Sophie Christmas show

Sophie's school organized a Christmas Show to celebrate the holidays. Sophie and her classmates were dancing. Here is a video of it and hopefully I will be able to share it with you thanks to my sister's computer. Enjoy!

American Thanksgiving in France

Our family was fortunate to be together in Nantes on one of Nathan's favorite holidays. Claire, Max and Sophie hosted the whole Hellman/O'Malley clan for a dinner featuring turkey, stuffing, sweet potatoes and pies. Here are a few family photos from our days there.

1. Sophie and Henry

2. Cathy and James at the old docks playground.

3. Sophie plays piano while Henry, James, and Max dance.

4. Tim, Cathy and kids navigate stepping stones at Japanese gardens.

5. Susie, Henry and James on the ramparts of Anne of Bretagne's castle.

6. Max and Sophie learn how to make fangs with haricots verts.

7. Max and Rick play banjo together.

More photos will follow, and other family members are sure to post some of theirs as well.

Halloween

Halloween is unfortunately not as popular here in France as in the US. However, we were able to celebrate first with Maeva and Auxanne, Sophie and Max's cousins, and then with some friends.
Here Max and Sophie ready to go :

With their cousins and some friends doing treats or tricks


and at our friends' house which was pretty amazing. Here are some highlights of the evening : the ghost coming out of the closet (it did not take too long for Max to get out of the room!).
the swimming pool full of balloons : the kids LOVED it!
in each room, you had some tricks AND treats
The best room was the last one. The kids had to find some beads in a sticky and stinky orange stuff...Max got pretty unlucky on this game and had to go fishing several times

Memorial award

On Friday Rick and I had the honor of attending the medical student awards luncheon at Washington University where the first Nathan Edward Hellman Memorial Award was presented. The award recognizes a student with a record of accomplishments and an interest in academic medicine and whose humanism, collegiality, humor, and compassion are an inspiration to members of the class.

We were pleased to meet the recipient, Ian Glenn of Dallas, Texas, a third year student. Here is a photo of Ian with us and Dr. Yokoyama, the presenter.

Art and nature project

Yesterday Rick, Zeus and I took one of Zeus's favorite walks at Skiles Test Nature Park. Sophie, Max, Henry and James have walked these trails before. An art class had been assigned to design projects using whatever they found at hand. In the process, they also cleaned up a lot of debris. Here are some of the interesting creations.

Susie and Cathy in Indy

This week Aunt Susie came to Indy for an audition, and Cathy, James, and Henry visited as well. The boys always like a good music jam with Grandpa Rick. We also went to the Indianapolis Children's Museum where James dressed as a dinosaur and guarded his eggs, and Henry enjoyed the Haunted House and carousel.

recent pics of Sophie and Max

We had the visit of 2 good friends the past WE, Clotilde and MarieThe...always the occasion to get some good pictures of the kids!

and after a quick snack, we went for a walk in downtown Nantes. Here is a picture of La Place Royale

Autumn in Indy

Grandma Pat has been working on gardens and decorations for fall. I have rebuilt a stone wall that encloses a garden space around the maple tree in front and planted a variety of daylilies that I hope will bloom in the spring and summer. The foot bridge is decorated for fall. I wish the grandkids were here to play on the bridge.

the best way to start the day....

Morning are pretty busy : get everyone up by 7:15am, dressed, fed and ready by 8 and then ....everybody got onto the bike....
here is the picture everyone is waiting for... only Max is in the cart this time
Both Sophie and Max love it ...but 20mn in this next to each other is a pretty long time for them especially when they are hungry. Usually I do have to stop to have them stop fighting!

Aunt Susie's French Adventure

Finalement! I've decided to tackle the blog. I have so many incredible stories and photos from my trip to France to seeClaire, Sophie and Max in August, I'm not entirely sure where to begin. I'll start with some favorite pictures of the two little angels, themselves.

