2011

I wanted to post this earlier but I started a new job Tuesday and haven't had much free time especially since the cell connection in the old stone building is really bad.

I've been meaning to do a recap on 2011... It was a good year. Some of the highlights were finishing my call center job with its grueling 3 hour daily commute, meeting my new nephew in Mystery Guest's clan and becoming a French citizen. I also got to help dear friends celebrate their marriages and had my first (but not last!) experience working in a 'real' French job.

Looking back one of the real highlights of my year was spending quality family time. Seeing my little sister after 4 years all grown up! My parents and especially my grandparents. Back in February I spent 4 days with them in Southern California listening to stories and doing puzzles. I'm so lucky now that I was able to because after a bad fall on Christmas day my Grandmother was hospitalized and subsequently operated on. She sadly never woke up and passed away Monday night.

It's so hard not being able to be there for my family at a time like this, the service is going to be this afternoon in my Grandma's church and I've been thinking about them all day. But with a new work contract and California so far away I just can't make it back and am trying to say goodbye in my own way.

I know she'd understand, she was one of the strongest women I know. A nurse, always telling me what nice veins I have.... :-) She was full of pride and commitment to her family. I have such wonderful memories of her. And to quote my uncle, "while this is a sad time, let's try to remember to celebrate Mom's life: Kansas farm-girl done real good."

Christmas recap

Well things went really well for our first time hosting Christmas. Everyone arrived at the end of the afternoon for an apéritif (my MIL brought lots of bottles of bubbly for the occasion!) I served Deviled eggs which went over well, along with some bought puff pastry nibblies.
For dinner I made a Chapon which MG and I thought was a castrated turkey - turns out it was a castrated chicken but given the size of it (3,5kg!) I kept calling it a turkey anyway... So that turned out yummy and we had it with mashed potatoes & gravy, polenta, green beans & bacon, stuffing and carrots!
Afterwards sticking with local tradition we had a trou normand to help us digest before attacking the cheese and then dessert. I made a hazelnut/blackberry cake that my FIL adores and a pumpkin pie which everyone loved. I snuck upstairs for a 6 way google hangout with my dad, sister, uncles and grandparents which was SO fun!
By then we were stuffed and exhausted so we opened our stockings (it was my little surprise this year - I made personalized stockings for the family! I think it's a tradition that should take hold here!!) and I think they all liked them along with the goodies inside! Then we watched a movie.
But we voted 3 to 2 to open the rest of the presents the following day (Christmas morning).
After a relaxed breakfast of challah and lots of coffee we finally got into it ;-) and there were fantastic gifts all around!
We kept it simple the rest of the day, leftovers for lunch and Carcassonne all afternoon.
I called my mom after they had left and did another FaceTime chat with my sister in Oz. I love technology!!

So all in all a great Christmas weekend. We're seeing some friends tomorrow & invited for NYE so between now and then it's time to relax a bit because I got offered a 3 month contract starting January 3rd :-)

Merry Christmas!!

lunch

Just a little snapshot of our lunch today. We stopped by the in-laws yesterday and my MIL gave me some fresh cod filets that my FIL caught (he loves to fish). For lunch I breaded them with breadcrumbs flavored with lemon zest and herbs de provence and pan fried them. A little soft polenta and voila - lunch!

Yum.

Birthday Surprises!!!

My birthday was last Thursday, I knew things were planned for the day (it was a milestone birthday if you will... ) but I didn't know what. We had a delicious lunch at the creperie, drove over to the cookie store to show the family around and then had a relaxing afternoon at home (with presents, I was WAY too spoiled!) before some friends surprised me when they dropped by for a champagne apero before we headed off to have dinner in a castle.

It was a great birthday, all of my favorite things wrapped up in a day! Plus on Friday we had our faux-Thanksgiving, a great way to finish the week and my family's time here. Friday evening after dinner I we were talking about the week and how quickly it went by when Mystery Guest asked what time we should leave for Paris Saturday.

We?

Yes, we.

