OUR BLOG IS MOVING

After much debate, Sean and I have decided that keeping 2 blogs is just too confusing for us. So, we have moved our blog to: HTTP://BORDEAUXRAYMONDS.BLOGSPOT.COM

Hope you enjoy!
(Owen helping build furniture in our new house)

Holidays 2009

Our first holiday season in France was busy busy BUSY. Here are some highlights:

1) Bordeaux, like most European towns, has a month-long Christmas Market (Marche de Noel) in the center of town. We took Owen several times in the hopes of getting a picture with Santa. But, apparently, Papa Noel is not a morning person (or a Tuesday afternoon person or a Christmas Eve person) so no photo this year. However, Owen didn't seem to mind as there was a carousel that was even more exciting...
And Owen did get to rid in Santa's sleigh:
2) Hanukah
Despite the beautiful synagogue in town, we clearly do not live in the Jewish capital of France. It was extremely hard to find a menorah in Bordeaux. So, I made one:










3) Christmas
Owen woke up early on Christmas morning. I think he would have gone back to sleep but Sean was too excited so he brought Owen to our bed and gave him his stocking













Then we had french toast (the French call it pain perdu - literally lost bread) and opened presents

















We went on a nature walk around the observatory campus while we waited for Nan and Pip to arrive.
We have lots of cute photos of Nan and Pip's visit and this post is already very long so I will end here. Stay tuned for Holiday Season Part 2: Invasion of the Grandparents. :)

Love,
Marisa

Internet at HOME!!!

We moved into our permanent "new house" (as Owen calls it) last Saturday and finally, after 4 months, have internet and cable hooked up and functional!! A huge relief for Marisa who has definitely been feeling a bit isolated from the world.

So, now we will definitely be blogging more. We have lots to catch up on with 4 months of intermittent blogging so be sure to stay tuned!

Dreams

Owen has been dreaming a lot lately, sometimes being quite upset during the night and talking about things that make no obvious sense. This morning was a funny one. Boyo didn't sleep well and came into bed with us at around 5 this morning. Sometime after that he woke up, cryied for ahout 5 seonds, said "Owen want big ice cream cone!" and then went back to sleep. It was awesome! (although I wouldn't have been upset if this had happened during the day so I could have not been woken up)

whoa!

Lately, as well as when he was little, I've been singing one of my favorite songs to boyo before he sleeps -- hard rain's gonna fall by Bob Dylan. This morning, out of nowhere, Owen quoted that song for the first time by randomly saying "died in the gutter!" a bunch of times. I like the song because it has lots of interesting imagery in it, and when I sing it I censor out some of the gorier pieces -- for example, I change the young woman whose body was burning to the young woman whose body was purple. But, I left in the part about the poet who died in the gutter and that seems to be the part that stuck! Oopsah!

Pretty funny, and only a little disturbing..... The frenchies won't understand what he's talking about so we're good.

over & out
Sean

Deep thought by Owen

Last night in the bath Owen said something really deep:
"Welcome to right now!"

I think he meant to say something else, or really did say something else and I misheard, but I thought it was pretty awesome. BOOM!

ps - We will have internet at home within a month so we will do more blogging then.

Cutest Owen photo!!

Happy holidays!!

ps- More posts to come in 2010, I promise!! We just don't have internet at home until we move to our permanent house in February so it's hard to keep up.

Owen Egg

OK, Sean and I had a long laugh over this so we felt we should share:

For months, as Owen's mastery of receptive language has grown, we've started spelling words when we don't want him to understand something. We've learned that he has supersonic ears so whispering the secret word didn't seem to work.

So, this morning, when Owen was done with his cereal and asked for more, I said, "would you like something else?" Sean looked over at me and said, "I could make an E-G-G". Owen looked up from his bowl and said, "Owen egg."

Next, we're going to have to start writing each other notes when we don't want Owen to hear something. That should work until he learns to read!

