Spring and Summer update...and some photos from Amsterdam

Where does the time go?  We have been so busy:

• working a lot 
• trying to balance family time and work
• visting Amsterdam
• watching the children take part in their end of year concert 
• waiting for the visa that never came (A was supposed to go to Angola)
• wrapping up the last term at school before the holiday's.  Alexis enters college in September (he came out top of his class this year and had 98% for national exam all CM2' sit!
• shopping for summer camps
• Seeing Oliver leave for England for an internship...three months without no dirty laundry being left in the middle of the bathroom and a tidy room that smells kind-of fresh for once

                                                                                                                       On a beach a long bike ride              

                                                                                                                       from Haarlem

I could go on but I won't.  Now it's the 12th July.  We have one of five children at home which is weird but ok.  Charlotte is here, she goes to India on a humanitarian holiday (half of the time) and the other half sightseeing.  She will visit the Taj-Mahal, visit the town of the Dalai Lama (meet him if he's there).  Help make a new classroom...she's going to take lots of stationary for the school over there.

                                                In our big house boat in Amsterdam

Where are the other four?  Well you know that Oliver is in the UK getting some work experience. 

Alexis and Marie-Kate left last Sunday for their summer camps.  Alexis is on a "Survivor's" theme camp.  More to come in another post

Marie-Kate is on a "Graine de Veto" camp.  Basically, she's getting a first look at what it's like to be a Vet;  More later on her camp.

                                                      Our house boat at night

Gabrielle left at the crack of dawn yesterday (we were at CDG and 5 in the morning!) She's off on a Scandinavian tour, where she'll visit Denmark, Norway and Sweden). Once again more later.

Finally, us, two parents, with one 17 year old who is capable of looking after herself.  We are off on a hiking holiday, a short one, and we'll leave when the pile of clothes have been ironed, and the house is tidy, the grass has been cut and the plants watered.

Two more photos and then I have to tidy

 We didn't really find the food that great in Amsterdam, however in Haarlem we ate a  small organic café and the children loved the hamburgers they served.

 Bye bye house boat.  Last day before catching the plane to come back home

This is one of two floating house boats that have been transformed into a super playground that the children loved.

Back...Catching up from Easter

I'm really trying to juggle family, work, the house and very occasionally a blog post, but it's not easy.  Alain came back from Congo weeks ago and was supposed to leave weeks ago to Angola.  He's still waiting though, as he has a visa issue, that should be resolved next week.  If he leaves too late, it would mean that we'd have to cancel our long weekend in Amsterdam, four night on a canal boat:(

For the first time, this Easter, only Gaby, Alexis and Marie-Kate hunted for Easter eggs, Oliver and Charlotte chose their comfortable beds and 15 euros each.

 The weather was good and the eggs were fairly easy to fine as our garden was still in mode "winter".

This year, Gaby remembered no to put her big Easter egg on top of her radiator, and got to devour this one in record time.

Catching up with Christmas 2012

For the first time ever, I worked on Christmas Eve.  I was the only one through at work and things were really quiet, so I finished early.  When I arrived home, the children had already written out  menus for everyone

All the cooking was done by Alain, Gaby, Alexis and MK.  Oliver stayed far away from any work, while Charlotte was with her boyfriend.  Alexis is really starting to like helping out in the kitchen.  Above he's preparing salmon canapés.

The girls made lots, including Devils on Horsebacks.

After many tasty aperitifs 

The table was laid

and this year we ate duck, a recipe inspired from a one of MK's cook books. Our  "Magret de Canard en Croûte de Noël" main course was yummy, served with parsnip and carrot chips.

To finish, we had a boulangerie bought Christmas Log.

To finish off, we were treated to a amazing harmonica concert by Alexis.

He's been learning harmonica since the beginning of this school year and he's really good, really, and it was a perfect ending, listening to our nearly 11 year old son, on Christmas Eve.

