steeg-o-saurus

Winter 2009

2011-10-31T15:13:00.000-07:00

Other x-mas related activities...

My mom and brother had gone back to Paris for new year's eve. Christine was going to spend it with friends and although we were welcome to join them, we decided to spend it alone at home, the 4 of us. We just needed some cozy family time! We had foie gras and cremant to drink, a few fireworks for the brave and a bit of sillyness for all!

Nous avons fêter Noel à Saverne avec ma maman et Nico qui sont venus du Venezuela, avec Christine et Co. Tout cela, pendant que Milena et Gérard profitez de la vie en Australie!! :-D

After I came back from Venezuela, I took the time to celebrate Sofía's bday. She wanted to go with her friends (Louise-Blanche, Judith, Anna, Jeanne, Mishka, Elisa) to the ice skating rink, so we did...

Hugo.- November 23rd 2009

2011-10-31T14:47:00.000-07:00

Hugo has now passed away. He was kind enough to wait until after Sofía's b-day as my mom says... Kind and gentle, I think are 2 of his best unquestionable qualities. I went back to Venezuela a week after his death. I felt the need to be there with my mom and my baby brother. I am writing this post pretty close to 2 years afterwards, and I have to say that, as much as I miss him, as much as I know how my mom has grieved his absence, the one thing that I have a serious time overcoming, is not being able to help my Nikken bypass the pain... to help him carry the wait of this heavy loss. I am confronted by the terrible truth, that I simply can't; I can only feel THAT pain, and as very few things in my life, the tears assault me and drown me in sorrow. Maybe, hopefully by feeling IT, I absorb a bit of his own affliction? In any case, I am happy to know - or pretend? - that HE is around taking care of our lives from beyond, taking a few tricky stones out of our way... I've seen a few signs along my path, that are so much his own make, that they are as unquestionable as kindness and gentleness are qualities of his spirit.-

Fall 2009 - Grenoble - Venezuela - Oktoberfest - Hugo...

2011-10-31T14:01:00.000-07:00

Also time for my baby girl's 8th bday! We stayed home ate a cake and watched a movie...

This was a hard period because my stepdaddy was on his way of leaving us... away from his physical reality. I had to do run to Venezuela, because we weren't sure how much time he had left. It was a blessing to be able to share this time with him, talk, let it all out and at the same time painful and confusing. I was lucky to be there at the same time then Alec, my eldest brother and our baby brother, Nikken. These must be the last photographs there are of our dad.-

Some more arts & crafts...

And a lot of goofing around...

We welcomed Timeo, Isa and Joel's baby...

We also went wine tasting with Yvonne and Lambert, our neighbours...

A bit of art and crafts...

We also recieved visit...

Of course, it's also Halloween time!

So while Vincent was doing that, we stayed home and had some fun of our own. Here we are at Vizille, the castle where - they say - the French revolution first started!

Lets start by posting Vincent's trip to Munich, to visit his good friend Fred who was waiting for him to go to the Oktoberfest!

Summer 2009

2011-08-07T14:13:00.000-07:00

And the best thing we had done in a longtime... an ultra super last minute decision trip! It was a Saturday morning in Grenoble. We weren't sure what to do of our day, so we thought about heading to Lyon as we had never really visited the city. We got dressed for the day and packed Paul with a couple of diapers and wipies, part of his daily need. We road for an hour and as we were entering Lyon we saw a sign that read "Paris" as we passed by the first motorway exit. The second motorway exit showed the same sign, we needed to head straight to get to Paris. I said to Vincent "we should go to Paris instead" and he said "Okay" and followed the signs!!! Five hours later we were in Paris searching for a hotel! Along the way Sofía kept insulting us, saying that we were irresponsible parents and that that was not to be done!! She had homework to do! We said it's only for one night... but of course stayed for 2 nights and 3 days and ended up going to Eurodisnery as well! She skipped one day of school and it was hard to explain to her teacher why :-D! We had a blast and will never forget that trip! Amongst other reasons because we wore the same clothes night and day during our whole stay!

