Thanksgiving with Grand-Papa and Grand-Maman

My parents came over for a visit in November. We were so happy to spend time with them after more than a year. They were here for about 10 days. We ate lots of really good food and had them discover all the cool playgrounds around Boulder.

The weather was pretty good the entire time they were here, so we got to take several walks around the creek too. 

Pretty Mommy and drooly little boy

Handsome kiddo

Always classy

Crossing the creek with Grand-Papa

On another outing we rode our bikes, and bumped into a herd of deer (4 or 5!).

 

At the dinosaur playground (East Boulder REC)

Good memories : )

At Eben G. Fine park:

My Mom helped me tackle some of my unfinished knitting projects.

This boy must have kangaroo ancestors...

A little walk up Red Rocks:

At Scott Carpenter park:

and at home:

getting pretty nails with Mommy

 Putting away his cars in the "garage" (a box decorated as a house)

A few days before Thanksgiving the family housing organized a Turkey Trot (a traditional race to burn off the calories you eat over Thanksgiving!) We took the boys and they loved it. The race was so short they asked to do it over and over and over again. They did little crafts too and got some presents.

William and Grand-Papa doing one last race.

Our last dinner with Grand-Papa and Grand-Maman was Thanksgiving dinner. I wanted it to be authentic so we tried the best we could. We made chicken instead of Turkey because Turkeys are too big and we all liked chicken better, we had some appetizers, green beans, sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, gravy and cranberry sauce. It was pretty delicious!

A story for Sammy

Joshua's best buddy is in Switzerland with his parents while his dad does research at the EPFL (if you don't know what that is, you should... : P just kidding).

We miss them all tremendously. A few weeks ago, I was driving somewhere and Josh started making up a story about him and Sam. I grabbed my phone and had him tell the story again.

Here's the audio file:

We love you Sam, Em and Don!

PS: Excuse the lack of enthusiasm in my voice, do I always sound so grumpy? I guess I was focused on driving.

The basics of French according to Josh

Josh can say one sentence in French, if you want to find out what it is click on play:

 The rest of the time when I ask him to talk to me in French, this is what he comes up with:

However, he understands everything I say... I can't wait for him to start answering me in french. In the meantime I crack up everytime he tries!

Matthieu and Kelsey's wedding

The last week-end of September we took a trip to Utah to attend my nephew's wedding in Salt Lake City. It was a very short visit but way worth the long drive.
We left Friday early morning (4am) and drove pretty much non stop to Pleasant Grove. We arrived around 1-2pm, and found Isabelle preparing the family dinner planned for the evening.
The boys were so happy to be visiting their cousins.

Friday night was the family dinner organized by Isabelle in order to introduce both sides of the family.
We met Kelsey and her family and had no difficulty enjoying our time with them. They are the nicest people. We sat with Kelsey's sister and her husband and discovered they are friends with some friends from our ward (what a small world!)

Isabelle and a neighbor planned the decoration, and some friends from the ward helped serving and managing the kitchen. Everything was delicious and pretty.

little brothers, sisters, nieces and nephews ate in a separate room

here come the bride and groom

First time meeting the grand-parents. Isn't Kelsey adorable?

I love this photo of my brother and my Dad meeting again after 3 years!

 The kids table with profusion of cute nephews, nieces, and younger siblings (Kelsey has 10 siblings and Matthieu 7!)

already adopting each-others facial expressions!

A toast from the Father of the bride

A toast from the father of the groom

The sealing was on Saturday morning in the Salt Lake Temple, and we were driving with the groom, so we had to leave home at 6am to be there early for the groom.

This is the groom at 5:45am. For the records, I think he set his alarm clock an hour late... but he was still planning on getting up 15min before departure time. Typical Matthieu style!

5:50am

5:55am

and the final result. Not too shabby!

The temple ceremony was very sweet. My Dad was the sealer and he had prepared a really nice "speech".

In the meantime the rest of the family was waiting outside. Jo was a little... excited to say the least. Russ had spiked his hair and he looked dashing, if I may say!

Matthieu sibling, missing Oceane who is on a mission

My lovely Mommy and Daddy

the tradition shot

A bunch of good-looking people. Can you tell we're related : )

Christophe's family (Missing Matthieu, Kesley and Oceane)

The picture that burns my eyes with hotness

Do get too close you might burst into flame ; p

Next was the reception in Kaysville where Kelsey grew up. I wish I had more pictures of the decorated back yard and the amazing food. Americans know how to throw a wedding!

Thank you Matthieu and Kelsey for offering a real dessert rather than the plaster-tasting typical wedding cake

Cheese cake factory yumminess! 

one shot of the amazing decoration at the reception

Creating memories

Have you ever created a memory from an old childhood picture you were in? I think I have created memories from pretty much every picture I have in my childhood photo album. Or I've used the pictures to reconstruct a "semi-fictional" memory of times I don't actually remember (does it make any sense?).

Every fall since we moved to Colorado we've taken a little trip to a nearby farm called Cottonwood farm to enjoy the fun activities (hay maze, corn maze, pumpkin patch, animals etc...) and take pictures of the kids. Every year I come home from the farm with an overabundance of pictures, one in particular--the tradition shot is a picture of each child standing near the measuring scale on the Cottonwood farm sign. 

If I hadn't been there that day, I'd probably look at these pictures and think how great this tradition is... 

Look at them pretending to scare me in the corn maze : )

William has a serious obsession for dogs. That dog was really nice and leaked his face.

Farm animals...

Acrobaties around pumpkins

Big muscles...

But pictures don't tell the whole story. What you can't see from the pictures is how grumpy everybody was that day (or maybe you can). The end of pumpkin season was approaching and we hadn't had a chance to go to the farm  yet, but I didn't want to miss the chance to get my "tradition shot"(and I also genuinely love this tradition), so I dragged everyone there, notwithstanding I was the only one who wanted to go. 

I don't recall that morning being fun for anyone. I never managed to get the "tradition shot" from William and the only thought on my mind was let's get these pictures done and get out of here. Maybe I'm exaggerating a little, I do believe somehow, at one point or another the boys did manage to have some fun, but it never lasted long enough to really transpire. All in all I came home thinking this outing was a complete failure, and I thought I'd never want to look at those pictures again.

And yet here I am, posting them, which takes me back to the beginning of this post (I have a point, I promise, not getting there quickly but it's coming): I realize this is my personal memory of the event, and it is subjective. I was looking at the pictures on my computer this afternoon and Joshua came looking at them. I asked him if he remembered going there? He said no. And then he said with excitement "I went there with my Daddy, and my little brother and you. I love this place!" And William repeated: "Mommy Le's go there now. I wanna bring tha' kumkin back at ma house, I bring all of the kumkins".

So I think I'm happy I dragged everyone there, I'm happy I took the pictures and I kept them, because we created a memory that day. Not an accurate memory because the boys have forgotten all about it, but a memory they can recreate everytime they look at the pictures. And I hope what I wrote about that particular day being a little crappy won't influence their opinion about it too much.