Zoe's birthday

We went to a park at Mountain view to celebrate Zoe's first birthday. It is amazing to me how fast babies grow up and how fast they make progresses. Zoe is Axel's little sister, they are sweet kids, and as so many kids it seems that they never run out of energy. Miriam and Florian are the "happy" parents with very little time for themselves.....
Having a birthday in a park is very common here. 4 of 5 group of people were celebrating birthdays at the same time around us. It created a nice environment with plenty of kids and adults having fun.
I almost forgot to announce the next big event: you can see Clemens holding a crutch but it doesn't belong to him even if he is used to knee troubles... It is Jan's crutch, he has to use it before his surgery. Jan will get his knee fixed this Friday, hopefully he will soon be able to join us for hikes and bike rides :-) ....

Back into the exciting US life :-)

I'm definitely back in the US, and as expected it is pretty excited and busy. So far I have been to a hike with Erica, Geoff, Ann, Tushar, Anthony and Jan which was very nice as usual.
Ann & Tushar and Erica & Geoff got married this summer, they were pretty relax after all the excitement and work related to their respective wedding receptions. I got the impression that they were enjoying these moments "without stress". Weddings seem to be a lot of work: very time consuming and quite stressful. As a simple invited person, the result was super nice and it was a lot of fun....
Me I was just coming back from France and very happy to enjoy again the fantastic Californian outdoor.
2 weeks later it was Labor day weekend (translation for the none US: we had a 3 days weekend :-) ) and Anthony organized a 3 days bike trip on Highway 1 North of San Francisco, this time the crew was: me, Anthony, Daniel, Alina, Olivia, Chris. It was time for some serious exercise after my lazy vacations and I really enjoyed it.
The very cool green bike you see on the pictures is mine, and I'm very happy to have it. This is an expense well made because riding on a nice bike is way much easier than an old crappy one :-). Even in the effort, I'm lazy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Sweet life in France

I went through my pictures from France and noticed how sweet is the life when I'm on vacation in France. Some pictures can illustrate this statement pretty well.....
The first one shows my mother reading and looking at my dad who is trying to take a nap, I would classify that as a pretty standard piece of life in my family.
The second picture is also very standard, my parents having a coffee in the garden with some chocolate and a home made apple pie. The apple pie is a special occasion that means there is visitors at the table, but to be honest, there is a lot of visitors in my parent's house, so there is a lot of pies too..... My brother sitting at the window and chatting, is pretty standard also, he is probably teasing somebody, he is very good at it :-)..... And I have plenty of other pictures showing how sweet is the life there...
It is an attempt to describe the atmosphere in my family....
Oh and I forget, there is the trouble maker, the one who live far away. But she likes spend some time in this place before going away for new adventures :-)

Back from 4 weeks in France

Yes I know, I'm spoiled....
Not only I live in California the all year(I have a fantastic weather most of the year and a very nice life), but also I can spend 4 weeks in France each summer to see friends sand Family.
This 4 weeks in France have been really nice, I got to see a lot of people and the fact I spent a lot of time at my parent's house made me feel perfectly relax and at my place... It is like if I had a double life, one in the US and another one in France: After 4 weeks you don't feel you are just visiting, you feel you are part of where you are, it is a very nice feeling.
Hopefully one of this day, I will be able to make my friends from the US visiting France and vice versa.....
Tom, my nephew is ready to replace his dad into the fields, he is never tired to play with all the tractors.....
My Dad chatting, as always we are having a good and relaxing time.
With some friends we went for a little but beautiful hike into the Alps.

Some pictures.....

Is my blog dead?

A lot of people have been complaining with reason on the fact I stopped blogging.
A lot of things changed in my life:

• I moved in a new place
• I have been using very rarely my computer except for work and Emails
• I was pretty excited with my "new" life and didn't take time to stop and share.
  
• I also think I felt I "had"to blog, and this obligation just made me run away from it.
  

All that doesn't excuse my long silence but that gives some kind of explanation.
So what's up in my life, I will not be able to tell you everything that happened this last 5 months, it will be so partial but let just point some events:

• Moving, OK that is not a scoop... Now we live at three in a Townhouse and that is pretty cool.
• Yoga: I'm doing Yoga usually twice a week, sometime more or less. I really like it, I feel that it is good for me, even if I'm pretty bad at it, I'm definitely not flexible at all. My teacher encourages me by saying that it is all about the "journey". So well, I'm having my own very very slow journey... And it doesn't matter how slow it is because I like it.
• Weddings: Three in a row, all very different and all very nice
• Hiking: Yes the bay area is a fantastic area for hikes and a lot of my friends really like hiking. So we are going often for some hikes on the weekends.
  
• Some visitors from France... I will never say enough how much I appreciate visits from France. Thank you the Cali-garsia family, it was such a pleasure to see you in California.
  
• Biking: we had a very nice Memorial day weekend with a group of 7 friends. We biked south on Highway 1. It was just challenging enough and scenics are fantastic.
• Biking to work: I'm just starting, it is about 14 miles each way. I have been pretty inconsistent but I'll try to do that at least once a week. It will wait my return from France to try to take some good habits again. Right now I'm slacking of.
  
• All the weekends we spend in San Francisco hanging up with friends
• Running: this year I ran the Bay to breaker with Erica 1hour25 minutes, it is not a great performance but we made it. A very authentic San Francisco experience.....And we often go for some runs with some friends.
  

And I forget a lot but that will be OK for now.......

Bon anniversaire papa

Hey if you have been reading conscientiously my blog (well I feel bad for you because I have not been conscientious at all to update regularly my blog...) you may deduce that it has been one year since my last "Bon anniversaire papa" post.
So here we are again and this time it is hard for me because I would have liked so much be in France to celebrate my dad's birthday, I feel way to fare.
But I guess it is the price to pay to have my very nice and exciting life here: I have to deal with the fact that a lot of the people I love, live in the other part of the world.

Well anyway, today is my dad's birthday and I know that plenty of people have been using this occasion to let him know how much they appreciate him, so have I.
I just have to wait a few months and I'll see again all my family, so after all this is not too bad. And also the communications through Internet allow me to keep contact with a lot of people in France. So even if sometime I feel a little sad, most of the time I feel that even the people far away, are not that far.....