Now back to reality... and School! Some miscelaneaous activities of September...

This was a really good trip for me. I got to see my parents... little did we know that my dad had only a few more weeks left at that point... He already started feeling a pain at the bottom of his back and quickly getting tired. Somehow, at that point we thought it wasn't really something to worry about. I am really happy that he enjoyed the kids in this trip and viceversa!

We also got to go to Playa Colorada, which is probably the beach I went to the most as a child. The water is deep turquoise-greenish and the sand is red. If you take a "peñero" (small fishing boat) it will take you to a quick tour around the islands in the back as well as to "la piscina", which is a spot in the middle of the sea where the water is crystal clear blue! We also took the kids to Expanzoo, a zoo in Caracas dedicated to baby animals. Most of the employees are handicapped. It's quite an interesting site and a great place to go with children! Of course, we also had a traditional family meeting at my Uncle Kunito's, where the kids went for a ride on Tuti's new motorcycle! Another exciting happening was that my brother gave my daughter a speech about how monsters really exist (with a live demo included) and that parents lie about their non-existance. Nowadays, 2 years later, Sofía can still remind me of how she's scared of monsters because her uncle told her about them. He shall not worry though... one day he'll have children and I shall get back at him! Jajajaja! ;-)

We then here took a last minute decision that the kids and I would head off to Venezuela. I was homesick.

After that week, then the 4 of us headed to the Italian Rivera aiming to visit Portofino and then back to Grenoble

We visited Siena and Firenze. I had a marvelous time at l'Uffizi!

This July was a bit particular. Vincent took the kids to Saverne for a week to spend some time with Raphael and Romain. After that, they came back and we almost immediately headed to Italy, where Milena and Gerard had rented a house for a week close to Firenze. It turned out that the house was a castle!

Spring 2009

2011-08-07T12:51:00.000-07:00

And a few more photos before the summer started...

These are photos of when Abuelita and Tati came to visit. We did plenty of things such as a train tour guide through Grenoble, Sofía's school show and end of the year ballet show, la Bastille and la Chartreuse. We also went to the Hammam, a girl's favorite place!

El sur de Francia con Delia y Alberto! Unas vacaciones divinas!

Miscellaneous...

In Geneva...

What people do in Grenoble... hike!

We are all watching TV...

The afterbath...

Prestzel making with dad...

My cousin visiting...

Pictures should speak for themselves :-)...

This below is Sofía at her music presentation...

Spring is always a great time to do projects. The sun is back and automatically feeds you with its energy... Like magic! Paul is now 2, Sofía is 7... Here are a few examples of our activities that spring...

Winter 2008-2009

2011-01-30T14:57:00.000-08:00

Here are a few more funny photos of later that winter...

And a few photos of Paul's B-day!

Here, a few photos of life in Grenoble without me. Vincent invited our neighbours to eat the traditional x-mas meal in Venezuela, Hallacas! He also explored his photographic talent with a few views from our window!

All in all it was a wonderful trip!! I stayed an extra couple of weeks while Vincent and Sofía headed back to life in Grenoble! Vincent and Sharon had secretely and from long distance prepared a surprise dinner party with my friends from my Design Academy.

This year, I decided to go back home to Venezuela and stay for a long time... Sofía had school and I didn't want her losing 4 weeks again, so she stayed home with Vincent, who had to work. I left to vnzla. with Paul and they joined us for x-mas and new year's a couple of weeks later. It was the first time I had been home for almost 2 months since I moved to Europe, 7 years previously!! I actually had time to see, visit and revisit everyone, but specially to enjoy. Vincent and I also took a little trip to the beach just for a couple of nights.

Fall 2008

2010-11-07T14:57:00.000-08:00

Here are some photos of Sofía's 7th B-day and first PJ party! It was great!

Some silly pictures of my silly offsprings!

With my friends in BCN...

We had quite a bit of visitors this fall, plus I took a trip to BCN to attend McNeel's Reseller Meeting. Wow! It was the first time I had gotten away on my own since Paul was born... it was quite an important trip for me. But let's start with Elisabeth and Robert's visit...

