Thursday, August 14, 2008
The Queen Fairy is making crepes
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
The art of country-road driving - part 2
An old historical house in Durham, CT
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
The art of country-road driving
Sunday, August 10, 2008
A day amist nature and modern achitecture
the birds, but by the chirping of Noam. 8 AM... What a nice treat!
(usually he wakes up a bit before 7!) Our room's window gives onto a
wall of rock and ferns, the light is sublime.
We slowly discover the house and the landscape it integrates so
nicely... We feel at peace, relaxed, in vacation.
Later we go in Hudson, the hopping hub (less than 6000 souls). We wolfed
down escargots, nutella crepes and massive salads in a french bakery,
and stroll around antique stores. Looks like anybody wanting to do
business has the requisite antique store integrated in - wether it is
a restaurant, a barber shop or a real estate agent. A parade past by
us, a big band, a boat float and a few loosely arranged majorettes/
walkers. Noam enjoys the music of the fire truck.
We slit into girls and boys cars, drive up to Taghkanic lake where
the girls have a blast. The sun is good, but the water is fresh, and
me and Stacey prefer the sandy towels to the water. Can't help
feeling like some waves would make the water cleaner...
We return to the house and slowly prepare dinner - Eden and Boaz roll
up some pizzas. Noam eats like a pig and it takes again more than an
hour to put him in bed. The rest of the evening is spent discussing
the history of the house's construction.
Friday, August 8, 2008
New York New York
big apple, and he spent the day looking around like if everything was
going to jump in his face. Noises, lights, cars, people... An intense
dose or urbanity!
from the day, unable to settle himself. Once he was asleep, an hour later, we left for the countryside. By departing in the evening, we tried maximizing the quietness or
York. We arrived almost at midnight, transferred the kids (Noam and
our friends' 2 kids) in their respective beds, and had a quick tour
of the magnificent house that was just completed a few months ago.
on the road - day one
The car is packed except for a little space beside Noam's car seat,
so I can squeeze in in case he needs something. The ride was smoother
than expected. We discovered the little miracle of baby CD when Noam
started to whine a bit. As soon as he heard the songs he knows, he
started to giggle and laugh. Wow!
We stoped in New Jersey to visit an old aunt and uncle of Pauli. The
uncle is quite affected with Parkinson and it was a little sad to see
him, unable to walk, talk or see. Lydia, the aunt, was really happy
to see us, and took us for dinner to a great steak house. Noam had a
good time picking at the food there!
We reached New York around 9 at night, and happily crashed for a well
deserved night!
Thursday, August 7, 2008
Goodbyes by the pool
After running around today to get the last things out for our storage, get the place cleaned and finish some errands, I ran to the pool to meet everyone for a little goodbye. Not a real goodbye yet since we are back in September, but still an "au revoir"... Kerstin showed up with 5 cute Beijing mascots, and offered one to all the babies there! The babies chose their own. Noam picked the green one.
I will truly miss everybody. It has been so special and intense to share motherhood experiences with Willa, Kerstin, Franckie, Leora and the others. We truly have connected and helped each other in hard times... I am happy that we could meet and get to know each other!
Wednesday, August 6, 2008
One day's worth (a thousand) of images
Here you go, a visual summary of our last big day with the movers:
boxes all over but still smiling
Things are slowly getting cleared up
and loaded.
Loading up our lives in a truck. And a minimum of 2 1/2 months special tour before we see our stuff again in Beijing. (Unless the ship sinks, of course. Ah! I am thinkin of all those important papers that got loaded in there by mistake!)
After the movers' passage. All a sudden our place feels larger.
At the end of the day, at the hotel.Tuesday, August 5, 2008
A little bit of stress today
Monday, August 4, 2008
In the mist of packing, a moment to remember
Preparing the last bits before the big day
Sunday, August 3, 2008
Boxes boxes boxes
This weekend are the pre-packing days. In order to facilitate our task and help our focus, our nanny has taken Noam with her for the whole day today. A very strange feeling for me, as in the last 10 months, I never being separated from him more than a few hours at the time!