ella souvlaki mou!

(i wrote this email recently, thought id share my thoughts with all of you, too... although the weather has finally turned a bit nicer today 60F/15C)

im finally getting lonely for greece after 6 months here.. predictable, no??.

i talked with carole & lily and shes already hanging out on the terrace lately with beautiful weather.. and its not done snowing here (this week we are having some 40F/10C weather, foof!
and i saw on gerrys blog that julia will go to greece this easter... somebody else mentioned carnivale and.. damn! these people here are as un-passionate as they are polite! and NObody "tooff-tuffs" (the spitting sound) on my brand new baby here/// i could just cry!

you all remember - there were lots of things that frustrated me about greece - particularly in the first 6 months - but after being there 2 years it managed to charm and haunt me. the first thought that ran through my head that i knew greece pulled my strings somehow is that ~when i moved THERE i hated the fact that EVERYTHING was white white white and some gray. but when i moved HERE i just wished my house - exterior, stairs, railings, trim and part of the sidewalk - were stark white, and wondered where's the terrace with outdoor table & chairs?? (something also imperative in texas, so you can imagine how i am accustomed)

anyway, i guess i dont have anything else to say, no neat way to wrap up my sentiments here, except maybe some more storytlling.. philippe just came in saying how theres a cold wind coming with some {freezing rain or snow} tonight.. hmph. but im ready for my t-shirts and flipflops already! guess ill go strap on my apron and go get the kitchen good and steamy and pretend.

ouzo, anyone?

where is my mind? wheeerre is MY mind?

with my feet in the air and my head on the ground.. woooohhh...oops,

i forgot that march isnt over yet before i posted those pix.. and consequently some pictures are still in my camera -so- at the REAL end of the month i will (be responsible and) post our st. patricks day parade pix and any others that seem very nice to look at.

i must be distracted lately or what.. like having two kids and not sleepig whole nights or something - ha// {{speaking of - last night ruby slept from 730pm to 1130pm and then slept again until 5AM!! whoo-hoo

march photos are up

in the "current pix" link.. (flickr)

new pictures are up, see "travel pix"

what a good-lookin' bunch we are..

we just posted the pictures we took from my sister claire's wedding, in our travel pix link, entitled "claire wedding, march 2007". . thanks j&j for the ceremony photo.

photo note: i am wearing 4-inch heels, and am still much shorter than my siblings!

lu speaks

at 21 months old, lucas has been coming out with more and more words lately.. and has started asking me what things are called, too. but the big step is his new two word sentences.

at the dinner table the other night he pointed to ruby and said "bebe" (like always does.. all day long) then he pointed to himself and said "bebe" and we all agreed. philippe further explained to him, using hand gestures, how ruby is a LITTLE baby and lucas is a BIG baby. so then lucas pointed at me and said "bebe".. and we laughed, and ph increased the distance of his hands and said mama's a BIG BIG baby .. so next we point to philippe, and as philippe says 'yes, and is preparing to widen his hands even further to continue the logic'.. lucas points to him and says "no bebe". so again we have to agree. then he comes back to me, pointing at mama he says, "bebe??" and we have to confess that, no, actually mama is not a baby and we congratulated him on his improving language skills.

and its so funny - all of his language firsts (word: ball, sentence: no bebe) have been phonically ambiguous between the two languages he's learning simultaneously. i should point out that philippe always speaks french to him and i always speak english.. example: philippe says "tu voir? tu sais tout, toi!" and i reply, "that's right, lu, you understand everything!"

it really was so interesting to see him getting at the bottom of this 'baby' concept, establishing the pecking order & identifying roles. and i am sure now that he is finally solidifying in his mind that he and i are actually different individuals. feels like tomorrow, he'll be going out looking for his own apartment.. he doesnt need us anymore! haha

claire's wedding

back when lucas was 2 months old, we took him on his very first trip... philippe's sister's wedding. and now, we just took ruby on her very first trip at the tender age of one month old... to MY sister's wedding. i love stuff like this because it tells me somehow that the mysteries of life are still intact.

on the way there we were running a travel bloopers reel, demonstrating effortlessly murphy's law. you would have all enjoyed watching us hoopty around the airport with full luggage and two kids (regretting we didnt bring the new double buggy - reasoning it was just tooo big), while we waited for 6 hours to catch our re-booked flight. (the details of which are too boring to recount here).

we finally made it to st louis, with 30 minutes to spare before the wedding. so we rush home to my dads place, freshen up, rush to the wedding, get lost behind a walmart looking for the reception hall, to walk in just as the ceremony was finished (oh my god i felt bad that my dad was busy driving us around instead of walking my sister down the aisle ~ but at least my mom was there to stand-in) ... but this is where the story finally bottomed-out and it started getting better.

my sister was a sight for sore eyes. too gorgeous to describe, really. her party was fun and her new family was friendly. OUR family was beside themselves with familial togetherness, laughter and excitement. and since no one can figure out when exactly the toast was, i'd like to go ahead and toast claire & ron for being the reason we could all come together. the reason that we could all agree was worth the effort.

i particularly enjoyed these things.. memories i can cherish.
dancing with my sister. bumpin' booties, havin' us a ball y'all.
my brother's smile, and his very crisp new white shirt ;)
my dad and mom recounting some funny stories together. the painted plymouth valiant and the binding of the RCA electronics course.
and ruby being passed around, getting "welcomed"...

i'll be going through our pictures.. i'll let you know when they're posted and where.