Summer 2008

2010-11-02T15:26:00.000-07:00

Some photos in Altwiller with family...

After their gardening lesson, they were ready to go to Altwiller, to visit their great-grandparents and pursue their skills as farmers...

Milena doing a great job at teaching our children some gardening skills. I am glad someone in this family has the talent to do that!

Well, we have itchy feet, so it wasn't long before we took off again before the summer was over. So we headed to Alsace to my parent in law's house. Milena's sister was there with her boyfriend. We also went for a walk to the Fontaine Melanie, close to Saverne...

Both Paul and Sofía enjoyed and played a lot with Nikken and Anne Ro...

Paul was very impressed by the airplane's take off and flight, which he got to presence right on the first row's of the show!

In August we actually managed to stay home for a few days and we were graced with my bay brother and his girlfriend's visit to Grenoble. We took them to climb trees and also for a plane ride in the Alpes!

And then to Pisa and Florence...

We then pursued our trip towards Cinqueterra, the almost mythical towns in the coast of Italy, you can only get to by train or walking!

After this stop at La Moutonne, we seeked our travels further south, stopping first in Nice, beautiful Nice!

We also got to celebrate Raphael's b-day!

This summer we also enjoyed of great mediterranean holidays. We started out in the south of France (La Moutonne), close to Hyères, where my parent in laws rendted a house...

We went to visit Jean François et Emmanuel at their place in the Alpes (Embrun). Jean François used to be my boss at SINCOR in Venezuela. We've stayed in touch ever since!

Spring 2008

2010-06-22T15:18:00.000-07:00

A few more funny photos...

In May we were spoiled with visitors! Starting by my parents and a VIP guest, my godmother! I then spoiled them by taking them to our favorite sites: Vizille, la Chartreuse, etc...

Other fun photos of our daily life...

And here, an incredible site, Le Palais du Facteur Cheval. A small "palace" built litlle by little, on a daily basis by a postman during 33 years of his life, after work and weekends working to build this site (http://www.facteurcheval.com)...

Pollito's visit...

VIncent's Bday...

My Bday...

Visually enchanted?! Now, here other fun photos...

Many highlights occured this spring... starting with Delia and Alberto's first visit! Followed by Nicolai's second visit to Grenoble. My parent's and my aunt Silvana also came later in May. But please, let's start with my children's eating skills and excelling good manners... I would never dare to deprive you of such a visual treat...

The Comeback Was Hard...

2010-06-18T14:18:00.000-07:00

These photos here below are from a one-day trip to Torino...

A few more fun photos...

These photos here below are from his actual b-day day, we celebrated at home...

The photos below are from Paul's and Alex's b-day party. My friend Kim and I coorganized the party at Parent'aise, a children's indoor park. We invited all the gals from OpenHouse's baby group.

Coming back to Grenoble was easy but getting use to not being Bonnie and Clyde with 2 children on a roadtrip across the west coast of the US was no easy task. We were now once again, normal people, with a normal life and we had to install a normal routine... I've never had jetlag last that long... I think I just didn't want to wake up! And it wasn't because our life here was bad, but because our trip had been so psychedelically full of fun! Anyhow there were a few nice distractions of the couple of months that it took us to finally fall comfortably back into our skin, such as Paul's first B-day :-), my mother in law visiting us, and so on. Here, some visual proof...

USA (back to the trip) - Jan 2008

2010-06-08T13:41:00.000-07:00

Well, this is the last photo I will post about this trip. If measured in pleasure, crazyness and delight, this was a truly succesful and rich trip, that I hope one day we'll be able to reproduce. Love to all family who made it possible! Specially to my mom who helped us in her own way and to my stepfather, who made 3 wonderful children that welcomed us with their hearts open! I love you all!

