Le week-end d'anniversaire de Celia

This weekend we celebrated Celia birthday in style by attending the French Open! It was pretty awesome!

Our lady turned two on Friday, the 28th of May. We had a really nice day and then lots of chocolate and presents in the evening. Celia doesn't really understand the whole un-wrapping of presents but does understand that they are her new toys! "MINE" she screams as Elise tries to take her brand new Elmo video! Elmo is a huge hit in Celia's life and the new video and book made her day!

The next day we were off to Roland Garros! We bought open court tickets and got to enjoy multiple matches throughout the day. We saw the Men's Doubles Bopanna/Qureshi defeat Fognin/Russell, Shvedova defeat Kleybanova, and the first couple sets of Almagro playing

Dolgopolov. No big names on our court number seven but we had a great area of the stadium reserved for us and our friends and it was a lot of fun to watch what happens behind the scenes. First of all, the adjacent courts number nine and 11 were reserved as practice courts so we got to see some big names warming up, at a nice close distance. Venus Williams and Maria Sharapova both took some practice serving and reseving practice there and we all took turns getting a good close look. Both Venus and Maria are so tall but not nearly as "beefy" as I thought they would be. Maria was very graceful as she played and a lot more smooth on the court than Venus. It was pretty amazing to see them so close and watch them warm-up. It felt a little strange standing there watching them, like watching animals at a zoo, since it was such a close and intimate setting. As an athlete myself, I felt bad staring at them as they tried to prepare for some of the biggest matches of their lives. However, I quickly got over my awkwardness and snapped away with my camera and enjoyed this once in a lifetime experience. They have to be used to it, right? :)

Secondly, we got to see some hard core ball boy action. Seeing the professional players up close and personal was a close second to watching these intense ball boys in action. They are rolling balls and working hard throughout the entire match. They wouldn't flinch between sets and one was even squirted with water as the maintenance crew hosed down the court with water. You could tell he was upset however he didn't move from his position or dispute the spray. He played his part. It was also quite fun to watch them practice and warm up as well. They took their jobs very seriously and perfected the ball roll to one another. I was really impressed!

It was a great weekend and awesome to get out and experience more of Paris. The ladies were fabulous at the Roland Garros even though they freaked out as we left. I think Celia left quiet an impression on the Spaniard as we left his court by departing with a "friendly" squeal. Oh well, it is her birthday weekend. I was kind of hoping we could have made the bloopers scenes of SportsCenter, you know those crazy fans that get kicked out of events because they can't control their kids, however we escaped quickly and somewhat quietly and made no TV...(at least none that I'm aware of...)

Sunday we gave Celia a proper party with cake and friends. Linnea, Ella, and Johna came

over to celebrate the lady properly. It was great fun to relax and see our friends. And honor a great little two year old lady!

Lisboa

We spent last weekend in the land of Lisboa where we ate delicious food, drank great wine, and explored the "ups and downs" of this great city. Lisbon is a hilly city and Elise decided it's much more fun to go down them than up! We stayed in the Alfama area and this is a view of the church outside of our window.

The ladies really enjoyed hearing the bells chime on the hour. You could see the arm of the little man in the right steeple that came out just before and after every hour to let you know the time. (Brian and I weren't able to enjoy the chiming as much as the ladies did...when it was 6:00 AM, you knew it by the six chimes at 5:58 and the six chimes at 6:02. We did not share E and C's enthusiasm!) But each time the bells rang, Celia raised up her arms and sang along. It was quite nice.

We ate some of the most delicious food ever. Saturday's lunch we feasted on Sardinhas Assadas! It was the biggest plate of sardines that I've ever seen and they were fabulous! Brian and I shared the plate below with a bottle of Vinho Verde.

Saturday night's dinner was the Fish Cataplana at The Flor dos Arcos Resturant:

This fish stew-like meal is scooped onto a plate of rice and then you eat away into fish heaven! There were mussels, scallops, shrimp, octopus, clams, shrimp, and a white fish that I can't name but thoroughly enjoyed!

We had a fabulous long weekend holiday in Lisboa. We enjoyed watching the boats on the river

and exploring the Castelo de Sao Jorge.

On Sunday we ventured west to Estoril for some beach time. It felt nice to get our feet back in the ocean, jump in some waves, and bury our legs in the sand. It's been awhile and we miss the beaches of Southern California, so this was a nice taste of our former lives. Although Celia is not that excited about the water yet, she loved digging in the sand and destroying my attempts at building a sand castle. Elise loved holding our hands and jumping in the waves as they came crashing ashore.

This was a fantastic adventure and I really enjoyed sipping delicious wine with my husband as our two daughters stuck stickers on their plates and drank mango juice. Elise loved her Lisbon bathtub and kicking her feet "in the beach". I proudly recall terribly communicating with the pastry shop lady and trying so hard to follow the rules of her establishment. We would order out of place but they always welcomed us back. It definitely was a challenge to try and communicate in Portuguese and I was grateful to be back in Paris where communicating is a little less challenging. I can definitely fake it much better on my home turf than abroad! After being away, I feel like I've come a long way in my horrible french! I kept wanting to use my French on these poor portuguese. But we survived and it was quite entertaining!

In other news, we're off to the Roland Garros on Saturday for a day of exciting tennis. We only have tickets to the outside courts so I don't think we'll see any big names. However, it should be an exciting day and fun to have the experience!

Speechless

About a month ago Elise's teacher requested that we bring in a pear for the class. They were working on a unit about fruit and each student was asked to bring in something for the rest of the class to study and discuss. I was more than happy to contribute and followed all the french she was throwing at me about the project. Later that morning when I returned to pick up Elise, I was avec une poire and her teacher complemented me on how well my francais is coming along. Both her and her assistant think that I have really improved over the past seven months. (by the way, that was all in french too. I'm freaking rocking this stuff!)

So, second week of April and I'm on a language high! I believe I have made some huge progress in my understanding and I've built a descent vocabulary bank. I can follow a lot of what people are telling me, am feeling pretty confident, and know a lot more french than I did a year ago. I'm feeling good!

And then....

Speechless! It's now May and instead of making progress, I've regressed. People are saying stuff to me and asking me questions and I'm stuck! I can't get anything out. The other day a woman asked me for directions and I did a lot of pointing and apologizing. The worst part about our interaction is I just finished listening to the "directions" chapter of my language CD's...for the 50th time! I've got directions memorized. This was a big goal of mine since I am frequently stopped for help. Here's the other worst part, as we part and I go on my embarrassing, frenchless way, 35 different sayings pop into my head of what I could have said! I can't get a thing out when it's important but am a very skillful post-conversation linguist! It's terrible!

So, enough of this anglais for today. I've got number two down for a nap and number one engrossed in a movie. (Movies are a mom's best friend!) It is study time for me! Au revoir!