Much of my visit there was spent at various playgrounds, where I learned some important French vocabulary, like toboggan (slide), balancoire (swing...sorry, I don't know how to put accents/ the little thingy under the c on here!), and telepherique (a swing that runs along a cable that is super fun for both the kids and Aunt Susie!).

The city of Nantes has several playground options, depending on your mood. One park, for example, features this super long slide and a big relaxing swing. Another park has big rocks that Sophie enjoyed hiking over.

The best park by far, however, is only a few blocks from the Pecqueur-Hellman household. Not

only does this playground feature the most fun telepherique, which goes downhill and very fast, but also there is a beautiful carousel (pictures to follow in a subsequent post) and an enormous motorized elephant who trumpets and shoots water from her trunk. She also takes you on a 45 minute tour of the park - a very fun ride, and a great view. Looking forward to visiting again very soon!

Botanic Gardens

While visiting with the O'Malleys in Evanston this weekend we took an outing to the amazing Chicago Botanic Gardens. In addition to spectacular seasonal exhibits and the Japanese garden, we saw the train exhibit, with its models of well-known U.S. monuments accompanied by trains amid garden landscapes. There was also a remote-controlled sailboat race at the pond.

Yellowjackets

This past weekend Grandma Pat and Grandpa Rick attended Henry's second soccer game. His team, the Yellowjackets, took on the Green Dragons in a 4-on-4 contest of four and five year olds. Here Henry and teammate Tommy control the ball for an attempt at goal. Cathy and James cheer from the sidelines, while Tim coaches on the field.

Les voyageurs

Late in August, Rick, Pat and Susie took to their canoes in one of Nathan's favorite places, the Boundary Waters Canoe Area on the Canadian border. Big winds on Duncan Lake meant restricting our search for the perfect campsite, but also NO mosquitoes. Rose Lake is as beautiful as ever, although the stairway portage has practically no waterfall. Here Rick and Susie show off their portaging skills.

Butterfly in the making

For my debut post here is a caterpillar who made his home in my dill patch. He will turn into an Eastern Black Swallowtail butterly. I'm not sure what will happen in the winter, but apparently they overwinter and hatch in the spring.

Grandma Pat

Sophie 1st day at school

now that we got internet access, we are back onto blogging updates!!!

Today was Sophie 1st day at school....Hard for everybody, and especially for me I have to say, which reminds me of something Magali (the person responsible for Max at the daycare) said to me about Maxime : it is hard for Maxime to let me leave in the morning and then after a little bit of time he is fine. However, each time they are changing location, indoors versus outdoors, it is a little bit hard on him and he needs some time to adjust. This morning I realize that I am exactly feeling like him. It is very hard emotionnally to adjust to something new right now.

For the first time yesterday, Sophie cried for her Papa to be there with her.

shrimp fishing

on the atlantic, we have high and low tide. Low tide this week is in the middle of the afternoon which allows us to go shrimp fishing....The teacher was Mamie Christine!Sophie was wearing some special shoes to allow her to walk on the rocks without hurting her feet....but falling still hurts!

We got 10 shrimps, 2 crabs and a lot of seaweeds. All of them were back into the sea at the end of the afternoon...don't know how well they were unfortunately since Max were adding sand on the top of their head over and over again...

B-DAY#3 , #4 etc

Last week end, we spent the saturday with my brother and we celebrate Sophie's birthday with everybody 2 days in advance. Sophie had her first birthday cake and first candles to blow...thanks Maeva and Auxanne for the help


She got a set of dishes and a basket of fruits...
Then the next day (B-day#4), Sophie got a package from Aunt Susie : a Barbie Doll on a bike!
That totally made her day. She 's taking her everywhere, plays with her while she should nap....
Barbie has a nice set of clothes but spend most of her time naked....Easier to take the clothes off than to put them back.....!!!

Finally, came june 28, last monday and we celebrate her birthday at La Baule. She got a kitchen (pictures to come), a blackboard/white board, and some books

next B-DAY in Paris with tata Laure....