happ house : mac capital of utah.

this is one of my favorite parts of christmas every year.

i think you could say we're a mac sort of family.

the only one not accounted for in this picture is isaac, the youngest cousin (9).  and honestly, i'm not sure if we'll have to wait long ; )

Today and tomorrow are nearly the only two days we don't have to go the airport from December 21st-30th.  We took advantage, by going to finish up some last minute shopping in an extremely crowded mall.

tomorrow we're hitting the slopes!

what are the funny quirks about your family when you all gather together?  identical christmas pajamas? matching ugg boots? (you should see our laundry room)  traditional morning coffee and pancakes everyday?

wishing you a cheery christmas eve tomorrow!

alli

christmas ornaments.

I was lucky this year, since my family saved decorating the christmas tree until both my sister and I got home from our across the world voyages.  I always love decorating the tree- every year we open up the ornament boxes I feel like it's for the first time.

we have our classic choices, such as this (blurry) bear

the ones from our homemade ornament era.

some of my favorites, the cottonball sheep.

and the newest australian line of ornaments. complete with kookabura...

and 'attack mode' koala bears.

What kinds of ornaments are on your trees?  New ones?  Old ones?

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alli

holiday bugs.

Holy christmas trees, I've been gone for awhile!

I apologize for my absence the past couple of weeks.  I got hit by a pretty big bug/virus a week and a half ago, and it totally wiped me out.  Guess that's part of the job package when you work with middle schoolers full of germs all week.  Luckily I have an awesome roomate, who found me some chicken noodle soup and orange juice, which made being sick in a foreign country a little more bearable : )

Last week, getting ready to come home, was jam packed full of last minute Christmas shopping (which still isn't done...) and finishing up Christmas activities with the classes.

And NOW, after a slightly nightmare-ish set of flights between Paris, Chicago, and Salt Lake, I'm finally home for Christmas with the fam.  I'm also enjoying my own bed, soft water, driving everywhere, and the dishwasher!  Mmmm.

What are the little things you're enjoying at the moment?  Heading off to somewhere fun for the holidays?  I'll try to get back to some regular posting, stick with me!

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alli

le weekend.

Hello !

How was your weekend?  Full of tree hunting, garland hanging and football cheering? 

My Saturday was full of lots of things and my Sunday was full of nothing, which was glorious : )

Saturday we drove over to Lyon, where they were having their annual,

fête des lumières : festival of lights

It was amazing, btw, to see some blue sky!!

this is place de bellecour, one of the main squares in the centre ville

as it got darker, several buildings downtown were lit up and some had 'animations'

every so often. sorry for the blur, the night shots on my camera are a bit off

this 'animation' was called 'jouons avec le temps' which means,

'playing with time'

it was all about the effects of time and the elements.

there were snowstorms, rainstorms, fires, earthquakes...

everything destroyed the hôtel de ville, and it was 'built up again' between each step.

and then there were flowers : )

there were lights on EVERY street.

and in case you can't tell...

it was uncomfortably packed.

we had to escape the city center, it was seriously claustrophobic.

an artsy pic.

this was in the square behind the hôtel de ville.

it was a sort of laser show.

the pyramid in the middle acted as a clock, with a second hand swinging back and forth.

every time a green laser beam was hit by the swinging minute hand,

it cut the flow to the rest of the laser beams.

a sort of chain reaction.

one of my favorite parts was the flower garden.

The fête des lumières was nice, but I'm not sure it's something I would do more than once.  I expected more light shows- in the end, there was really only one organized performance that we saw.  The rest of the evening was spent literally like a little calf in a herd of cows.  Angry cows, some with baby strollers.  Please explain how impractical you have to be, to bring a baby stroller to an event with hundreds of thousands of people.

It was a nice weekend, and the relaxing Sunday was long overdue.  I feel reenergized, at least so far!  This week is busy busy busy, and at the end of next week I'll be home!  Lots to look forward to, and lots of Christmas shopping to do in the meantime.

How was your weekend?

Wishing you a wonderful rest of your Monday!

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tis the season.

Although the Christmas lights around Beaune have not officially lit up yet, our apartment is slowly building up some holiday cheer.

Alright, I caught it in a charlie brown type moment, but I think our little tree is quite cute.

Nothing compared to fresh pine smell, but it will have to do for the moment!

This is a darling gift I received this weekend- a beautiful hand painted ornament.

I don't feel quite like we're in the Christmas season yet.  Even though it's getting colder and colder on my evening bike rides back from work!  I can't wait for the snow, crowded house, skiing, christmas tree, cozy couches, peppermint ice cream, morning scones and honey, and general wonderfulness of being home.  Less than 3 weeks away!

This weekend we may pop over to Lyon, about an hour and a half away, for la fête des lumières, the light festival that marks the beginning of the holiday season every year.  And after that, it's only one more weekend before Christmas break : )

What are you doing to get into the Christmas spirit?  Love Actually?  Peppermint mochas?  Snowman and reindeer pjs?

Happy Tuesday everyone!

