Spring Piano 2014

As requested by his grandmas, FFM's Spring Recital performance.

He was thrilled to lead off the performance, and this year's recital was the best one yet. At the beginning of the year his teacher decided to leave the school where she had been teaching and a few students followed her for private instruction. Because we've done both group and solo lessons with Kelly for 2.5 years now we knew almost every other student at the recital. It's way more fun to listen to kids you know than strangers! The kids all did very well, and it was obvious they are all enjoying their music. No two kids repeated songs (unlike days of old), and the evening went by in a flash.

I missed the introduction, but here's Amazing Grace and Star Wars Main Title.
(a side note, Ms. Kelly's piano is a couple hundred years old and has a unique sound. Because a lot of these kids listen carefully when they play several of them fumbled around for a note that sounded different on her concert piano than on her practice one or the one they have at home. Normally I don't hear any of these kids stumble during a performance, it's good practice to play on all kinds of pianos!)

Addiction

It was just a matter of time.
FFM has become addicted to books. He hauls one around most places we go and finds a cozy corner to read everywhere. The coup  de gras came a couple of nights ago when we caught him waaaay after bedtime with a flashlight under the covers. My mother will appreciate the parenting irony, many a night I snuck a flashlight or insisted my closet light stay on do I could read late into the night. We compromised with a set amount of time to read in bed (with flashlight or book light) before final lights out. Last night I set his timer incorrectly and promptly forgot about it. A little after 9pm Travis walked by F's room and he was still reading away, struggling to keep his head up and his eyes open. We are one little guy,  I totally understand!

Ski the Alps

We left Geneva on a Saturday morning for the three hour drive to our ski resort, Tignes. Tignes is part of a gargantuan ski area that is actually two together, Tignes and Val d'Isere. Longer ago than I'd like to admit my family skiied both of these areas, before they were connected, and I have fond memories of both. Of course NOTHING in town looked the same after being away for decades, but the Alps and the Grand Motte Glacier still took my breath away.

View from our balcony

FFM riding his favorite kind of lift - POMA aka surface lift. 

The beginning of the week was snowy, up past F's knees in a lot of places! 

Twilight walk to dinner with pal Haaken.

Sunny morning, Travis getting ready to pop on his skis.
We had to walk a few yards uphill to get to the ski run.

View down the mountain to the village of Tignes.

Lunch on mountain, totally different affair than in the US!

Enjoying long, quiet, beautiful ski runs.

FFM loved all the different kinds of lifts, this was a massive 30 person gondola.

Having fun in the powder after my big crash!

Eric and FFM walking to one of the funiculars.

Patiently waiting for our turn on the "mountain subway"

Family ski day!

Life sure is good!

One evening we decided to go out to dinner with my Mom and Eric. I randomly picked a restaurant that turned out to be a local delight. After searching for our location, literally at the end of the road, we walked into a cozy stone building that had a row of flaming metal boxes out front. New to us, we used sign language (only place my rusty French didn't work well with totally non-English speaking staff) to inquire about the flaming boxes. Turns out it was for dinner, so we ordered enough for the table. Yum! Tucked under a big copper chimney we grilled various strips of meat, dipped in an assortment of sauces, and followed it up with a giant dish of potatos au gratin. Declared a gastronomic success!

Storm rolling in again, must be about time to head home.

France - Paris

In February our family went on a long-planned trip to France. Growing up I lived overseas for a good portion of my childhood and family ski vacations were almost always in the Alps - coming to Colorado to ski was the big deal back then! Being a family of skiiers, my boys thought a trip to ski the Alps sounded like a grand idea, and why not swing by Paris and Geneva on the way?

We started in Paris...

Our lodging in Paris, Opera District.
 We stayed in the room connected to the balcony marked HOTEL.
The balcony wrapped around our whole room and the boys went out daily.

First stop, the Patisserie across the street for some treats.
We stopped often!

Day 1 - we toured the city by hop on hop off bus.
F had read about and wanted to see Le Pont Neuf.
A little ways down the river we encountered La Passerelle des Arts.

F locking our lock to the bridge

Sweethearts attach locks to the bridge to symbolize their love.
Tossing our family key into the Seine.
Le Pont Neuf is in the background.

The bridge is totally covered.
 It's probably a nuisance to the city, but it's very pretty to look at.

Entering Notre Dame

One of several rose windows.
 It was Sunday and a service was being held as we toured.

