Yeah, a new cousin !

Susanna's due date is July 21st !!!

Aunt Ruthie's card

Elodie received a nice card from Aunt Claire Ruth last Thursday:

Dear Elodie Claire,
I wanted to share with you how I came to be called Claire. My grandmother, Mary Frances Blau, had a very best friend, Clara Voelker. Clara owned a dry-cleaning business and my dad + grandma owned a food market down the street. People say grandma + Clara were always together.
My dad called me Ruth Claire. At grade school + high school I was Ruth. In College I was called Claire.
I wish that your life will be full of fun and excitement. I sure have and continue to live life to the fullest.
Sincerely,
Your great aunt,
Claire Ruth

School Pictures

A real photograph came to school and took pictures of all the kids... Here are Elodie's and Etienne's proofs:

    

I don't think we're going to order the pictures: the kids' clothes are not that cute and Elodie is not smiling :-(

Toastmasters speech

This post has nothing to do with Elodie, but since a lot of people have been asking me what exactly I do at Toastmasters, I wanted to give you an example of the kind of skills we practice there.
This was my 5th speech in the club and it is entitled: I am not a monkey! It has 2 parts, approx. 3 minutes each.
Enjoy ! I'm sure you'll get a few laughs out of it ...





Here is the map that I describe in the second part of the speech:



I'm very proud to report that I won the Best Speaker award that night ;-)



UPDATE ON MARCH 23rd, 2007

4 months later, I gave the same speech at the area contest. Actually, not exactly the same speech. I think I improved it a lot. You can see for yourself:

A message from Gramie

We have a family tradition in Neulette. Every time a baby is born, we plant a tree ! So last week Gramie and Constance planted a Red Jewel Crabapple in honor of Elodie...


Coucou, je suis un petit arbre, pas plus haut que toi, mais on ne dira pas "haut comme 3 pommes" car j'en ai déjà une douzaine, pas plus grosses que des billes, et red red

Pour l'instant j'attends dans mon pot que les vaches rentrent définitivement à l'étable, et d'ici 15 jours monsieur lombard m'installera entre le tennis et la petite maison, pour qu'on puisse me voir de la terrasse quand j'aurai grandi ( l'année prochaine, il y aura un rang de barbelés qui isolera totalement le bas de la pâture harley, pour agrandir le jardin de granny )

Au printemps ,j'ai des fleurs superbes, et c'est constance qui m'a choisi pour mes fleurs ROSES, au lieu de mes voisins à fleurs blanches, car je crois que ta maman aime beaucoup le rose et probablement que tu hériteras de ses goûts

J'ai donc une origine américaine comme l'érable de ton frère


UPDATE on January 5th, 2007:
Constance emailed me a picture of the actual tree:



It seems like it's as tall as Elodie... let's see who grows faster...

Halloween costumes

For our first real Halloween in the US with kids, we had 2 flying animals: a dragon a and a bee !