Happy Thanksgiving!

It's our first thanksgiving in our new home in France -- here is a card that Owen made to celebrate the occasion:



And here he is slaving away over the finger paints....




Finally, here we all are at the beach last weekend

words: then and now

Hello, Sean here! Long time since I wrote a blog post and this one is going to be short and sweet. Owen has been getting more and more words ("sea dragon", "hipopotame" -- that's hippo in french, "moving") but I want to remember some of his cute mispronunciations before I forget them:

current
Orange: "oh-goosh"
Cheerios: "doo-doos"

older ones that are now corrected
Owen: "Na-na"
Firetruck: "Wawuck"

There have been some other cute ones that I can't remember right now. My favorite thing that he is doing at the moment (started on Saturday) is singing along to his bedtime song, the gypsy rover. Once in a while during the day he will just break out a little "ah dee doo dah day" which is the greatest thing for me, especially since my dad used to sing the gypsy rover to me when I was a kid too! (and he still does once in a while)

Note: as of Nov 29, Owen now says all the syllables of "cock-a-doodle-doo!" However, in France roosters say "co-co-ri-co!" so that is one fewer syllable for him to translate.

I don't have any recent photos on this computer (it's my work computer) so I will leave you with a photo taken at Nan and Pip's house during a dinner there this summer: This was taken just after he had his first ever taste of whipped cream.



over & out!
Sean

When it rains...

How Owen enjoys the rainy season in Bordeaux...

1) Splashing in puddles. Lots of puddles. Lots of splashing.

Clearly puddle splashing is universal - though this boy later pushed him and Owen is still talking about the "push boy" days later.

even the stroller got to enjoy the puddle.

2) Go home and have some pain au chocolat (this is bread with nutella. The actual pastry is called a "chocolatine" in the south of France)

3) Finish the day with a nice warm bath... extra bubbles!

Back in Bordeaux

Well, after a pretty eventful last week in Colorado that included the first blizzard of the year...

...we made a rather uneventful arrival in rainy Bordeaux. We are settling back into the Maison Mercure and trying to decide where to look for more permanent residence. But, Owen is extremely happy at the Observatory since our house overlooks two giant tower cranes that are building new apartments nearby. Here are some photos from our first few days in Bordeaux:

We arrived on Halloween so here is Owen in his conductor outfit. Jet lag prevented any real celebration but we still had a good time!

Walking around the neighborhood. Yes, baby stroller came to France too. :)

On the carousel in the Jardin Publique.

And, last, I couldn't resist. Here is a picture of Owen at the playground at the Jardin Publique last week (right) and a picture of him from Bordeaux a year ago (left). If he wasn't walking and talking now, you'd almost think no time has gone by...

Also, I have started a new blog, http://bordeauxraymonds.blogspot.com. My plan is for it to be more of an "adventures in the life of an American family in Bordeaux" with information about toddler-friendly activities and other assorted day-in-the-life things for foreigners living abroad. Whereas, this blog will remain the primary place to post pictures and family news. It may be quite burdensome to keep 2 simultaneous blogs going - especially since I still don't have daily access to internet - but we'll see.

A+,

Marisa

Catching up with the Raymonds

Ok, so after promising to be better at blogging, we have failed to post anything since July. Shame on us.

In brief, here is the big news from the past three months: WE ARE MOVING!! Sean has been offered a position at the Universite de Bordeaux in France so we are packing up our stuff, selling our condo, and moving in 18 days! Oh my goodness!!

We've been trying to get Owen ready for the big move. Sean's been teaching him some key french words: vache (cow), foin (hay), and, of course, trop chaud which means too hot and is the name of a book we picked up in Bordeaux last year that Owen really likes. We've been reading it in English for the past year but Owen is now adjusting to our reading it in French too. Such a flexible child!

Other than that, we've been trying to enjoy our remaining time in Boulder. Last weekend, we went to the zoo and Owen had a great time. