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.