Mommy turns 35...

and she got a small surprise during her birthday party...

Monther's day on Bicycles!

5 weeks without a post nor a picture ?!
what's going on ???

Black and White

Here are the proofs from a photo shoot we made a couple weeks ago with Kelly Hsiao. We've just oredered the first picture.

5 years !

Last Friday we celebrated our 5 year wedding anniversary. This is an important milestone and we really wanted to celebrate it in style... We rented a convertible and toured the Bay Area stopping at a few very special places.



We opened a bottle of champagne in front of the house in which we first met on June 23rd, 2000:


Next stop was a Golf course in Sunnyvale:

Believe it or not, the ball went in...

and Stephanie made par on this hole!


Then we had a nice dinner in the Italian restaurant where we spent our first date 7 years ago.


We finished the day with a wonderful musical in San Francisco: Jersey Boys.

Oh what a night !

Patriiiiiiiiick!

La semaine dernière, j'ai gagné sur cet excellent blog deux places pour le concert de Patrick Bruel à San Francisco, son tout premier concert aux US. Le concert était hier, et comme Stephanie ne connaissait aucune de ses chansons, j'y suis allé avec Constance.


C'est la première photo que je prend avec un cellphone, je crois que je vais rester fidèle à mon Canon Powershot ;-)

J'ai passé une excellente soirée. Le public (dont moi) connaissait une petite moitié des chansons (ses grands classiques d'il y a 10 ans), et n'hésitait pas à chanter avec (ou à la place de) Bruel.

Il devait y avoir 300 ou 400 personnes dans une salle qui pouvait en contenir le double. L'ambiance était intime et décontractée donc très sympa, même si parfois on sentait le manque de préparation. Patrick Bruel a demandé 15 fois à l'ingénieur du son de monter/baisser les retours scène et le volume des différents instruments.

Et lors des 20 dernières minutes, il a dû se dépêcher pour finir à temps. Apparemment, la production n'avait loué la salle que pour 2 heures, et ne savait pas qu'ici on n'a absolument pas le droit de dépasser, ne serait-ce que d'une minute!

Bienvenu aux US, ou même les soirées de mariage se terminent a 23h !

Charming and delightful

I was listening to NPR yesterday on my commute, and this story grabbed my attention: Linguists Weigh Costs and Benefits of Accents

I recently completed a 4 month accent reduction course at work. Why would I want to lose my French accent when it is regarded as charming and delightful by most Americans?

Papa's new adventure

Floor plan

Stephanie couldn't help but draw the floor plan of our new house on her computer. I think it looks awesome! The house is 1,610 sf or 150 m2.
Stephanie remembered that its floor plan is very similar to one of the house in which we met for the first time... It was at a party in Sunnyvale on Friday, June 23rd 2000 (my half-birthday ;-)

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:

family photos

Last sunday we went to a photographer at the mall and posed for some family pictures. Here are the 2 best ones...



The other ones are available here

As you can see Etienne really had a great time, and he wants to go back every day !

Fête des Mères, Act II

Yesterday was the official Mother's day in France. So we spent a lovely picnic at zoo de Vincennes


and after we went to Foire du Trone to enjoy some ice cream and rides

Fête des Mères, Act I

Last Sunday, it was Mothers Day in the US...
In Neulette, Stephanie got a cake and a beautyful drawing from Etienne !
But the real celebration will be in 2 weeks for the French "Fêtes des Mères"