Christmas celebration tonight!!!

tonight we will be celebrating christmas here in paris!! we will open gifts and have a simple dinner with a few friends. we will be leaving for spain tomorrow so we decided to let the kids open their gifts tonight. so here is a preview of our tree filled with gifts!!



i will be gone for a few days and will not have access to internet. so happy holidays to everyone and i will definitely tell you stories about our christmas celebration in spain as soon as i get back.
joyeux noel et bonne année!!
a bientot!!

busy weekend...

oh we had one busy weekend but really wonderful!! saturday is the usual cleaning and grocery chores... the we attended mass late that afternoon and had dinner at mc donald's at champs elysees. i made sure i brought my camera because i wanted to take a photo of champs elysees at night with all its lights. i didn't exactly took a nice picture but nonetheless i want to share it anyway:


sunday we had our household's christmas party. it started lunchtime til late in the afternoon. it was a wonderful party: good food, lots of gift-giving and let's not forget-- singing!! i didn't get to take pictures but as soon as i get some from our leader i will share it with you.
sunday evening we had dinner at our friend's (siok cheng) place. she and her husband prepared a wonderful menu for the evening: seafood soup to start, chicken rice with chicken, and beef curry, then ended it with a wonderful carrot cake with vanilla ice cream on the side. it was a bit sad that today siok cheng is going back to malaysia. her husbands assignment here in paris is done and he has a new assignment somewhere. they will be far from each other for a while...this makes me feel a bit sad. thank you again to calvin and siok check for a wonderful dinner. together with us in this picture are indra and her husband anneley.

Family Photoshoot

me and my crazy ideas!! i wanted to have nice pictures for our family chirstmas cards so i decided on having a photoshoot after we have finished setting up our tree. so i put this white bed sheet cover over our buffet cabinet to serve as our back drop and then we started taking pictures. the lighting was really bad because we have yellow light in the house. we had to play with the flash then eventually we decided to turn it off and get the natural light. but having the flash off, we have to keep still otherwise the pictures become blurry. it was difficult to keep the kids still.... especially sofia (my youngest). after at least an hour of picture taking... we wrapped up. good thing my kids and my husband were cooperative enough to go on with my idea. so here are the pictures!!

2008 Family Christmas Cards

these are our family christmas cards for 2008. from over a hundred of pictures..i was only able to use 8 good shots. so i developed a little 85 copies (in total) to send to family and friends. so if i have you address...you will probably get one from your mail. and next year if you want one...leave me your address so i can send you one. i know it will be easier (and less expensive) to just email these cards... but i think it would be nice to receive something thru the post. anyway... merry christmas to all!!

J'attends

this is a poem my son memorized for his class. i am really amazed on how good he is in french (well...im not) but when i read it too somehow i understood this one and i thought of sharing this to you. short translation after it.

j'attends la pluie
dit le désert
j'attends la paix
dit le soldat
j'attends demain
dit aujourd'hui
j'attends la nuit
dit la luciole
moi aussi dit l'astronome
moi aussi dit l'étoile
j'attends le vent
dit la fleur de pissenlit
moi aussi dit l'oiseau
j'attends mon heure
dit le prisonnier
moi aussi dit la liberté
j'attends la paix
dit le soldat
tu l'as déja dit je sais dit le soldat
j'attends un enfant
dit la mére
j'attends tout
dit l'enfant.

-hubert minagarelli

'i wait for the rain, says the desert
i wait for the peace, says the soldier
i wait for tomorrow, says today
i wait for the night, says the firefly
me, too, says the astronomer
me, too, says the star
i wait for the wind, says the flower
me, too, says the bird
i wait for my hour, says the prisoner
me, too, says liberty
i wait for the peace, says the soldier
you already said it,
i know says the soldier
i wait for a baby, says the mother
i wait for everything, says the baby

... my son has to help me with the translation too!! hehehe

our travel

here are the places we have been...it has been an adventure for all of us. it is wonderful to see all these places.

today i created my blog...

ok...so finally today december 12, 2008 at exactly 11:19 am i am typing my very first blog entry!! i just want a place where i can put my thoughts...
so you will hear more from me in the coming days...well...they will be basically just about me and my life. a bientot!!