side of the city.
Old friends getting back to what they do best, working together.
Mr. Eliott :) 2 years old
Miss Madison, 2 weeks :)
We were really happy and pretty honored to be able to visit Jean-Elie & Audrey in Nice. Especially so shortly after the arrival of their 2nd kid, little Madison.

A shout out to my Ma :)

Happy birthday Mom :)

Thinking of you in France, hoping you have fun in Orlando.

Day trip to Barcelona

Though originally planned for 2 days, we took what we could get. Scheduled departure: 7am ... yeah, ok, so we left at 8, but that's still pretty good for everyone in question :)

Marjorie, Arnaud, Matt & I headed out for Barcelona to discover and to do a little touristing :)

Once we finally found a parking spot, we only stopped walking when 1) we stopped to eat lunch, 2) we took the bus to the park, 3) on the pier, and 4) on the subway back to the car.

Discover what we saw that day by checking out our web album of Barcelona.

Heading back to Montpellier

Funny how we always find ourselves around kitchen or dining room tables, enjoying something to eat or drink ... Here we are, posing with more friends that stopped by to visit.
Saying a quick goodbye after loading up the van again.
The drive home was anything but boring. We hit some serious downpours.
As it often happens, the calm after the storm can be beautiful as well. Here is quick shot of the great sunset we witnessed half-way home.

Welcome to Haute Savoie

A welcomed layover in Haute Savoie enroute to Montpellier, we stopped at Béatrice & Robert's house for the night.

It was a good feeling to be able to stretch out our legs and talk with the Speiches, old family friends. With everyone seated around a pot of Savoyarde fondue, I even got to see a picture of Matt when he was all of 3 ? When he and Kevin used to play together all the time. Cute too because it made a nice contrast on the picture, Matt with his jet black hair, and Kevin with the blondest hair possible :)

Leaving Alsace

A big thank you to Tante Reymonde and Oncle René. Aunt & uncle to Daniel, they graciously opened their home up to the 5 of us for the entire weekend of festivities. Thanks to them we were able to get in some good sleep on the few hours we had between activities and we really appreciate their hospitality.

The after after party :)

Sitting around another big table, listening to stories of when the Aimonettis were young and mischievous :) :)

A good time verifying details of old stories and antics against the recollections of other siblings :)

The Aimonettis, always ready for an After After Party or just about any reason to get together.

The after party ...

The after party.

The whole family came back together to eat some excellent potato salad & sausages and enjoy a little down time ... relaxing time. Click on the picture below for pictures of the "After Party"

From After party

And what family wedding would be complete without the album of Funny Faces ?

Our chance to celebrate

What's white and red and is filled with people ? ... The Walter - Henry reception :)

Cousins, parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, friends, everyone talking, laughing and enjoying this great time to celebrate together.

The Walter-Henry Wedding Reception album has all sorts of pictures of what a great evening we had.