After our Northern Californian tour, we landed in Disneyland where we met Nikki and the bunch! It was a great day, we really had tons of fun... adults and kids! Plus it was great because Nikki's kids had never been to Disneyland before either, so it was a big discovery adventure for everyone! And then back to San Diego that same night (what a day!) were Nikki read a bed time story to the kids...

This is the very famous BigSur, highway 1... our third love-at-first-sight site! Unexplicable feeling of peace...

Monterey to Carmel...

Monterey and it's aquarium...

Architecture!

Chinatown!

Look closely... the manager and the (poor) waiters are actually window-dancing! They put music on and do a little show for the lucky side-walkers passing by at that moment!

Cable car!

There's a tradition of mural painting in San Francisco. There are many done by famous artists; here's one done by Diego Rivera...

Pier 39, which we had never heard about before, but is pretty cool... a good lively ambience... a little turisty... we had our first clam chowder though... always impressed by seeing seals in the middle of a large city!

There, there... right over there... you can see The Rock... yeap, not only have I seen to many shows, I've also seen too many movies ;-)!

I never thought the Golden Gate was anything special, but once you are in front of it, it hits you! You've seen too many episodes of 3 is a Bunch, because seeing that red bridge is making you want to cry!! And the redwoods... well there is a have-to-do-it-before-I-die wish come true.

And now in San Francisco!!! Our second love-at-first-sight town!

Now, headed towards San Francisco. Please, bare with me... here are a few (important) photos for my husband, the geek ;-)...

Next day San Luis Obispo, just as cute of a town (but w/o the beach)...

Now, again, on the go! Dani had gone back to Arizona and we left San Diego as well (having again exchanged the make and model of our car!) towards Northern California. Our first stop... or shall I say, our undistinguishably first love-at-first-sight stop: Santa Barbara...

And the sweetest photo...

Of course, Taty was not going anywhere until she gave one of her special dance workshops...

And the seals...

Before getting to La Joya we stopped at Mission Beach Park for a couple of rides...

US Magical... this is the kind of thing in the States that you rarely see elsewhere... the client is the KING! We were able to exchange make and model of our rented car 3 times! We just kept going back for a bigger or prettier or glossier car! Depending on our mood that is. So for this ocasion we exchanged our Grand Cherokee (I think) for a convertible... YES!!! Too cool! And since Rob has a collection of cars, they just took out there's and we went out for a ride to La Joya to see the seals. Apart from that, please enjoy Paul's and Dani's convertible love affair ;-)...

Rob took us to Ocean Side, a really cool part of town where... bunch of houses right off the shore... a playground right by the beach... a boulevard to ride your bike on :-).

Here we are back to the trip photos... I know there are zillions of photos of this trip and it was already so hard to pick from the trillions of photos we took! But hey, it's my blog and it was our great trip, so here, our best souvenirs ;-)...

Not Related, but...

2010-06-08T13:27:00.000-07:00

Here are a few non-USA-related photos that we took before we left to the US and that I forgot to add to a previous post, but they are cute, so here they are...

USA - December 2007

2010-03-27T08:36:00.000-07:00

Well, well... I think it's about time I create my next post... 2008! More of the trip coming up ;-); but now off to bed!

Here are a few extra photos I'd like to add...

By the cliffs... so darn beautiful! No wonder Hugo loved it there so much!! Plus it was such a sweet walk all together!

In the trampoline!

In the tub!

Our little San Diego home in Nikki and Rob's backyard...

Our New Year's day brunch!

SOme photos of New Year's eve...

Here we are on our way back to San Diego. We had so much fun! We had relaxed by then, we had left behind the sightseeing hassle of accomplishing as many miles as we could per day, so we just laughed and laughed and relaxed, relaxed... so much that we got late to San Diego where "New Year's Eve" was waiting for us :-S... Nikki was a bit mad... but she was so good that she forgave us almost right away! We did indeed get there before dinner, just not in time to help prepare for everything. Here are some photos of the trip back. We also got to stop at Bagdad Café, the actual spot where they made the film!

We only stayed for a couple of nights. Susan; Alec, Nikki and Buck's mom kindly lent us her place, because she was in San Diego at the time. She came back the day we were headed towards San Diego and invited us for a super brunch! Here a photo of pure brother/sister tenderness...

