Tata Coco's visit and Family and Friend Time in Utah

At the beginning of March my sister Coco came over for a visit. As if her visit wasn't enough, she'd managed to smuggle a bunch of goodies for me. Cocotte, you know the way to my heart! 

It was a short visit sadly but we made the most of it. The boys showed Tata Coco their favorite park.

She treated us to some delicious french style lunch (fancy bread, cheese, cold cuts, green salad and fruit)

Then I took advantage of her presence to do a little service project I wanted to do with the boys. There's a volunteer association that provides food and shelter to at-risk youth in Boulder. They were remodeling their site and their kitchen was under construction so we signed up to bring dinner one night. We made 6 or 7 pizzas and brought a veggie tray and dessert. I was happy to be able to do this with the boys (and Coco's help).





Coraline and I took a little tour of Boulder on bike. We went to Pearl street, the Court house, Dushanbe tea house and CU campus. The weather was fantastic and it felt good to take a little break from the packing, selling, cleaning that she'd come to help me with.

That same day I went on a 10km jog! It was my longest distance and my best average pace (just a little over 10min/mile). I was on fire that day. It felt so good to accomplish a goal that seemed so hard to achieve only a few months ago.

The next day we all drove to Salt Lake City where one of my brothers lives. 

The boys discovered BB guns with their cousins. Josh thought he was living a dream... 

I didn't see the boys for the rest of the day, they were either outside, eyes wide open, inhaling the coolness of their older cousins or inside role playing an episode of transformers with their younger cousin Mailys (Josh still calls her Maoni-I like it). Romain and Tristan gave Joshua some Transformers and a really cool bow with arrows that hasn't left his side since we came home. "It's a real. cool. bow. Mom!"

We visited my dear friend Raynee Bengtzen who is a second Mom to me. My friend Bea also came with her younger daughter and we had a good morning visiting with each other. I love them so much.

Francois, Mago, Coco and I went to the SLC temple and met our family friend Nicki there. 

The next day we headed for Pleasant Grove where my niece (Daughter of my older brother) was giving her homecoming talk. She'd just served a mission in Taiwan. She gave a great talk that just transpired love for the people she served.

We had a little luncheon with neighbors after her talk and just chilled at home... sat around staring at each other all day with our snarfblatt dating back to pre-hysterical days... (Name that movie). Of course if you've been to Christophe's house you know I'm kidding, it's always a mad house there. We played games, engaged in heated conversations. and Josh gladly contributed to the madness by leading us into another episode of Transformers.

Here he is warming up the crowd, assigning people into the Autobot team or the Decepticon's (can't say that word in French without laughing out loud). He was really funny, I don't think he expected so much success and enthusiasm for his game.

The next day, everyone went back to school except for Coco, Nicki and us. Josh and William dicovered the Nerf Gun shelf in the playroom and spent the entire day raiding the house.

We said good-bye to Coco and Nicki took her to the airport.

Later that night we had a little family home evening, some cousin bonding time and more heated conversations (thank you Matthieu : P).

While we were there we discovered an amazing playground down the road from my brother's. It's called discovery park. It is huge! We went there first with my nephews and nieces and the next day met our old friends the Jacksons' there. Josh and Adam were in the same little preschool co-op last year and they loved each other. I taught Adam's brother (Big William) in primary and I became friends with their parents. Scott and Staci are amazingly loving, caring and non-judgemental people. I wish we didn't have to live so far away. Thank you so much for driving 2 hours to meet us there Scott and Staci! I love you!

Our last day in Pleasant Grove, Christophe took us to BYU for a little tour (or Nerf gun Raid). We visited the museum and had a little snack in the Cougar Eat (I say little a lot don't I?).

We also went back to the building where I used to work (and take classes). This is me posing in front of the cleanroom where I did a summer research. My nephew (Matthieu) now works in the same cleanroom and does research with the same professor (I think it makes me cooler...)

This is Matthieu in the bunny-suit, looking hot.

And that was the end of our vacation. We were spoiled our entire trip, transformers, nerf guns, yummy food, 24hr free babysitting service (Thank you Sephora). My niece Oceane went home with us the next day (so I wouldn't have to drive 8hours by myself) and we had a nice trip and evening together. She went back home by plane the next day. Now we're all in family-withdrawal, boohoo!