last blog of the year

First off, I should mention that Gaius entered the Annual Gif-sur-Yvette Christmas Drawing Contest and won.

l'arbre enneigé (the snowy tree)

The theme of the contest was mountains and snow.  On the morning of the 17th, before school, I said, "Oh!  Today is the last day to enter the drawing contest.  Quick!  Gaius, draw something!"  Half an hour later, his dad dropped off the drawing and the entry form.  Then, 5 days later, we got a call that Gaius had won!  Here he is with his prize, a polar bear he has named...POLEY.

Gaius and Poley.  Check out the rock star jacket.

My cousin Nicole is visiting with us for the holidays.  On Christmas Eve, she celebrated the Feast of Seven Fishes with us.

#1 oysters on the half shell

#2 anchovies in caesar salad

#3 salmon terrine

#4 lox & caviar on blini with creme fraiche (actually a 2 fish dish)

#5 shrimp cocktail

#6 the best smoked salmon from Seattle

#7 goldfish

After dinner, we had a blindfold taste test to see if these bozos could tell the difference between brie and camembert.  They all got it wrong!  Of course I (never having been tested) can definitely tell the difference between the two.

brie vs. camembert taste test

camembert, mouse, brie

Christmas morning was very nice.  We started the day with our tradition of Irish Coffee, followed by presents!  Santa brought Gaius the repulsor blaster he asked for.  And Christopher was happy with the gift that I got him.  An end table for his cup of coffee/glass of wine!

This gift cost €1,87 (about 2 bucks) and weighs about 100 pounds.

We spent Christmas Day at the Eiffel Tower, where it was about 28 degrees and very windy!  

I got my 100 eiffel tower key chains for the tree!

Christmas dinner in a Parisian café

Luckily, we ate dinner in Paris.  Because we returned home that night to a refrigerator that had been left open for over 6 hours!  Luckily, we didn't lose much.

The following day (Boxing Day) we headed out to Gilles' house (where that cool party was).  We had a wonderful lunch with the family and then all walked to the neighborhood rink and went ice skating!  

the secret to looking good in a hat is the right attitude (my mom)

NICOLE!

lunch with the family

Their house just keeps getting more and more cool. Look at what we found on the kitchen floor...SWEDEN!

Now I want a map of Sweden on my floor!  (Click for bigger picture)

skating with Simon

in 3 seconds, Gilles will hurl a huge snowball at that glass building

One last thing for my foodie friends.  We had our own little raclette party.  I am totally buying one of these machines when I get home.  It's kind of like teppanyaki meets fondue.  I borrowed this machine from my next door neighbor.

Raclette anyone?

Nicole works the grill

It's been a great 2010.  Here's looking forward to more adventures for us all in 2011!

à bientôt!

au revoir, funny face

For this to really have an impact, I'm going to need to buy about 100 more Eiffel Tower keychains.

eiffel tower keychain ornaments

our tiny french sapin de noël

We went out on Saturday night and bought 22 Eiffel Tower keychains direct from the source (Bir Hakeim metro station).  All for only 3€!  We are definitely going back to buy at least 100 more.  I can just imagine our tree next year, all decked out with little Eiffel Towers!


It says a lot about how cold it was that night and how long we have been here in Paris that we did not even leave the metro station to take a peek at the Eiffel Tower.  We actually just bought the keychains from a vendor in the station and jumped right back on our train.  I'm sure it looks really pretty in the snow.  We'll probably get to see it again tomorrow night when my cousin Nicole arrives from Seattle!


Before we went out to buy the keychains, we paid a visit to the Chateau de Vincennes, which is at the end of Line 1 on the Metro.  It was cold and very spooky.  We toured the chapel and the dungeon.

After the Chateau and keychains, we went to the Champs Elysées to see "Megamind" and it was snowing!  Paris in the snow is extremely exciting and beautiful!

champs elysées in the snow

See Gaius' face?  You can click the picture to enlarge.  It drives me crazy when he poses for pictures this way.  In fact, he told me today that his Christmas gift to me this year is that he'll stop making that funny face when I take his picture.  Sweet!

It sounds silly I know.  How often can he actually make that face?  Quite a lot, actually.  Seriously, look at all of the pictures he has ruined!

random shot on the RER

with Pop on the Seine River Cruise

thanksgiving dinner

just plain goofy

notre dame with the grandparents

posing for lola at the mona lisa

it just goes on and on

pompidou center

out for falafel in the marais

place de la concorde last week

dinner with magda last night

I'll stop here.  Well, one more.  This is the last picture I took of Gaius today.  And, according to him, it will be the last one he takes with this stupid face.

au revoir, funny face!

à bientôt!

boom chicka bow bow

Any kids out there?  Okay for me to write Adult Content?  I'm just kidding.  But wow!  Who knew people actually read this blog!  I am like totally motivated to write this thing everyday now!


Now I wonder who exactly reads my blog.  I looked at the stats and I actually have readers in all of the following countries:

Pageviews by Countries

United States

France

Denmark

Canada

United Kingdom

Australia

Japan

Russia

Germany

Belgium

Maybe I have one avid fan who has traveled to all of these countries in the past 4 months.  I'd love to say that I'm "big in Japan" but I know that those statistics are all thanks to our friend Paul Daniels and maybe his wife Hiromi.


What is everyone using to read my blog?

Pageviews by Operating Systems

Windows 1,841 (44%) Macintosh 1,788 (43%) iPhone 169 (4%) Other Unix 126 (3%) BlackBerry 60 (1%) Linux 53 (1%) iPad 45 (1%) iPod 16 (<1%) Palm 4 (<1%)

Anyway, I am fascinated by this.  I heard from my cousin Maria that every time she tries to leave a comment on my blog, the system locks her out.  I live for comments on my blog.  If the comment section is not working for you and you are a Facebook friend of mine, please leave a comment there!  One of the reasons I continue to write this thing is that after I post, I hear from all my friends and relatives!


So, one week to go before Christmas!  Today, we are headed out to see some castle in Paris and then we are going to buy like twenty Eiffel Tower keychains to decorate our tree.  After that, we plan on seeing Megamind on the Champs Elysées.  It says a lot about our lifestyle that both Christopher and I consider a movie that begins at 8 pm to be a late night showing.  


à bientôt!


p.s.  It's snowing!