In Vegas!

Once in Zion...

Tipies!

Sand and Snow!

On our way to Zion National Park, right after Page, Colorado. I couldn't get enough of these landscapes...

Grand Canyon Hotel pics...

Handsome bird... (1 life dream come true ;-)

Love birds...

Silly girls...

At the Grand Canyon... freezing our children off!

On our way to the Grand Canyon!

After X-mas the Steeg combo and Dani headed out for a road trip in the far west! We went towards Sedona, where we didn't stay because our time schedule was short for doing all we wanted to do. But we passed through Sedona and almost regretted it! It's so beautiful out there...

Out in the casino, cashing money withe the credit card!

On X-mas day we went to see Alec and his 3 adorable children! Suzanne welcomed us with a meal. It was great to see there home and his life. Each of the 3 kids gave us a peek of there particular talents...

Alec had made a reservation for us at a Days Inn motel in Scottsdale. It was great! Right by the mall!! My god, I've never done as much shopping as I did in that trip! We never got to try a Motel 6 (for the sake of my childhood memories), but Days Inn was a great discovery! That night we went to see Tui and Tom. The sweetest! We had such a great time! Everybody was so sweet! Here some pictures of X-mas eve...

So on our 7 hour trip to get to Scottsdale, we stopped at a Circle K just to please my childhood memories (it was the quickstore my mom use to go to when we lived in Overgaard)...

And on our way out to Pheonix we stopped at IHOP for a great stack of pancakes... yum!!

Nikki and Rob also took us to a yacht club they often go to. We had a great time in the warm jacuzzi with the cold breeze blowing in our faces!

Nikki also organized a party for the kids so that Vincent and I could go shopping to the outlet mall close to the border with Mexico! Thank you Nikki, we had a blast buying expensive Gap and Esprit clothes with 70% discount!

Itchy feet and bored of the cold... as a consequence of this, we landed a few weeks later in LA, then directly to San Diego, to my sister Nikki's house. We are so lucky!! Nikki welcomed us like kings... we even had a separate little house for ourselves! We felt at home and had a great time together! Here are some photos of that first stop in San Diego...

December 2007

2010-02-01T15:41:00.000-08:00

And as we were getting bored of the cold, and we are talented at making last minute plans, we decided to go to the States for X-mas. But that I will tell in another chapter ;-). Off to sleep now...

A few photos of our in-housed winter!

Autumn in Grenoble

2010-02-01T14:51:00.000-08:00

And our new car! That's all folks!

We also went to BCN that month, to a McNeel event being held. That's when I agreed with my boss to start working again.

Thank Goodness, my mommy was here to help!

Sofía's actual birth-day...

Sofía's Bday party. SInce it was her first Bday in Grenoble, new school, new friends, etc, etc. I decided to host a big party. She invited 26 kids; 24 actually came! Geez, I had to put my pants on to manage the crowd! It went great and we had a lot of fun!

Our life

Our first Halloween with OpenHouse...

Big fans of making lots of soup for Paul! Here I am, every 15 days, making 7 kg of soup!

Olivier & Clarisse's first visit...

Up in Vercors, for Pierre's Bday...

Paul is now 7 1/2 months old and he stands up all by himself and walks around the coffee table holding on to it!

Simply our daily life...

Summer 2007

2010-02-01T13:38:00.000-08:00

Meanwhile, Vincent was back in France, enjoying life...

Sharon and I...

My aunt and her birdies...

At my uncle Kunito's place...

Our daily life... Teleferico, to the movies, at home, and so on...

Nicolai's B-Day...

We also went to Puerto Píritu during this trip...

Party at home...

Paul's first trip to Venezuela! I dared hop on a few planes, 24H trip with my 5 year old and my 3 5 month old baby by myself (Plus 3 backpacks as hand luggage)! When we would get to the security gate, they asked me twice where the parent was! Dani came over as well and we were able to do Paul's baptism...

