2014 & 2015

A photo from Summer 2014 in Martinique.  Great holiday but not the best of years. Mum with health problems and one daughter with a broken ankle after getting hit by a car and another with a broken wrist after falling off a sleigh that was being pulled by husky's.

Hard year at work too, and not enough family time.

This year will be different (I hope).  Eldest son in Asia for six months and eldest daughter studying in the South of France which means tidier house and a never empty fridge.

This year we have plenty of renovation work planned and some already done, now we don't have a giant fire place that we can't even use taking up half of our sitting room nor does our house look ugly from the front as we have it re-rendered (cost a fortune and took two weeks to do).

Next week we are having some walls knocked down in the kitchen, sitting room and upstairs in the bathroom.

Soon we will have a new kitchen, parquet floor instead of our horrible tiles and a little later a additional bedroom and a revamped bathroom. Can't wait.

Kodu

We bought some programming books for kids this Christmas and so far we have downloaded Kodu for Kids. I have to admit that I'm really happy with this purchase and MK and Alexis seem to love it already, without needing the book, whereas I do, and I have taken the book to bed to be able to understand exactly what you have to do  to build your own  game.

Presents

 Some of the presents the children received this Christmas this year include a guitar for Alexis.
A furby for MK that drives me crazy and the children too, they even played "operation Furby" on it, but didn't get round to dissecting it (just yet), just taking the batteries out covering him with cling film!

They have a new gamer PC that we keep downstairs so we can monitor how much time they play.
We have bought some programming books for children too, more to come later
Also a present for all the artists in the family is due to come this morning, so it's quite exciting.

Meanwhile, Alain has arrived in Walvis Bay this morning and will sail and while performing tests until the ship arrives of the coast of Nigeria for its operation.

college drawings

 When Alexis drew and shaded his picture above, his teacher didn't believe him at first that he did it (looks better in reality)  but he did.  He spent hours on it too.  Apparently , the other drawings  in the class were so bad, she assumed he had help (he finished it off at home, like all his classmates). He did do it and has proved it since. He got a 19 for this dog.  Alexis loves drawing portraits and now can drawing great noses which he is happy about.

When Gaby was in 6eme, she had a similar topic to do, but she only had the half of the picture to complete, she did it on her own too and got a 17.
Gaby's speciality is drawing mangas.

Desks

 I bought a vintage desk way back when we lived in Sanary which now is in Alexis' room. I miss having a desk at home, I work better with one...
While visiting our local thrift shop a couple of month's ago, Alain found this desk to take its place that we snapped up, perhaps they didn't manage to sell it quicker due to its size, it's huge.  It came with its original keys and has a  secret compartment too!!!
We placed it up against one of our sofa's and gave our square table (thrift again) to our neighbour.

 Since buying it, our children, especially Alexis, have commandeered it. This wasn't supposed to happen.  Alexis can be found sitting there, morning and evening, his workbooks cover it and are usually stored under it.  It's only now, during the festive period that I have managed to move him and his stuff from my desk....
Now I have just got to get rid of Gaby's math, Marie Kate's Furby (scary creature) and other kids paraphernalia....wish me luck (photos date from ages ago).

August in December

Christmas has already past, the children have been spoilt a little less than in past years but that's not a bad thing. 
Christmas was good, time went too fast and now it's the 27th December and I have actually some time to blog, read, spend quality time with the children (not in that order).
Alain left for Nigeria today for an operation off-shore, it's going to be weird to not spend New Year's with him. 

 I have many photos to go through and here's the first few, this time from our holiday this summer in Guadeloupe.  I wish we were still there.  
We stayed in an fantastic villa about 10 minutes drive from Saint Anne's  We climbed to the top of La Grande Soufière, visited main parts of the island, ate great food and basically had a wonderful time

Back after nearly four months

Since working full time, it's really hard to find time to update this blog, well to do anything other than, eat sleep, look after the  children and their homework et cetera still I can't belief it's been four months since I have logged in here.
And it's November already!

  So much as happened in the last four months,  for example:

• Oliver left home for the first time for his internship in the UK during the summer, only to come back to move into an apartment near his campus..which costs a fortune.
• MK and Alexis went away on their first summer camp for two weeks and loved it
• Gaby went away for three week tour of Scandinavia and hated the first week but loved the rest of her time there
• Charlotte went to India for three weeks, and had a fantastic time
• Charlotte's taking driving lessons
• Took the children to see Les Fourberies de Scapin at Versailles 
• We went to Guadeloupe for a couple of weeks with Gaby, Alexis and MK..lucky us
• Back to school happened, Alexis is now in 6eme!
• Only MK left in primary, yikes
• We bought a water rower and a new desk
• We have started Christmas shopping rather late
• We have been reading a lot, especially Game of Thrones..watching it too
• Loving House of Cards, Scandal, Homeland...

Back soon with some photos:)