November Visit to Grandma Stella

I'm not sure why it's taken me three months to post these pictures from our last trip to Wisconsin. I suppose because it's just so painful to be reminded that my grandma is so far away, especially now when I have no way to communicate with her. We used to talk on the phone every week. I miss that. I miss hearing her voice on my answering machine. "Holly, it's just me." I wish I'd saved those messages.
Anyway, this was a good visit. Like last time she didn't seem to have a clear idea of who we were, and she never used our names. But like last time she was happy to see us and enjoyed talking and looking at pictures on my laptop.
She liked my watch because it had red numbers, so I traded with her. It was a nice moment. I know it made her happy to have the new watch, and I felt like I'd really connected with her. Then the next day she showed me my watch, and said that some girl had been there and given it to her. She had no idea it had been me. But it didn't make me sad - In a way it was reassuring. I know I'm in her mind somewhere. In some way.
And here we are with my great-aunt Nina who visits my grandma several times a week. They are the last of eleven siblings.
My hopes for this trip were simple. I just wanted to be there and hold my grandma's hand. And I did that. A lot. And when we left I told her how much I love her. And she said, "I love you too."

Maine

Maine is among our favorite places. Apart from last summer when we were in Europe, we've gone there every year since Lucia was born and since Phoebe moved back there. This year we brought my niece Kathryn along. As you can see, the girls had a great time together! Mostly we go for Phoebe, but we also go for a lot of other things - the best bread in the world (Phoebe's), the best restaurant and farm fresh produce in the world (Chase's), the best ice cream in the world (John's), the best honey in the world (Swan's), the best maple syrup in the world, etc. As Kathryn put it, "It seems like Maine has a lot of the best things in the world." We got to spend some time with Romy, Phoebe's little niece. She showed us the best spot for swimming at Lake Megunticook. It was a really warm week for Maine, and we were able to do a lot of swimming.
Sometimes I get tired of being the official family photographer. When I threatened to leave my camera at home for this trip, Nick took up the task. He took all the following pictures. This is at Kelly's Cove in Bayside where we rent a cottage every year.
Low tide. Lucia found a hermit crab and made it a temporary 'habitat' in her bucket. Later she released him into a tide pool. We also found lots of small fish, brine shrimp, and small crabs. And we rescued a large drowning dragonfly. It dried out nicely on my hand and took off into the air.

Paris in June

Nick was working in the Paris office for a couple of weeks while we were away, so we were able to enjoy some more time in our favorite city. It was particularly nice for Lucia to have the chance to visit with friends. We attended the dress rehearsal for her old theatre class who were preparing to present The Wizard of Oz. When we were in Paris Lucia was playing the part of Dorothy, and she had a wonderful time doing it. So it was really fun for her to see how the production had come together since we'd left. Here she is with her friend Andrea, dressed in a gypsy costume...and Andrea as the Scarecrow...We revisited some of our old favorites:
The Hall of Paleontology. This may very well be my favorite place in Paris. It's one of those places where you really know you're not in Kansas any more. It is as old, dusty and poorly maintained as your high school chem lab. The labels are mostly handwritten and faded, and there's nothing flashy, technological or modern to be seen in the whole place. And yet, every time we've gone it is filled with Parisian families taking in some comparative anatomy of a Sunday afternoon. Is this my culture, or what! I've many more photos, but I'll hold off for now because they really deserve their own post. In the meanwhile, here are just a couple...
The Cité des Sciences where we spent two days in fact! Here we are in the children's area...Here's a good shot of my freaky, backwards bending elbows. I used to think that everyone's elbows did that, but then some kind peers put an end to my illusions.and Lucia dodging cosmic radiation in the Universe exhibit...Breakfast in America. Yes, we go to Paris and eat bagels and veggie burgers in an American style diner. And I'm not a bit ashamed. The tea room at the Paris Mosque. This is such a lovely place, and the mint tea and halva are delicious.The Saturday bird market on Ile de la Cite.
We also explored some new areas of the city, most notably the sewers! This was truly enlightening. Apart from the incredible smell, we learned about all the special machines that are used to clean out the sewers. That enormous steel ball behind Lucia is pushed into the mouth of a siphon running under the river. It then rolls through pushing the much ahead of it until it pops out the other side. We ate at L'Ebouillanté, a place I'd seen and admired many times because it's situated so nicely on such a picturesque little street...
And we finally got around to the Palais de Tokyo where we got our fill of conceptual art. Here is a representation of an elephant at a distance of 18,000 km from the surface of the earth.Lucia was particularly fascinated by this piece, a sort of makeshift bazooka powered by liquid nitrogen which shoots empty beer bottles into a cement wall at a speed of 600 km/hr. We also visited the children's gallery at the Pompidou where we played around with some hands-on exhibits that accompanied a show of Edouard Sautai having to do with scale and perspective. We made constructions and projected them onto a screen. They also have a good website for kids.