You can imagine my shock because I knew my family had to leave on Saturday to catch flights home on Sunday but we weren't planning on going because I thought they were just going to crash at an airport hotel. Instead I packed Friday night and we left Saturday morning at 7am for a day in Paris! Those secret people organized the whole day without me having any clue!!! We dropped the rental car off and took a cab into the city where there we rooms reserved at a hotel in the 5th for MG, myself and my sister. I called Ksam as we were getting hungry for lunch and asked for a recommendation.

OMG.

El Sol et La Luna.

Speechless - but here's a picture.

Then we had a whirlwind guided tour of Paris (courtesy of yours truly) to see the main monuments starting with Notre Dame.

The Eiffel Tower

The Arc de Triomphe

 

 We also walked around the outside of the Louvre and tried to go to the Orangerie but even though on their website they said they were open until 7pm when we got there they were closing at 6pm.. 

Here are a couple of other shots from the afternoon and Sunday morning.

  

I knew there were plans for dinner but I had no idea what. We walked over to île de la cité where Mystery Guest had reserved the coolest restaurant. Not only that but he surprised me by inviting some wonderful friends to celebrate with us! So much fun!!!

My feet were killing me by the end of the day but it gave everyone a good taste of Paris and probably an excuse to come back :)

Thanksgiving 2011

I haven't celebrated Thanksgiving with any of my family members since I moved to France (8 years ago!!!) so a few weeks ago I thought it would be fun to do a faux-Thanksgiving! Chicken instead of turkey but otherwise all the other fixins were there and with the grey weather that day you wouldn't have known it was October and not November :)

I just can't get enough of my iPhone app so here's a 60's version of our dinner...

sharing Normandy

Part of my family is in Normandy visiting for a week. My little sister flew in all the way from Australia! We've mostly been hanging out around here and I'll go through my pictures later but I wanted to take my sister down to Mont Saint Michel just because it really shouldn't be missed! The weather was beautiful today so we jumped in the car this morning and drove down.

It was a little crowded because of the school vacation but we got to visit the abbey in relative calm and I got to use my new app - AutoStitch to do some panoramas!

 And of course I played around with the video app again too... Makes a boring video a little more fun :)

breakfast

Bircher Müsli

One of the remnants of my parent's four years living in Switzerland that they brought back with them to the States was Bircher Müsli. My mom always made it slightly different then the recipes you find online (no cream, remember this was the 80's and it was non-fat all the way - no Atkins around!) and the way I still make it today.

All you need is: yogurt (I prefer plain), your favorite muesli (I get a basic no added sugar mix of oats/dried fruit mix from the organic store) and apple. The one part of the recipe that really changes everything is apple. Not just a chopped up apple but a grated apple. Grab your cheese grater and grate up your apple, it takes no time at all! Mix it all together and enjoy! The apple not only adds a fantastic texture but also really sweetens the dish when grated in a way that a chopped apple just can't.

MilkJam socks!

I finally finished those socks I started back in April! My first pair of socks for me :-) (Please ignore the pasty-white legs, my shoulders have gotten some color - wish I could say the same about my legs!)
I feel much more comfortable knitting socks now, I understand the layout and how it all works so these ones were finished much faster than the other ones, even the 2nd sock in this pair seemed to go a lot quicker :-)
Mom gave me some beautiful sock yarn from home, I can't wait to experiment with it!

Norman Adventures Day 3

Mont Saint Michel and a service in the abbey, castle ruins near Coutances, a beautiful sunny day, salted butter caramel ice cream... ahh priceless!

i'm alive!

Just a quick little update, Mom & KC are here visiting and it's been busy! But busy in a good way, so far (knock on wood) the weather's been stunning. We've eaten lots of yummy galettes and been on the road visiting the northern coast of the Cotentin, the Dunes and then today all the D-Day sites (Arromanches, Bayeux, the American Cemetery, Pointe du Hoc, and Sainte Mere Eglise!).

More to come later, but for now you'll have to live with just a little collage :-)

Road Trip recap

Wow so where did I leave off?? We finally made it back up to my hometown on the Olympic Peninsula after long hours in the car and just vegged for the next couple days. The weather was beautiful and on Saturday we went out for a spin on Pax (Mom & KC's beautiful wooden boat). I always love seeing town from the water, you could imagine how it would have looked 100 years ago... not much has changed actually!

