Dreamer

Snow gear

For Christmas, we went to the snow, the real one, in Tahoe. One of the novelty for the children was all the equipment which come with the snow. Kyan got used to it pretty quickly, but Anastasia, despite a stylish Winter jacket (thank you Grand-Maman), beached herself on the carpet a few times, and couldn't get back on her feet without help. For a little frog used to jumping on beds, it's quite frustrating...

Merry Christmas

Miniature peruvian nativity, sent from Semsales. We like llamas very much in the family...

Cookie monster

I thought the kids would enjoy making Christmas cookies. Turns out, they're mostly interested in the last part of the process...

Winter leaves

While some are already busy shoveling snow, us here are still gathering dead leaves, and it's still not quite over yet. Michael and Kyan spent a good while clearing the sidewalk on Sunday. Kyan built a gigantic nest with the leaves. He's looking forward to the next pickup to complete his project.

Wet weekend

Interesting night out, albeit without picture to illustrate the event. Saturday night was the traditional Lucasdigital Holiday Party, a big affaire with tuxes and evening gowns, with a theme at the base of an extravagant setup. This year, the theme was "The Cruise". We only had a chance to see the gigantic funnel of a ship, drop off our coats and move toward the buffet before the lights went out. From then on, it was a bit reminiscent of the Titanic. No icebergs, but we should have been more suspicious when we drove through 20 inches of water a block away from the party, with gallons more pouring from the pipes on the sides of the street. The party continued for a while with the few emergency lights. We didn't really know what was in our plates, or how to spot familiar faces, but it was still fun to watch processions of guests walking with votive candles.

But a few pictures anyway, of the little truck I made out of a box for Kyan. He doesn't seem too interested, but the cats and Anastasia are enjoying it quite a bit. The truck even has a "working" steering wheel, and a trunk where you can find all kind of unlikely items, like cookie cutters, a stuffed tiger, a pouch of curry sauce or a pair of gloves.

Deep in your plate...

Last night, Kyan was busy organizing the food on his plate (chicken nuggets, pasta and carrots), reenacting a scene of the Traviata (claymation from Guyonne Leroy on the music of, check under "Other Links", on the left). Then he started singing :"Taa Taa Taa Taa Taaaa Taaaa... . They move forward very slowly, he said pushing his pasta, not as fast as Lightning McQueen (from the movie "Cars"). But very slowly like a germ. At school, there's a germ pulling a fridge (!!!). Would you like me to sing the Traviata TWO more times?".

After which he felt his biceps to check the status of his muscles after having finished his dinner.

Discovery Museum

Sunday morning, we went to the Discovery Museum to see, among other exhibitions, "The Secret Life of Animals" (or where and how animals live). We learned a lot, like how to hide acorns in a tree trunk, build a dam when you're a beaver, hide crabs and seagulls in the cavities of a cliff, or hop from lily pad to lily pad. All sort of things really important to know...

Canyon walk

Little ballade Sunday morning in a woody canyon in the area. The small stream is still dry, the trees are slowly loosing their leaves, and dogs are running crazy. The usual for early December...

And you should now be up-to-date with all the posts on the blog... More to come regularly...

Anastasia's jacket

Setting aside all the CG work at ILM and numerous projects for the Lazy Giraffe, I had some fun making and embroidering a jacket for Anastasia. A delight for the inspiration. Anastasia is finally agreeing to wear it (at first, she would roll on the floor)...

Californian snow

Yes, snow does happen here too, although not quite like in Canada or Switzerland. Here, it comes by the road, on a truck... It's a tradition in the little town we live in, for Thanksgiving. The small steep street leading to the mission gets closed, the snow gets dumped on gigantic plastics surrounded by straw bales, and we can luge. Well, the bottom of the slope quickly feels more like canoeing than sliding, but it's easier than a three hour drive for the luge. (There's indeed lots of snow in California, but in the Eastern part, in the Sierra; by the ocean, it happens once in a while, for a few hours).

Treck in the African Savanna

Yesterday morning, despite the thick, wet fog, we went to the San Francisco Zoo. We had brought raincoats, but once there, the sky quickly opened up (at least for the duration of the visit). Not many people there, which was even better for us.

Coming and going...

Everybody's back home. Michael has returned from Singapur on November 16th, after a very interesting trip in Asia. Mojo's back as well, although his adventure wasn't nearly as exciting. I first had to bring him to the emergency clinic over the weekend, then, after a slight better, things got more serious and I had to bring him back to the vet, where he spent half of the week. He's now all good, very happy and purring a lot. Milo's quite content too, she was feeling very lonely.

On the other end, Anastasia's on the go, although we're not quite sure to where...

Celebrity

Spot the frog...

The singing bunny

Last night, Anastasia brought me a toy she had found at the bottom of their bookshelf. It's a bunny which sings "Let's go do the hop", with a frog and two chicks for the chorus. Gift from Gwen, Michael's mom, when Kyan was very little. The batteries are somewhat dead, we can still hear the song, but it's a little off. Not knowing that the bunny was making any noise, Anastasia brought it proudly to the kitchen. She must have pressed on the magic button by accident as the bunny started singing. She got so scared, she dropped the bunny and ran away.

Kyan thought it was very funny, and once they figured out how to make it work, it became the most interesting thing ever. Anastasia even started dancing, then she brought her own froggy to make it kiss the little frog in the chorus.

I had to take the mariachis away for the night, or it would have been a night club in the bedroom...

Eero's birthday

Birthday party for a friend of Kyan. The parents had reserved a small room at the community center, ordered pizzas and cake, and hired a girl pirate for the entertainment. After having drawn half a dozen sirens and princesses on kids arms and faces, set up a small theater play, she started making balloon animals. Kyan was too shy to go by himself, so I went along. He wanted a balloon skunk, yellow. The poor pirate didn't know how to make such thing, although she already had a rather large inventory beside the usual poodle, hat and sword.

At the end, Kyan got an airplane, yellow. It lasted about 10 minutes...

Ballade by the Bay

Saturday morning, Kyan, Anastasia and I met with Charlotte, Liam and Mila for a walk by the Bay, a sort of bird sanctuary on the delta with above sea level walkways between ponds. Very lovely place about 10 minutes from our house, but well hidden behind the stinky sewage plant. But once you step away from the parking lot, it's all fresh air.

Who does she look like?

Small picture sent to Michael who was in Singapur for a month...

Halloween Night

So, Kyan did indeed wear his cape, and was very proud of it. He wanted a blue cape with a lion, a tiger, an elephant and a giraffe. I was already picturing myself embroidering all these creatures when I found the perfect fabric at the store: blue, with lions, tigers, elephants and giraffes, and also zebras and penguins, which, luckily, he didn't mind.

For Anastasia's costume, the initial idea was a dragonfly, but, at the end, it's a thing with a sparkely skirt, with wings. And two frogs in a basket.

Since all the houses in the area seem to have at least twenty steps to get to the front door, we were all pretty tired at the end, but there was no shortage of carbs.

My first carved pumpkin

A bit different from the usual. An idea from a creative blog...

Almost Halloween...

Not quite Halloween anymore, but I'm trying to catch up on the english version of our blog.

So, as a start, here's Anastasia at the daycare parade. She wasn't too sure about the costume, so she took her Froggy along for the walk. Kyan refused to wear the cute outfit he had been working on for days, a spider outfit with many legs. But he promised, he would wear the cape I made for Halloween Night.