second floor is finished!

Charlie in the hall

bathroom view 1

bathroom view 2

kids in the hallway

guest room in Charlie's room

well...

... apparently I am as much an airhead as is Hugo... or was it the other way around? I dropped off Charlie at the nursery and going back to my car, I saw a bunch of fire dep. trucks. I started running to get my car out of the way... actually they were just parking there and I hadn't blocked any access or anything. Technically they were not supposed to be there, just like me. Anyway, the purse must have fallen out of my bag then, and since I was in a rush, I didn't notice until I was halfway home. Obviously, it was no longer there when I went back to check....

argh... ugh... grrrrr...

cheers 

Arthur, the artist

the cover of his "cahier de vie" (everyday life booklet) from kindergarten! looks like a cover from the "Ogres de Barback". Well, only French people will know them. Awesome music,  though!

cheers

...YES!

Yesterday, they set up the counter for gas, today the plumber launched the new heating system! Yes, we now are officially good and going!

cheers

fixing my boys jeans...

... and not just one!

work on level 2

and here's the second floor (kids)

looking good already, wait for the final

version! green is Charlie room, orangy-yellow is the boys room and the other orangy is the bathroom, blue is the game room

work on level 1

our kitchen

corner of the dining area

the loo...

and work is continuing...

winter wonderland

Well okay, it's far away and kinda high up, but still!!! It looks beautiful!

cheers

school pics

Hugo in his new school!

cheers

... on the good side...

... today was Dad's birthday, 70 years, man!

So in view of that, forget about the weird day!

Happy Birthday Dad!!!!

I guess it was just one of those days...

... Philippe left for Russia this morning. I took the kids to wednesday activity center and Charlie to the nursery (yes I did get a spot!) and the rest of my morning was dedicated to straigthen out the mess the plumber made of our bathroom equipment order. I thought that would take about half an hour... (yeah, what was I thinking). Two hours later, the mystery was somewhat elucidated, however, still not solved. I had to leave to pick up Charlie from the nursery, so there was no more time left to handle that. 

Meanwhile they were installing the gas connection so we would finally get our new heating system going. It turns out that this needs a certificate and the certification takes about 10 days... so we will continue with our electric heaters for the time being. The electricity bill will be fun this month, it's been quite cool these last few weeks. Especially for us coming back from Egypt.

After all this, I thought: hey, let's go to town, stroll around with Charlie and have a good time. On my way back home, I wanted to get some cash.....

... no more purse!!!!! At first I believed I had lost it or forgotten it at that last store I had been to. Nope. Simply gone! Credit card and bank card! Gone! And Philippe is in Russia. So no cash for today. And I had to call the bank to block the cards. I am still not sure it was stolen, I am sure I should have felt something when they plunged into my little backpack. But I guess not. Luckily, there was nothing really precious in there, except some cash (not much though), some bus tickets and lots of shop cards. Nothing irreplaceable, really. 

And to finish off nicely, almost all the plug sockets went malfunctioning this evening, so I had to be quite inventive as to finding a solution to keep the electrical heaters going. 

So yes, it was definitely one of those days!

cheers 

sunday morning...

...after a good dinner with our frieds, a slow Sunday morning. Quite happy to see some sun after a VERY rainy Saturday.

The kids have a new bed, thanks IKEA. I think Jeremie and Anya have the same one. It will become Arthur's bed once they are up in their room. Hugo has one made by Opa. 

cheers

just a word

we arrived in Grenoble on June 21. And time just flew by ever since. 

We moved into the new house, well, at least into the ground floor as the two upper levels are being remodelled. The garden looked like a jungle but thanks to Dad and Gerard, it looks a lot better now, we're even on our way of having something called a lawn (almost!)

We hope to have the kids moved into the second floor by the beginning of the school year (september 2nd) and us sometime by end of october (inch'allah).

I will try to keep more regular posts and some pics.

cheers

last but not least...

... our last trip to Sharm (for the time being!) It felt quite good to get out of Cairo!

some good sides to the story

Mom and Margret! yes Margret, came to visit us just after our vacation in Grenoble. We spent three days visiting the pyramids from Dashur to the great pyramids of Gizeh, the musueum and the citadelle. Our last stop was Ibn Touloun mosque. It was very nice and the kids, especially Hugo LOVED it. A future Indiana Jones? cheers

... boxes...