Checking in Christmas Tree Time

                                                 La Defense not far from when I work

Since beginning to work again, it's been hard to find the time do do anything other the essential, family, food, homework, cooking, eating, cleaning, working including transport to and from the office.
We have managed to do some progress in the children's bathroom, but it still not finished, maybe next weekend, as this weekend we are getting all Christmassy around here.

                                                    *Three out of five decorating the tree

Luckily the 1st of December was a Saturday this time, this helped a lot with the planning, especially for the Christmas tree.   
Now the children are older, we just them decorate, we have no colour theme, just mix and match.

 When Charlotte was five, we celebrated our first Christmas in France, and beforehand she made a Angel, using a empty toilet roll a polystyrene ball for her had and so aluminum foil for her wings, her nose is a silver star and she has silver hair.  Who would have thought would have survived all this time, but she has, and who would have thought that every year there would be a fight  debate to see who should be the one to put our little Angel on the top of the tree (like every year).  
It was decided that this year Gaby would have this honor, she needed a strong pair of shoulders(her Papa's) though to reach up high enough.  Voila, we are getting all Christmassy and it feels good.

*Charlotte was too busy with friends in Paris and Oliver too, he went to the Christmas market on the Champs Elysées, or so he said, but my guess if was visiting one of this favourite stores "Abercrombie and Fitch"

Birthday tart and cake

This weekend we ate lots of good food and made the most of the weather, even if it was a little too hot for all of us.  Alain made dinner Saturday night, some new fish fillets and some amazing courgette cakes.  And to finish off with, Alain made, with MK's help a yummy strawberry and mascarpone tart (from Nigel Slater's Kitchen Diaries) for a very belated birthday treat for me.

Sunday, it was my turn to cook.  This time to celebrate Alain's 38th birthday and Oliver's 18th.  This was my first opportunity to bake a cake for either birthday, so this one, for once, was to be a shared cake.  Once again, this was another recipe taken from Nigel Slater's book, a lemon and pistachio cake with crystallized rose petals, that Gaby helped me with.

 It was a fabulous cake, even if I do say so myself.  Moist and buttery, filled with pistachios and covered with some lovely lemon icing, more pistachios and of course, those rose petals.

 Really this cake was just awesome and has been a main subject of conversation even since, just the thought of it makes my tummy rumble....

Guess what?  At this very moment, I'm baking another Nigel Slater cake, not the same, no that was has to be kept for very special occasions, no, this time it's a frosted orange marmalade cake...can't wait to taste it.

Checking in

Still here, just busy, end of school year hectic.  Oliver has his bac, didn't work much if at all this year for it, but still got it, no "mention" quite rightly.  He is happy because he passed some competitive entrance exams for Sesame at came out in the top ten in the country for all for schools (second for Rouen and seventh for Essec), go figure! He's going to Essec in Cergy, happy for him, but not so proud because he just moved his butt for these exams and I worry that he will have problems in September to get down and work with method and some rigor.
Charlotte's going to a new lycee, she's going into STL, which really will suit her, just fingers crossed that she'll think about studying more and certain friends less....complicated to bring up teenagers, small children small problems, big children, big problems, enormous ones when it comes to one of ours in particular.   Charlotte is off for three weeks to America'a West Coast, she'll be visiting Los Angeles, two national parks, a couple of lakes and canyons and San Francisco too, lucky her, hopefully this holiday will help Charlotte break out of the downward spiral she's in.

Gaby finished her year on a high with very high praise from all her teachers.  Proud of her, she deserves to switch off a little, and she has, she's even played a football game on Oliver's X box and this very moment

She had friends to stay over the weekend, went to the cinema, swimming et cetera and had a whale of a time.  Gaby's off to Corsica for two weeks next week, she's less shy now and has grown in maturity and confidence, so she hopefully won't get too homesick this time.

Alexis finished his year like Gaby, with a glowing report, straight A's and he was sad to finish school and said he's going to miss Mr B, who has been awesome, but apparently Mr L is a brilliant teacher too, so I'm not worried in the least.

