More ice skating photos

I'm afraid these wont be the last either!

No, she hasn't removed the fairy outfit. No one else dressed up. Davina made her own unique fashion statement on the ice today.



With Talia and her cousin Samantha;



Here they are on the ice with their cousin. Samantha hadn't skated in years and she did very well.



She also did pretty well with my camera;

Carnivale and Davina's birthday

Carnivale is a big deal here in Alsace and the neighboring area of Germany. It also falls around Davina's birthday, making for a protracted week of festivities.

Davina dressed up for her ice skating class.



Davina in action;



Her birthday fell on a Thursday so we made a cake for her class. All three helped decorate the cake. Here is the artistic result;



They served the cake during the morning so I just took some pictures in the morning of Davina with her teacher. Caroline (they go by first names in French schools) was also Talia's teacher.





Daniel's sister Françoise arrived that afternoon with her two kids so we had a little celebration that evening. I made another version of the same cake, which again, they decorated.





Blowing out the candels;







Presents from California!



Talia helps;





Penguins!



The baby is soooo cute! Thank you Tata Guk!



Posing with new penguin friends;



The cousins pose too with new penguin friends;





The next day is the school carnivale party. Davina gets to dress up again!





My mother-in-law came over on Saturday so we had yet-another birthday celebration. Yet more presents! Yet again, Talia helps open them.



This is what Davina really, really wanted. A barbie? new bike? No, a baby pig which snorts and you can bottle feed. I have to admit, it is really cute...





This was a silly extra present I picked up at H&M for almost nothing. I figured the leotard can be used for gymnastics. She basically hasn't taken it off for two days.



Posing with her pig and penguins that evening;

From the mouths of babes...

Daniel's away. He's in Limoges.

I was feeding the kids tonight and the kids were asking a bunch of questions. They talked about Gaza at school and I was trying to "fill in the gaps" a little. It was kind of tough to explain things.

I told them I stayed with a Palestinian family for a few days on my first trip to Israel. Talia asked how old I was. I said 21. "That's when Mémé married Grandpa!" she said. Oh no, honey, she was much older (49). "No! You Mommy. You were 21 when they got married..."

I was suprised that she knows that. How old I was when they got married. Yes, that's right. I left a couple of months after the wedding.

Ronnie then added "I love Grandpa. I'm glad he's my grandpa and everything...but I wish your dad were still around. I would have liked to have met him".

I went to say something, and I couldn't. I just burst into tears.

It's been almost 35 years and it's still hard. The truth is, when my mother told me the news that sunny day so long ago, the first thought that came to my 10 year old brain (since my own grandfather had recently passed away) was "he'll never know his grandkids". That was a quarter of a century before those grandchildren would evan be born.

Now I'm older than Daddy ever was, my son is almost as old as I was then and now he tells me the same thing I thought of back then, that my son who has a version of his never-met grandfather's name, wished he had known him too.