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le weekend.

My weekend was one of those that was not originally intended to be cramming-everything-into-three-days, but quickly turned out that way.  But it was fabulous despite the craziness.

Thursday night I trained up to Sens and then hopped in a car to go to the Danré's house for the weekend.  Although, après toutwe seemed to spend more time hopping around to other houses than staying at the Danré's.  

Friday we visited one of Stéphane's university roomates, his wife, and a very recent arrival (3 weeks!) their daughter, Apolline.  She was absolutely adorable and calm as can be.  I guess there's very little to do at 3 weeks besides eat and sleep.  The couple was so nice to have us at their home, as busy as they must be.  After lunch we visited les vaches, the cows on the farm.  Fabien, Apolline's father, raises cows in their village and has quite the barn-ful.  While we were taking the tour we saw a calf that had just been born half an hour before!  Imagine a cute little baby cow, minus the fluffiness, and add in a whole bunch of teenage type awkwardness.  It was pretty funny.

Friday we drove to nearby Reims, where we stayed the night.  We decided to wander around the Christmas market, le marché de noel, and we were certainly not the only ones with the idea.

I wish that was real snow on top of the market roofs, but it was just misting rain : (

I'll certainly be trying some marrons chauds, roasted chestnuts, sometime this Christmas season.

Saturday afternoon we were guests at Stéphane's aunt's house (we literally hopped from lunch to dinner all weekend long).  After a lovely afternoon of homemade boeuf bourgingon, one of Burgundy's roasted meat stew specialities, and wonderful conversation over some champagne and Chateauneuf du Pape red wine (jealous mom!) we headed back to get changed for une soirée on Saturday night.

The soirée was in a great room with a high ceiling and awesome chandeliers.

We went with a couple of Stéphane's friends and cousins.

moi and mr. handsome.

Some ridiculous dance line where the object is to push the person backwards as fast and recklessly as possible.  I don't see how that could possibly be fun.  Every single person ended up on the floor.

After some (not enough) sleep on Sunday morning, we had a slow day around the farm.  More champagne and eating involved.  A certain member of the Danré family was a little excited for us to finish eating and come play.

Coca!!!

She was soooo serious in the car as we drove around the little farm trails tracing through the fields.  Every so often we would see some deer or rabbits and she would go NUTS.

We got out of the car for awhile to walk around and see some of the windmills not far from the Danré's farm.  They were big, and made scary whistling noises.  And were incredibly intimidating to stand underneath.

All in all, a nice weekend.  Not quite relaxing, but really fun.

What did you do this weekend?  I heard there were skiers in Utah!  Can't wait to get on my skis in 3 weeks : O

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looking out for love.

looking out for love

Friends,

I am so very excited to share this with you.  This summer in Michigan, in between s'mores, late night campfires, shore breakfasts, and lying on the trampoline, I had a very exciting conversation with one of my best friends, Lindsay Poulin.  She is an incredibly talented woman, with a wonderfully contagious passion for all things art.  Her camera is nearly always by her side, her sketches of costume design are something out of the Pride and Prejudice costume closet, and her ever growing collection of greeting cards and stationary are so cute they make you want to keep them instead of sending them away.  I happen to know she's even got a knack for garageband techno songs ; )

One of the projects she's been piecing together over the past months is coming together in a wonderful way.  She was first inspired by two of her good friends at college who spent time in Uganda, Africa at 'God's Heart Orphanage'.  Lindsay recognized the passion her friends had for traveling, volunteering, and sharing their lives with others, and decided to start this project as a way of documenting love all over the world.  She's started a blog called 'look out for love', which gathers pictures of hearts from all around the world.  In her own words,

'The overarching concept I have in mind is that love is everywhere, in everything, for everyone -- and that there is so much adventure and value in looking deeper. It’s always amazing what you can find in the most unexpected places!'

She's designed the blog in a way that anyone and everyone is welcome to comment and post their own pictures of hearts from wherever you find them. Whether it be on a business trip, a study abroad experience, your backyard, your morning commute, the whipped cream in your afternoon latte.... you know, the little things.

This is a participation-oriented blog, so I encourage you all to visit the website she's set up, lookingoutforlove. She's also included guidelines and info on how to submit pictures to the project. I guarantee that once you start looking for hearts, you'll notice them in the funniest places.

Feel free to share the site with your friends and family, and encourage them to post pictures. This project has great potential, and I was just bursting to share it with you, my lovely readers.

keep looking out for love !

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reading material.

I started Bridge of Sighs by Richard Russo a couple weeks ago and just finished it this afternoon.

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It's an incredibly intricate story, the characters blending together in interesting ways.  I won't give away the ending, but the tension that seemed to be building up slowly throughout the whole story seemed to creep out just as quietly in the last pages.

In the wonderful surprise package that came my way a couple days ago, was My Life in France, the memoir written by Julia Childs chronicling her adventure in la France.  Seems an appropriate time to read it!

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I'm always one for book recommendations.  What have you been reading lately?

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