I admit it has been a while, but life is craaaaaaazy. I am packing and packing and packing up our stuff in boxes... but somehow, there is always something else that pops up from nowhere! Moving definetely has the advantage of throwing out quite some stuff!

cheers

we did it!

Well, we bought our house in Grenoble!!!! Yeah! With that we are broke now but VERY happy!

on the move...

to France. It's official now. In June 2008, our Egyptian adventure will come to an end. And it we'll be back to Grenoble.

We are quite excited about this and are already on the lookout for a house, school etc.... We might even have found something suitable.

This will be a whole new experience for us because we left Grenoble with a two-and-a-half year old and are going back as a "famille nombreuse". So looking for a good school is a new experience.

Exciting!

Cheers

you wouldn't believe it...

... even if you saw it!

It had rained all night, when this morning the gardener showed up and.... watered the garden. Well, to be more exact, he uses the waterhose to rake the leaves!!! And this is desert country.

I wasn't able (courageous) enough to take a picture WITH him, but you can see the hose out on one side and the leaves raked on the other side!


Second, they start washing and drying(!) the cars just as the rain barely stopped. AND it will surely rain again!



I guess this is Egypt!

cheers

my latest acquisition...

... I love that store and today the choice was really tough. But I finally decided to get this one. It's a Randa Fahmy lamp, she does amazing stuff, and her sister, Azza, makes beautiful jewellry.

http://randafahmy.com/html/index.html
http://www.azzafahmy.com/

And here is Hugo, playing the Sphinx:

And Charlie at his favorite acitvity:

Now it worked

You can now check out the pics on the site:

http://www.vilhuber.com/anneke/gallery2/main.php

Don't forget that you should register if you would like to see all pics. No album is empty, access is just restricted.

cheers

Charlie turned 1!

... for all of you who forgot!!!!

I guess....

...it was just one of those days.

It's been raining on and off since last night or it's simply greyish and COLD!

Today, I took off to go and watch Hugo play basketball after school (it's a 30min drive to his school!) and when I got there, they finally cancelled practice due to bad weather.

Then, on the way back home, we stopped at a bookstore: closed for prayer (a thing that usually takes them 5 mins). After 15 mins I grew tired of waiting and we went home (talk about a business in Egypt!)

I arrive at the house, Awa (the nanny/maid) tells me the dishwasher had broken down and was leaking! Great! Only problem is that when they built in the kitchen, they passed the electric cables and water pipes of the machine behind the furniture and marble kitchen tops... which they then GLUED to the wall. Makes the task of pulling the machine out of its hole to see what the problem is much easier! Sense the irony, please! hehe

I finally manage to pull the damn thing out and figure out the problem. We call the company to tell them to simply send someone by to fix that. We are told that that was not their procedure: a technician has to come by and see what the problem is (even we told them). Then someone else will come by to pick up the machine and take it to the factory (of course, they do not tell you WHEN they will pick it up or just how long this could take). Way to go and do business!!!

Well, the house is nice and warm, and I'll go and have a hot chocolate, that's supposed to be good for the mind!

cheers

the new year...

Well, we did start it off quite nicely. New Year's Eve, we celebrated with a bunch of friends with nice food and champagne and wine!

Then we went to Taba Heights, a beach spot in the north of the gulf of Aqaba. A little cold, but still nice to be on the beach for a few days. ANd the highlight of that trip was a day in Petra!!! What a magnificent place. And Jan? You're absolutely right, you could spend an entire week exploring the different buildings and canyons.

But I'll let you see for yourself:

http://www.vilhuber.com/anneke/gallery2/main.php



cheers

a long time ago...

okay, so it's been quiiiiite a while since I've last posted something here.... mea culpa. It's been a little crazy since then, time literally ran through my fingers. December just flew by, we finalley decided to go back home for X-mas. It was again for health reasons (but I can reassure you, in the end the doc said to wait and see, which is the lesser of the evil solutions), but still spending x-mas with the family and good food and good wine (hmmmmm, yummyyummy) is great.

Europe was FREEZING but with beautiful blue skies! Kids and ourselves were spoiled by Santa. Not too bad this year. hehe!

So to all of you out there a happy new year 2008 and may it be better than last year.

I am a little bit like my bro, I tend to forget the crappy things that come along our way, although it was a little tough in 2007. So I sincerely hope for better days to come in 2008.

cheers