Fête des Reines 2011

Once again, Strasbourg GRS had their "Fête des Reines" or "Queen's Party", which actually doesn't make much sense in English! January 6th in France is the "Fête des Rois" or holiday of the Three Kings. Since rhythmic gymnastics is a female sport, they tweaked the title a little to fit the occasion.

Competitive groups warming up (taken from the Strasbourg GRS site). Talia is towards the back, partly hidden by some striped socks.

Instructions being given. Talia is in front, on the left in a black tank top. Also taken from the Strasbourg GRS site.



Here is Davina's group waiting their turn to perform. She's in the "Poussines" group (little chickens) which are the 6-9 year olds.

Davina's group walking on.

Davina's group performing. They did a simple routine with the hoops.

Davina's group finishing.

Talia waiting her turn to go on. This photo was taken by the club photographer. The little girl in front is Sophie and her father is from Shanghai. They look cute together!

Talia's group walking on.

Talia is second from the left.

Two more Strasbourg club photos. This is the opening position, Talia on the left.

Talia is supposed to just grab Tomaris' leg for a second and then she folds back down. Only Sophie's leg appears here. She somehow slid behind! Oceane is barely hanging in there behind Talia...

I have purposely left out the video of the routine because there will be one later on when it's perfected. I'll film them at a competition.

At the break, the three "Kings" handed out chocolates and candy to the girls per King's Day tradition in France.

Bollenberg

The annual meal with Socobeval this year was held at Bollenberg. My husband works for Socobeval. Everyone thinks he co-owns it but that's not the case. He actually runs it with a long-term friend but he's actually under contract.

Sometimes they do a child-free evening do but this time, he and his "partner" brought their kids, who sat apart. They ate quickly and headed to the play area.

Bollenberg is near Colmar. The restaurant is actually called Le Vieux Pressoir or the "old grape pressing machine" (doesn't translate well).

http://www.bollenberg.com/resto.html

Wonderful meal. I prefer these kinds of places than the fancier ones. It was seriously a 5 hour lunch with endless courses. Not great for the dieters among us!

Great stuff amassed on the walls. If an invading force had arrived, we would have been well-armed!

Some of these actually had holes in them. Ewwww! Not wanting to think about who wore them last!

There were also great stuff outside. I'm all "What is this doing outside?" I'm not sure how wise that was. We're talking real Historical Value!

Because it was close to the Fete des Rois (Kings' Day), the kids got galette and of course, they all got a goodie in each of them and all got crowns. No fights!

Muriel took this great picture of us! Talia got bashed with a club at gymnastics and she still had the bruise.

Surprise birthday party-for me?!?

A few days prior, I caught Daniel looking at my contact list on my iPhone. Granted, there was no one there that I need to hide from him but I found that a little out of character for him to go through my stuff. I was clueless!

When I was returning from picking Talia up from gymnastics, I noticed my friend Eileen's car outside. I thought, this is odd... wait a minute!

When I came in the house, there was some scrambling to hide. Out popped Eileen, her daughter Lea (Davina's age), my friends Hillary and her husband Benoît and their children Rose and Victor.

I was a little in shock. I actually have never had a "real" surprise birthday party. By coincidence, I had just seen in California a friend who kind of did one for my 23rd birthday (or was it 22nd? Can't remember). That wasn't jumping out but just inviting me out and there were three cars of friends waiting. So I had to wait 25 years later for similar!

Now looking at these photos, bear in mind that I'm 3 kilos less and I was not prepared for photos or any kind of party!

I was touched because all this was on a school night, the very first back to school after the Christmas break so the party didn't go on too long. We had to get the kids in bed!

Me with Victor and Hillary half cut-off.

We also had galettes (in the background) since it was a few days short of King's Day.

Benîot in a festive spirit.

Love the part where Victor asks my age!

Birthday in Badenweiler

Claudia and I were born on the same day. She, in Switzerland and me in Kansas. She's 9 hours older than I am. We found this out just by accident a couple of years' back in Badenweiler.

We both wouldn't be there on the day, since it was when school starts. We did a little celebration on the Saturday night, before we all left Sunday. They stayed in the next hotel over but we did the cake at our hotel.

Her husband Eric and son Marcus.

Of course it was Black Forrest Cherry Cake!

The kids all doing "dead body" faces.

Badenweiler New Years' Eve

Just a few photos from New Year's Eve. No more getting babysitters for the kids! Unfortunately, our friends were staying at a neighboring hotel so we were on our own again.

Talia's pretty dress from Gap;

Gold specks in the soup!

Sign that your children fly too much

When we arrived in Frankfurt, I took Davina to the bathroom and told Ronnie and Talia to meet me at the baggage carousel for the SFO flight. We weren't gone that long but Ronnie and Talia managed to get all the bags off the carousel, although they were too heavy to put on the cart.

Admittedly, this is probably their 40-somethingth flight but I think this is a sign they've spent enough of their childhood in the air!

Deb from Strasbourg (another South Bay former resident) was on board our flight so we took the bus home together. Daniel was in Paris, having arrived the night before from Israel and driving back that day (couldn't get a train ticket!) Usually he picks us up but we had plenty of time, plenty of bags and slept the way to Strasbourg.

Crab Night!

Exactly a year after Crab Night, we did it again. It happened to fall on the same day. We kind of wanted it "out of the way" of Christmas and once, I made the mistake of doing it the night before leaving (eek!) The only evening that fell in that criteria was again, Dec. 27th.

Evan was over, having brought him down from Sacramento on Christmas.

Ysabel is texting something. My sister and her husband are in the middle.

The kids got a hold of my camera. This is Kellen, who came with Barbara and Ysabel. Unfortunately, his mom whom I had just met at Barbara's the previous week, had to work. But Kel is used to going places with them and has been to my sister's before.

Barbara getting down to business.

Triathlon woman is talented in the kitchen too!

Vicky and Jody in the kitchen (probably getting in the way).

Jody playing with stickers in the living room;

Marshall and Will in matching crab shirts (thank you Todd!)

Marshall, Will, Talia and Jade.

Thia and Guk.
Thia and Talia (Thia used to do gymnastics too)

Crab shirt guys.

Kellen again.

The aftermath.

Group shots! From left to right:

Ken, Kellen, Barbara, me, Ronnie, Evan (in front), Davina, Vicky, Jody, Thia being crushed by Talia, Will on the floor and Ysabel.