Alexis found Charlotte's old pyrography pen, this is becoming his new summertime passion. The above sign, for their tree platform is the first thing he did with it.


Hate to repeat myself, but MK did it again, perfect school year, need I say more.  
We are getting set to go to the Auvergne region to trek with a donkey for a week..more later, I have lunch to make.

Oliver's first suit

 It's a big year for Oliver.  The year he turns eighteen, sits his bacalaureat exams and also passes (passed written) his orals to go to university and several business schools, and for latter orals he needed a suit, his first ever suit.  After eight shops, we found some trousers that fitted, albeit a little to long on the leg, and a suit jacket and one must not forget the shoes too.
Wednesday he's off to Rouen, Friday Caen, Monday, La Defense (close to home) and Wednesday next, he goes to Cergy.  And to wrap the end of the year off, he sits his exams at his Lycée the week after.  Fingers crossed all goes well.

Marie Kate's Charlotte and some sun at last

27°c outside in the shade, can you believe it,  it's so good to be able to fling open all of the windows and make the most of the garden and eating outside.

 Marie Kate made a Strawberry Charlotte yesterday all by herself (or nearly), she searched Charlotte aux fraises rapide and ended up with this Charlotte pictured above.

Thirty sponge fingers and five hundred grams of strawberries and a pot of creme fraiche and some sugar, eaten in minutes by five.

Gaby took this shot of Oliver, he won't know I put it on the blog as he never looks....he has had a couple of busy weeks with entrance exams  and so far so good, he has passed them all, just got the orals to contend with and he's future will be mapped out, at least for the next five years.

Oliver and friends and their Hookah

So far this weekend, we have managed to get us and the children out of the house to visit Monet's garden and we have also survived Oliver's soirée last night, that went on through the night till about 4.  Oliver's last guests have just left, and very quietly too, I imagine that they must be suffering after the excess of eating, drinking and smoking all night.   
Of course, Oliver didn't keep to his promise and more friends came than he said.  They bought along a Hookah too, boy I hate the smell of these things and smoking is not allowed in our house, so I'm not a happy bunny today.
I don't dare go down into the basement, pizza's, plates, cups and drinks went down and nothing has come back up, apart from silent 17 and 18 year olds who were far from that last night.
Now I know why we didn't go away for the weekend and leave the house to Oliver and Charlotte.

Long holiday weekend, what we'll be doing

 The weather hasn't been that great lately, but that's what I expected when we moved up from the sunny south of France.  However, last year was our first full year here and strangely enough it was as hot here, if not hotter north of the Seine that in Sanary (from end of March till July), so yes this year is a little tough.
As it's a long holiday weekend and the younger children have no school today (they worked a Wednesday instead) they and Alain are doing le pont, in other words having a long weekend without any work obligations.
So as soon as I manage to get up (hard one) we are going to Giverny, to visit Claude Monet's gardens, which aren't far from here.

Photo from Made by Jenni

Then after much negotiations, Alain is going to set to work to build a tree platform a bit like this one, minus the slide and the roof. 
Then in between starting and perhaps finishing the above something rare is going to occur tonight, Oliver is having a couple of friends over (he hoped that we were going away for the weekend). Last time he invited four friends over to hang out, we ended up with twenty five kids here, most sleeping over, one sick, a few a bit drunk and one white rug (Mr H's) ruined due the one who didn't make it to the bathroom.   Anyway, I'm a bit worried, is history going to repeat itself?   One thing with have agreed on is that they hang out in the basement, I even cleaned it last night, they have sofas, and chairs, a tv and an xbox and we won't be far away incase of problems...Oliver has promised that there will be just four plus him and no girls....


I'll also be finishing the deck.
And Alain going to find a builder (or three) to get a price for redoing the front wall of the house which is ugly, but not as ugly as the garden wall!
Oh yes, he's promised to phone his maman too:) lazy boy


News just in, Charlotte wants to know if we are going out tomorrow around 14h, because she wants to invite her new friend...boyfriend here.  sixteen and this is her third one, as long as he's nice, that's all that matters. I doubt we'll be out though, but maybe in the garden, if the weather holds up, then she has peace and quiet in the house.