Notre Dame ceilings and stained glass

Of course we had to walk up hundreds of tiny stairs to see the view from the top...

...which included F's first good view of the Eiffel Tower.

F only requested 2 souvenirs, a beret and a light up Eiffel Tower.
The beret was a complete surprise to us, he wears it well!

Riding between attractions on the bus.
It was cool, but with our coats and hats on riding outside was comfortable.

Riding up the Champs Elysees we swung around the Arc de Triomphe

Stopping for a snack, again. Best macaroons ever.

Our last stop of the day was at the Eiffel Tower overlook at Trocadero.

The next day was our scheduled tour of the Eiffel Tower.
We arrived early to check it out before going all the way to the top.

First stop

All the way at the top.
The only time I was REALLY cold during the Paris days.

We warmed up on the Batobus,
a boat on the Seine that was part of our hop on hop off ticket.
It floated us past all the attractions and gave us some ideas
of other places to see later in the week.

That night we rode the Metro back to the Eiffel Tower to watch the lights.
As you can imagine FFM was totally engrossed with the whole subway experience.
Note the friendly Frenchman who is smiling at F's excitement.
Caught this in the brief moment he stopped vibrating.

Sparkly tower was well worth staying up past bedtime!

The only drizzly day occurred the morning we visited Versailles.
Lucky us! Here we are in the Hall of Mirrors

FFM liked the palace more than I ever imagined,
he can tell you all about the three Kings that lived there,
Louis XIV, Louis XV and Louis XVI.
The Sun King story and execution of Louis XVI particularly stuck with him.

We skipped the Louvre and wandered around it's grounds instead.
We opted for the Musee D'Orsay which turned out to be a good choice for our family.
I enjoyed the Impressionists, FFM fell in love with the Pointillists,
 and Travis found some appealing sculptures.

Next, on our way to Geneva!

Fa La La La La

The holidays fell fast and furious this year, for us and everybody else. With one less week between Thanksgiving and Christmas we felt the pinch to get together with everybody we wanted to celebrate with. Luckily we were able to share the season with many close friends and family.

Après Company Kids Holiday Party

Annual cousin fun at Blossoms of Light with Ryan and Skylar.

Christmas lights at Casa Bonita

BFFs forever.
This was Emma's first trip ever to Casa Bonita and it was fabulous (of course).

Hide your loot! They tried to look bad but couldn't muster a good snarl.

Hannah's favorite part of her gift? The tissue paper of course!

Missing one of the three amigos (Matt), who was down with the flu.
A fun evening wearing the kids out at the playground.

Cool Gadget from Library + Snow = Super Fun Sunday

Reading all the posters at the library is tedious, but waiting for FFM one day I noticed that we can now check out various electronics like tablets, e-readers, and video cameras. Most notably, the GoPro camera system. I signed us up on the wait list and a couple of weeks later I had a GoPro waiting for me on the hold shelf.

We were hoping to get out for a ski day with it, but things didn't work out as expected so the boys took it sledding instead. I think they had a good time.

After the test run Travis decided his own GoPro was in order so the following week I figured out which set up would work well and got him early birthday present. He's filmed something pretty much every day since he got it and now we have various time lapse and wide angle movies of all kinds of amazing things such as the walk to the mailbox and the drive to school.

Piano Recital 2013

So
Far
Behind
!

FFM's piano recital from December. He was the youngest pianist at the recital and the only one that played without his sheet music. He LOVES recitals and practiced night and day (thus the no music). This recital was at a church, and while the piano wasn't the beautiful grand piano that we usually have for recitals it was a nice trade for having plenty of room for family and friends to come along to watch.

I was slow and missed the beginning of the first song, "Land of the Silver Birch." Second song, "Cossack Ride", which he fumbled a little bit trying to play faster than his little fingers will go.



Later he and the three other children in his class played a four person version of "O Tannenbaum" which was quite a feat.

Letter to Santa

Lucky FFM got a package from Santa last week. Inside was an elf with a letter all about F. At the end of the letter Santa said, email me anytime! Here's my email address! Once FFM read that bit 'o news he moved heaven and earth to figure out how to compose an email. Mom helped by setting him up with his very own (heavily supervised) email account. 

Here's exactly what he wrote:

My Elf is  named Wonder. I want you to hear my piano Music. I just want surprises this year. I am learning Spanish. I hope you stay warm. MERRY CHRISTMAS!                                                                               From Finn 

Even with super slow hunt and peck he already likes typing better than handwriting.