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!