Madeleine's 3rd Ballet Recital

Breizh Da Viken

Il faisait un peu froid mais nous étions bien habillés, il faisait beau, le trépied était sorti... C'est rare que toute les conditions soient réunies comme ça. Il ne manque que Krisztina qui était de sortie en ville.

Madeleine's 3rd Ballet Recital

Voici l'album de photo de sa troisieme performance ballet-step! Impressionant!

2010. December 1st.

Friend's Visit

We've had the Dalton-Clarks for a visit after Thanksgiving. On this photo, our kids with their son, Harry whom they adore! What a blast! Unfortunately, they couldn't play ping pong or Tarot with them, but eventually the day will come.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Salut tout le monde ! ça fait longtemps que je n'ai pas donné de nouvelles sur le blog. Nous venons de fêter Thanksgiving. Nous avons commencé la journée par nous rendre à Manhattan pour aller voir la parade de Macy, l'équivalent des Galeries Lafayette je dirais. C'était déjà une aventure. Puis nous avons passé une après-midi tranquille : Krisztina a cuisiné le repas traditionnel de Thanksgiving (dinde farcie, patates douces, haricots gratinés aux oignons et au fromage, sauce de cranberries et pour finir ce repas si léger un cheesecake à la citrouille. Grand succès : on s'est tous régalé), Alissa a joué avec les enfants et j'ai réarrangé le sous-sol. J'en ai profité pour décaper la table de ping pong. Et nous sommes maintenant officiellement prêts à accueillir les prochains championnats du monde de tennis de table. Il faudra d'ailleurs être très bon parce que la table n'est plus plate, il y a du relief.

Ci-dessous quelques photos de notre journée.

Thanksgiving

Mamie Françoise et Papie Alain à NYC

Les grands-parents sont venus nous rendre visite, cette fois-ci pour voir notre petite maison de Long Island. C'est un séjour très rapide mais nous avons quand même pris le temps d'aller à Manhattan. De là, nous avons pris le ferry pour voir La Liberté Eclairant Le Monde de tout près, ainsi que Ellis Island, l'île qui accueillait les masses immigrantes à la fin du XIXe et au début du XXe siècles.

Happy Birthday Madeleine!

Today I am 4 years old!! We enjoyed a Sunny day, went to the airport to pick up Mathieu, who came in from Paris, and got me an Eiffel Tower! I opened gifts from friends from the post which included a book signed by Julie Andrews! After nap time, friends came and we played and sang and dances , ate pizza, and cake and I blew all my candles! Thank you all for making this a special day!

Scores of tonight's game

Only three hands tonight - it was the first game of the season and most of the evening was spent in training. The serious stuff begins next week. Cheers!

The Long Island Tarot Club

The Long Island Tarot Club

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This is the first time we are playing Tarot in a long time! We probably played only once or twice since we moved out of Brooklyn. And each time, we had to "import" the players from Boston, MA.

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This is the french card game, no psychic stuff. Tarot is one of the most popular card games in France, along with Belotte I guess. It's not easy to find players in NYC so my wife and I are starting a club. We'll be happy to teach you if you've never played, it's not a hard game to understand. But the more you play, the more subtle it gets. You'll see how much fun it is to "Chasser le Petit" (hunt down the small one).

A little bit on the game can be found on Wikipedia of course. Here is the link. It also points to other websites with the rules and everything.

We live in Windsor Terrace, by Prospect Park, so the game could take place in a Park Slope Café or any nice place nearby.

To contact us, try Krisztina or Mathieu: krisztinamathieu at gmail.com.

Windows and more

The second project has been the installation of new windows of 18 of the 34 windows of the house. The windows were original windows dating back to 1924. That in itself is not crime. But it was single pane glass and most of the windows had been painted shut. After interviewing numerous companies, we went with Okna vinyl windows and so far we are very happy with it.

Right now I found some leaks on the roof of the sunroom. I got some sort of aluminum tape designed exactly to address this type of problem at Home Depot. If I do my prep work properly, it should be easy. That's a reason why I love this country: it's DIY paradise :-) Next there is some painting to do: the second layer of paint on the fence and some patching on the molding, inside, around the windows.

Project #1: the fence

Most of the backyards on our side of the street are opened, which is very nice: it gives a feeling of being in a big park. On the other hand with Madeleine and Viktor running around constantly, we had little choice but to close it with a fence. I found the estimates that the local companies gave us way too expensive. And they were taking too much time to come down to our place to actually do the work. So I set up to do it myself. Here is the result.

It's not actually finished at this point. The posts need a second layer of paint. And I'd like to cap them with something pointy that drains the water away and masks the (not always so) slight height differences :-) There are also a few gaps to fill - Madeleine and Viktor manage to slip through today. And the gate is still a work in progress.

Moved in

We are no longer the Lorentz family of Brooklyn since we moved to the Long Island suburbs. But it looks like we won't be moving as much now that we finally settled in our very own first house! We got the house in June, spent July in Europe, so August was really the first month we spent in the house. We love it but it's keeping us very busy. I'll try to make an effort to keep you posted on the advancement of all our little projects.

Nous avons finalement emménagé dans notre petite maison de la banlieue New Yorkaise. La vente a été finalisée début juin mais nous sommes très vite partis en Europe : pour voir la famille, pour le boulot... et marier Muriel bien sûr :-) Le mois d'août est passé très vite et l'été indien s'installe. Il est temps que je remette à blogger.