June 2007

2010-02-01T13:14:00.000-08:00

A few photos of our daily life...

On a visit down Le Train de la Mûre...

Here are a few photos of Sofía's school summer party. She was now officialy in primary school!

Same trip to Alsace... One of the reasons for going was that Vincent's fiend Fred, was getting married. Vincent was a witness to this wedding and Sofía part of the cortege. Vincent and his friends spent a guy's night out to celebrate Fred's bachelor party. Here some of the photos...

More of May 2007

2010-01-10T15:06:00.000-08:00

Paul with his Opa, who dressed him as a conman in jail!

Paul with his great aunt, tata Elisabeth!

Paul with his Babka (or Mamie)!

Paul with his great-grandmother!

And of course, we did the traditional round-around the family in Alsace...

We also went to Saverne towards the end of May, to meet Romain, my future godson and cousin of my children, nephew of my husband! He and Paul are only 2 months and 20 days apart! Almost twin-cousins!

2010-01-10T15:03:00.000-08:00

The ONU, how exciting!

We also took the time to visit Genève, which is only a couple of hours away from Grenoble...

May 2007

2010-01-10T14:54:00.000-08:00

Here are some other cute Photographs of our new premièred life in Grenoble. Let's admit it, Paul looks a bit like a frog in some of them! But he was only 4 months old (good excuse :-)

April 2007 Grenoble

2009-10-23T06:44:00.000-07:00

And so our life started in Grenoble...

I won't spend a lot of words describing our intense moving, but I will say this, the day we left, Vincent and I both fell sick! Really sick, so did Paul. Not Sofía though. As we went to have our last morning coffee at Vienna, we ran into everybody we knew in Sabadell. Everybody was so concerned about Sofía and how sad it would be and how she was doing, while our daughter was jumpin' up and down and really excited about the whole deal... Vincent and I were certainly ready to go to the hospital or stay in BCN in the bed that was no longer there... we chose that moment to ask ourselves why were we moving? why weren't we staying in BCN? First time we hesitated about our decision! Thank God my parents in law had come to help with the moving! They were there to structure us and push us into driving the 8 hours to Grenoble!

March 2007 - Wrapping up BCN

2009-10-23T06:07:00.000-07:00

Also wanted to go to the beach before I were to be inblocked between mountains ;-)!

And of course a few photos of my baby boy...

My aunt Maureen was visiting us during this time. It was really nice to have her over for a few days! She and I had a blast walking BCN! We visited, talked and spent some quality time together...

Now a few Photos of Vincent's goodbye party. I didn't assist and I am not sure who is who either :-), but here are some photos...

Eros...

Nuria...

Ricardo, quien siempre hizo reir mucho a Sofía...

Manos :-)...

Gemma...

Juan Diego y Aaron... los compañeritos de slumber party de Sofía!

Laia...

A few days before Paul was born, we got the news that Vincent had the job at HP. So, now we knew that we needed to go back to BCN to wrap our life there and bring it to Grenoble. Here are a few photos of those events. This first is Sofía goodbye party at one of the inside parks so famous in Catalunya. We invited all the class, plus a few more...

La Cuarentena

2009-10-14T14:24:00.000-07:00

You must belong to a Spanish colony to actually understand the meaning of the title up above. I mean, its really all about ancient female wisdom being transmitted from one generation to another and then becoming scientific fact. See in the old days, "la cuarentena" meant 40 days after a woman gave birth in which she was unleashed from any duty and/or responsability except for taking care of her health and baby (excluding any tasks that involved physical effort). Other women around took care of household tasks and of the mom's health (healthy diet, cleaning of the wounds, etc). Medically it's proved that it takes 40 days for all organs to go back into their place and normal size, thus making these 40 days critical in recovering in a healthy manner. Anyhow, here are some pictures of my cuarentena (although I did shorten it a bit)...

The D Day

2009-10-14T14:05:00.000-07:00

Last but not least, Pasha is tata Christine's B-Day gift! (just for the record, my son's name is actually Paul).