Germany in June

So, finally! Here are some photos from our trip to Germany in June where we attended the wedding of my friends Claudia and Thomas. Claudia, Mirjam, and I were exchange students together in Norway in 1991. We've kept in touch ever since. We used to see each other very sporadically, but one of the benefits of getting older is that we've become more established and able to travel. So, lately we've been able to visit more frequently. That's a lot of fun - especially since we all now have children. For the wedding we rented this cottage with Mirjam and her husband Arend and their two boys Jaap and Bram. I knew Lucia would have a great time when, within five minutes of our arrival, Arend was setting off firecrackers. Our neighbors, the sheep.
The "town" in which we stayed is called Kius and is in the very northern part of Germany, close to the Danish border. It was quite beautiful - rolling fields of wheat and this tall waxy rape(?) plant used to make rapeseed oil. Early morning visitor...
Bram had a particular fascination with Lucia's hair.
Arend made it his duty to fetch fresh bread each morning from the bakery. This is what breakfast looked like every day! We attended the big regional Garden Festival in the nearby town of Schleswig where we discovered this fantastic playground slide.


There was also a lovely little beach. I really want one of these chairs!

Claudia and Thomas had a civil ceremony in the town hall of nearby Kappeln which happens to be located in an old windmill! I don't have any photos from the actual ceremony. The space was small and dark and already crowded with photo-minded folks. So I decided to just be there. But here's one of Claudia and Mirjam. Marlene awaiting the ceremony...The town hall building.
After the lovely ceremony we had lunch in another little town on the water where there were little thatch-roofed cottages like this one. We crossed the Danish border one day and took the kids to Legoland! It was really nice - low-key and no lines, just the way I like my amusement parks. It was also a new experience for Lucia - the first time she's been at an amusement park together with other kid friends.
Dogs are welcome at amusement parks in Denmark...
And a couple of pictures from our first day in Hamburg. We were happy to be able to spend a little time with Claudia, Thomas, and Marlene before the wedding. Marlene liked the nesting blocks we gave her. And here we are in a really nice botanical park in Hamburg.

Southern Belles

Last weekend we flew down to North Carolina to visit Jadae and Saxonie at college. Lucia had been missing her sisters terribly and was very excited to finally see them again. The weather was beautiful, and the trees were all in full bloom.Charlotte is a good example of how not to build a city. The amount of quick, cheap development going on there was astounding. For the most part it is a car-centered sprawling city of divided highways and strip malls. However, there were some very pretty residential streets lined with lovely trees and craftsman style bungalows. I think we did manage to find the best of what Charlotte has to offer. We hit most of the hot spots on the Happy Cow vegetarian guide. Zada Jane's was a popular spot and easily the hippest place in town. We had to wait about an hour for a table, but we amused ourselves with the outdoor shuffleboards, and the time passed quickly by. Everyone was happy with the food which ranged from my lovely tofu scramble to Jadae and Saxonie's "Vegless Avenger" - an omelette containing parts from three or four different species of animal.

The Imaginon is actually the children's branch of the public library in Charlotte. It is housed in an architecturally whimsical building that also holds theatre and exhibition spaces. There was a 'healthy kids' fair' going on while we were there, so Lucia got to do some crafts and have her face painted while we checked out the interesting exhibit - fantastical machines based on different letters of the alphabet. Below see the letter 'E': Emu's Egg Engulfs Eggscales. Egads! And this one had something to do with a bouncing ball... for 'B' presumably... We roped Sax into a game of miniature golf. Somewhere around the 11th hole the sky darkened ominously. Look in the upper left corner below...We decided to call it quits when the hurricane force winds carried Nick's ball into the pond - much to Lucia's disappointment. Ah well, it was fun while it lasted!

Parkinson's Unity Walk

Please check out my post about the Parkinson's Unity Walk at Unschool Days, and find out how you can contribute!

Well, It Ain't Paris...

In fact, this is something that's probably unknown in Paris. It's called de-icing the wings of an airplane. I took this photo on Friday after we'd landed in the middle of a snow storm in Minneapolis. We were on our way to visit my grandma in LaCrosse, Wisconsin.

flying at the Marriott

the Mississippi from our hotel room window

I've been trying to decide what to do with our Paris blog now that we're no longer living in Paris. We're still doing a lot of traveling. Wisconsin this month, North Carolina in April, the unschooling conference in Massachusetts in May, a wedding in Germany and then Paris(!) again in June, and Maine in July. So I've decided to keep Trois éléphants going as our travel blog to be updated as we make the rounds.

four generations