I'm going to see Obama on Friday!!!

It was confirmed this morning. 120 AIA members are going to get tickets and it was First-Come, First-Served. I was desperate!

It's going to be a "town meeting" format and we will be able to ask questions. Well, I'm sure a few will but it's not just a glimpse of him. Because that part of the city will be shut off, we have to take shuttles in.

The kids' schools are closed Friday. This whole place is going crazy with security. Helicopters flying overhead, I saw barbed wire being put around the river, police and military crawling everywhere...

We went back to Badenweiler on Saturday to go swimming. We crossed the border much further south, around Colmar to avoid the mess around Strasbourg. I'm looking at my bottles (I get most of our drinks in Germany)...because there's no shopping in Kehl now!

There was a lot of fuss over the schools. The announced that the school 500m away would close but not St. Jean. The director had a fit because she says the teachers can't come to work (much of the public transport and a major part of the highway will be shut down). This morning they confirmed that the school would close.

We keep getting all sorts of dire statistics. Sixty helicopters, 26 world leaders, 10 million people? Okay, perhaps that was an overestimate but the population of Strasbourg is about 250,000 so that would be a tight squeeze (although, the homeless have already been shipped out...)

http://www.diplomatie.gouv.fr/en/article_imprim.php3?id_article=12768
http://www.strasbourg.eu/international/sommet-otan?ItemID=130824727

Carnivale in Strasbourg

UNDER CONSTRUCTION (videos to be added)

We went again this year!

Waiting for the tram. I didn't want to try to park downtown and it usually saves us the fuss of having to walk back to the car (since there are multiple trams stops downtown).

A lot of children dressed up. Davina wore her flapper dress.





I let the kids go up front with the other children. The adults mainly stayed back, except for the little ones who got scared by the witches.









A lot of the German entries featured witches. These were hairy ones;















These witches had wigs;



This float was making some sort of anti-American comment, which was lost on me.











Ironically, the fake money they glued on the float was actually Chinese fake money, the kind they burn at funerals.

Wooden witches!





Europe's entry to DCI;











We ran into two school chums of Ronnie's. Inés on the right is half Alsatian, half Moroccan and Konstance has a German dad and a Spanish mother. These are real Andulsian costumes her mom picked up in Spain. They're best friends, both of them only children, live near each other and I'm friends with both of their moms. They always make such a pretty pair, especially with the contrast.

Purim

We went to a small Purim party last week. Davina dressed up as a butterfly fairy (whatever) but the older two didn't.







One Spanish girl had a real burka from Afghanistan.



Talia tried it on;



Davina can now also touch her head with her feet so I took this picture. You can see it's not that easy for her! Talia has her gap-tooth smile and I like the way the wings stick out.

Visiting Kelly and meeting Evan

Back to reality after our vacation. We had my sister-in-law the first week and a friend from the U.S. the second. The older two did an ice skating session every afternoon the second week.

Finally, two weeks later, I have pics from our visit to my friend Kelly's house. We wanted to see her new baby Evan. This is her fourth so I'm jealous ;)

When we met, I was pregnant and she had an 8 weeker. We've been busy;

Left to right; Kailyn (almost 3), Krista 9, Talia 7, Evan (6 weeks), Ronnie 9, Eric 6, and Davina 5.





Look how happy Ronnie is with the baby. He loves babies.





Talia's turn;



The kids eating lunch;





Davina getting worried ("Don't get any ideas Mom!")



The girls doing gymnastics. Krista was our inspiration for putting the girls in GRS.





Mine can't do this yet;



Timer pictures with the moms;



This picture cracked us up because Talia is doing the splits on my lap and since we're both wearing jeans, it looks like she has very fat legs. Talia was less amused...