Teenager's who can't tidy even on Friday's...Allowance day on Saturday

I have been warning Oliver and Charlotte for days ( like every week) that on Friday their beds need to be made BEFORE going to school and their rooms need to be reasonably tidy too, i.e clothes hung or folded and no major mess.  Normally I end up docking a euro or two from their allowance, but this Friday, just after they left for school, I went and checked and I nearly died, holy cow, they obviously have some form of slovenly bedroom syndrome sickness. Their rooms were awful. Be warned, there are a lot of scary "before" and much better after photos.

Welcome to Oliver's world, the first thing I saw upon entering, looks promising

Turn to the right and what a sight to behold. Lucky for Oliver that he wasn't there, especially after seeing the wrappers from those aperitif cheesy cubes (see evidence below)

I found spoons, forks, one plate and several empty compote pots, but that's nothing new.

One thing that really shocked me though, yes more than this awful mess, was the fact that he had stolen Alexis' brand new fountain pen that Gaby had bought for his homecoming today!!! Now there I blew a fuse, péter les plombs (I like this expression in French) and I texted him and told him how upset and angry I was.  He knew it was for Alexis too.

His desk, no comment. Oh hum, better not dwell on that for the moment, now lets look at the "after" photos.

 Wardrobe tidy. I have to note here, that Oliver only wears  fancy labelled clothes like Ralph Lauren, Abercrombie & Finch et cetera... You'd think he'd take more care of his clothes, really!

Bookcase tidy minus the cheese wrappers

Desk tidy

Bed changed and MADE, windows open (and they'll be staying open all day)

Last look.  I started to tidy this room at 8:30 and finshed it in one hour and ten minutes, I didn't stop, not for a minute and the room is  only about 11m2
Ready for Charlotte's room?

Welcome to "chez Charlotte", nice isn't it?

 This is supposed to be a desk, you know a place to study, but Charlotte uses it for her make-up et cetera.
Now I took Charlotte's before photos before those of Oliver's, so there are just these two above, this is where the majority of the mess and disorder was.  Now for the after photos?

 I swapped the computer a round onto the other end of the desk and put her school workbooks  onto the other end, maybe she feel inspired to work more!

Other end of her desk, near to the window. 

Tidy wardrobe. I put at lease one bag of clothes into storage, stuff she doesn't wear.

Bed made, the room looks more welcoming now, for now!!!

This room took five minutes longer than Oliver's to tidy, but she has more clothes and I had to move all of her make-up over from her desk to her vanity table and boy she has so much make-up it's scary ( I have none)

The last bedroom on this floor is ours, I didn't think it was worth taking before photos because I like to keep our bedroom as uncluttered as possible

The view from where I'm sitting while typing this blog entry.

The view looking towards my Eames chair (where I'm sitting now). I took maxi fifteen minutes to pick up some clothes, clean the floor then hoover and dust, easy peasy.

I am publishing these before and after photos to hopefully shame our messy teenagers  and also, so my mum can see how messy they really are, because I think she feels I exaggerate a lot.

I have got some before photos of Gaby's , MK's and Alexis' room to add later, but they weren't anything as bad as Oliver's and Charlotte's bedrooms and I haven't tidied them yet, nor have I eaten and it's one o'clock already. I have to eat, finish upstairs, pick up Gaby at 3 and grab a little shopping (another fountain pen for Alexis before Gaby knows), the Mk will be back at 16:30 and then hopefully Alexis should be back after about 5, so I have to be ready to pick him up from the bottom of our village.   Oliver and Charlotte will be back at 18h15, hopefully feeling bad about the mess they left and Alain comes back from Monaco late this evening.
I'm ready for a relaxing Easter weekend, and I'm twenty euros richer because there's no allowance for those messy teenagers this week.