And here's the proud family. You'll even see 4 generations of Steegs (gender: machos ;-))!

At the hospital, waiting. Yes, Pasha took his time... I mean he was not in a hurry, why would anybody else be in one? 13 hours!!! Of which I truly suffered 5, without the freaking epidural which I thought I would be able to proudly do without, but when I had suffered quite a lot for a very long period of time and they told me that I had only dilated 2 cm (by that time it felt like my heart had dilated that much!), I thought that was enough suffering for one day... then again, from the time I decided IT was my best friend and the moment they got it in and working, 5 hours went by, Ufff! Very nice sagefemme, her name was Sophie. Everything was allowed except for her to try and distract me with stupid questions such as "what color did you paint the room?" GRRRR.... the worst was when at one point my mom came in and told Vincent to go rest, he was so tired... GRRRRR... about to commit a crime at that point! Anyhow, the epidural made me enjoy the rest of my birthgiving experience like a devil on drugs... wow, how soothing! How exciting, really incredible! The photos speak for themselves. Look at my Pasha!!

The Big D is approaching

2009-10-14T13:17:00.000-07:00

Here is the day before I gave birth... it's quite a funny story because this was a Sunday (Jan 28, 2007); I had been on Friday to the doctor and he had told me that we needed to set a date for the C-Sec because my due day had passed a week earlier and it wasn't wise to keep waiting. I agreed with him that it would be the following Tuesday (4 days later). I had been so anxious about wanting a natural birth that at that point I had finally let go and accepted the fact that I was going to have another C-Sec. I went to sleep after eating that taboulé; next thing I know it's 5am and as accustomed for the past days I was wide awake (my imagination as fertile as Sofía's about how, who and how and who this new little person was going to be). Suddenly... oops, I think I've peed my pants... well, it has happened before... yes, although probably not this much... shit, got to get up and clean myself now... oh, my! but it's cold out and I have this big belly to carry around... ufff! Okay, let me conspire the will to get up... uhhh... what the heck! This is not pee, this is a river!!!! Ahhh, I just broke my water! V I N C E E E E N T!!!!!!!!!!

My father-in-law making a surprise for Christine and I, with Sofía. It's a pregnant snowlady! How cute is that?!

Here's also a so very happy Sofía, mainly because she was soon going to be a big sister! This fact somehow triggered her emotions and her imagination, thinking about this new wonderful baby that she could now take care of. She was really so very happy...

Meanwhile, we also enjoyed the Wintery Alsace with my family-in-law.

YES!!! My mom got here! Mid-January... Now started somewhat of a hassle going to the hospital every 2 days to check if our Pasha (half Paul, half Sasha... couldn't make up our minds) was at all starting to "open" his way into this world... but nononono! He was a real Pasha, laying there... My cervix was as closed as if it was still in its original packaging, but my belly kept stretching! The doctor kept giving me a couple of days every time I came back. At one point he said we had to start considering a C-Section, cause they couldn't "provoke" the birth with hormones as they do with other pregnants ladies, 'cause of my previous C-Sec (provoked contractions can be too strong and rip the uterus open where it had been cut already).

With a belly bigger than Santa's me and my 1.51mts looked like something had to happen soon whether I wanted it or not! So now we are in January... quite an interesting month, intense as well. HP's super jackpot job proposal had somehow cooled off, Vincent had to go back to Spain to work and I was anxiously waiting for my mom to arrive... I felt a bit lost and confused as well as so, so excited! I was also excited about having this time with Sofía. It was good to be able to dedicate space to share and also to help here integrate in her new school, language, country and so on. Well here's the Santa Claus looking belly...

Around X-mas Time, 2006...

2009-09-23T13:14:00.000-07:00

Look at us! Me about to pop, Christine still a few months to go :-)...

X-mas Eve...

In Strasbourg, beautiful christmas!

At school, for her x-mas show...

Here are a few photos of Sofía's first ice skating experience. This was the precedent that would then motivate her to start ice skating lessons once we got to Grenoble...