I tried to make a little photo collage to help me sort through the 4G of pictures that I took...! To give you an idea - I'll have to get some of them blown up eventually. But right now jetlag is kicking my butt so the noodles in my brain aren't working too well! The trip back was really long, we left at 6am to take 2 ferries and drive over to the airport where we had a direct flight to Amsterdam and then a quick connection to Paris which all went well. Then we were picked up and got our car from a friend's house where it was all safe for the time we were gone. Driving the 3 hours home was hard! We stopped a couple times in rest stops to sleep, all in all from door to door it was almost exactly 24 hours - Mystery Guest didn't sleep on the plane and I had only slept maybe a total of 2 hours with little naps. Managed to stay up until 9 last night and slept most of the night. Poor guy had to go to work today (not a happy camper) and I'm trying to organize the mounds of paperwork I have for job interviews (yea!), passing the code (boo!) and other fun stuff that is all coming up very quickly!

So I'll leave you with that little tidbit for now. I'm so glad I got to go home and I'm really glad that I was able to share such a wonderful adventure with Mystery Guest... now it's time to work off all those American calories...!

Road trippin'

Wow did I sleep hard last night!! basically since we left las vegas we've done nothing but drive! I knew it would be long hours in the car but let's put it this way, we've already listened to my & mystery guest's iPhone music collections - several times! Great fun though, singing along at the top of your lungs on a wide open road!!! (LA traffic? Not so fun...) Yesterday morning we drove down to Orange County to visit my grandparents, it was a quick visit but very good to see them and they were so happy to finally meet MG! They took us out to a delish Mexican restaurant (maragaritas!!) and the time we had with them was so nice :-) Then we hit the road I5 allllllll the way up to the bay area where my dad lives, with only two short breaks but nice to wake up this morning and not have to jump in the car! We have until Sunday here to visit with them before the real adventure begins - driving back up to the Olympic penninsula! We plan on camping along the way and taking in some natural beauty (the redwoods, crater lake, the Oregon coast etc..) I can't wait! Talk about a vacation to clear your mind :-) oh, don't worry I already have over 400 pictures to upload when we get home!! Lol



Sent from my iPhone

americana

Well we're over our jetlag and getting ready for our road trip! The last few days have been great, we had superb weather yesterday, watched the hummingbirds feed while we ate breakfast, hot tubs at night and introduced my Mom and KC to geocaching! We found 2 out of 3 of them (one of them I think went missing because it really wasn't there!) I've already taken over 200 pictures on my big camera and several on my iPhone (check facebook if you want to see those, the rest I'll wait until we get back to France to upload)

We also had some fantastic food (besides the corn on the cob Mom made open faced sandwiches with goat cheese, grilled eggplant/tomatoes topped with basil! I love summer food!) Today was a little grey so we started getting ready for our trip and headed downtown for some pizza. I also grabbed Mystery Guest a root beer to try - his first! Most Europeans don't like it at all, he said it wasn't bad but he's not a big soda drinker to begin with so when he said he liked it just as much as coke I think that's pretty amazing!

But we haven't just been eating! It's been nice to see my family and get ready for our trip knowing that we'll come back here before flying out. So tomorrow isn't goodbye but see you in bit! :-)

I'm so curious to see what Vegas is like, I'm sure it will be like what I'm expecting but at the same time be totally different. The Grand Canyon I'm sure will be fabulous and I'll get to see my grandparents, all in all it should be great! Posting will be sporadic but I'll try to upload iPhone pictures from wifi hotspots as we go... :-) I hope everyone in Franceland enjoyed a nice long weekend and is gearing up for another one! Love the month of May :-)

USA baby!

Well I can finally announce some good news that's been brewing! We've got tickets to the US in May! These tickets had been going back and forth, let me explain. My mom gave us 2 tickets to the US with her miles last spring and had booked them for September as a graduation gift to both of us (my Masters and Mystery Guest's BA). September didn't work out well so we booked them for August. Then Mystery Guest got offered his current job and although the store closes in August every year it was the wrong two weeks... So we moved them to this August thinking it would be the right 2 weeks. Then a couple weeks ago I was on the phone with Mom and she said that with my upcoming unemployment in May and not locked into a job (yeah, not too thrilled about not having a job yet...) it's too bad we couldn't take advantage of coming in May.

I asked Mystery Guest and he was able to talk his boss into letting us go for 2 weeks in May (not actually missing that much work since there are 2 holidays in there!) but we thought we'd never be able to use the miles because its so hard to get dates. I started looking into prices and the tickets are dirt cheap right now (470e round trip Paris/Seattle!) but for fun Mom called the hotline and got us 2 tickets on the dates we wanted!!! Oh and the best part? Non-stop Paris/Seattle on the way there and 1 stop in Amsterdam on the way back! Oh yeah baby, living it up in style!

So we're off to the US May 1st - May 17th and just need to figure out where were going once we get there! I can't wait!! We're thinking flying down to Southern California to see my grandparents and road tripping it up the coast back to Seattle - oh yeah!

Merry Christmas 2008!

Merry Christmas everyone! I'm finishing the final gift-wrapping, apple pie baking and Christmas fun today. We're off tonight to the belle-famille to celebrate (usually Christmas is celebrated more on Christmas Eve than Day in France). I'll try to post some pictures from there :-)

Here is my 2008 xmas card with some snapshots from the places I was fortunate enough to travel to this year, from upper right:

Venice, Switzerland, la Manche, Venice
Australia, Carcassonne, Montpellier, Australia
Switzerland, Paris, Australia and Venice.

bday festivities

I had a wonderful birthday on Monday! First of all thanks to all the wonderful friends and family who sent text messages, facebook messages, blog comments, emails and phone calls! I loved them all!!

The day started out with a bang, Mystery Guest surprised me by bringing breakfast in bed! He even ran out to the bakery and brought me a croissant, pain au chocolat and baguette! Yum! I even ignored my own pride and included the bed-head photo of me eating breakfast for your viewing pleasure...

Then our landlord stopped by to fix some stuff around here but didn't stay too long so we were able to go down to the Forge, a restaurant about 5 minutes outside of V-town that is an old blacksmith's workshop. They still have the huge fireplace and billows! We ordered a steak for 2 and the chef brought it out for us to see (raw) before throwing it on the open flame in the restaurant! Too cool! In the middle picture on the top you can see the fireplace behind me, that's where they cooked out steak! Then they brought it out all sliced up and delish!

We splurged on some fantastic chocolate cake, it was like cake with chocolate mousse and then chocolate ganache on top with creme anglaise, YUM YUM! I even got a sparkler in mine :-)

The afternoon we just relaxed and enjoyed some time off, Mystery Guest looked over my conclusion one last time but otherwise my memoire was DONE and just waiting to be printed... more on that in another post...

I had a fantastic birthday, so relaxing and filled with warmth, great presents but even greater friends and family wishing wonderful thoughts from around the world. Thanks everyone!!!

un air de famille?

A few days ago I did a little procrastinating online and came up with this picture of "me" from 1960. I said that I was really reminded of a picture of my mom from her high school yearbook. She left me a comment on that post saying she couldn't upload pictures there but she'd send them to me...

so given the embarassement that kids are made to go through when parents pull out the baby pictures and videos here's my version ;-)

Mom:

and Dad:

playing tourist!

Whew! Busy Busy and no time to blog! ;-)

On Saturday I hopped on a train to Paris where I met up with my dad and my step-mom who were in town for the weekend before they head off to Zurich on a business trip. Mystery Guest joined us Saturday night after work and the 4 of us spent a great weekend in Paris. Luckly the weather cooperated with us and we even got to go on ze fly boats!

Monday we had to take the train home, and it was the same day that Miss Cassandra flew in from the States to come visit before Fullbrighting it in England! We (barely) managed to meet in the station 5 minutes before the train pulled out and headed off to Normandy.

Yesterday it rained (surprise surprise) but today the weather is supposed to be nice so we're going to leave soon and visit the port town of Saint Vaast la Houge (keep your fingers crossed for us!)

More updates and pictures to come soon ;-)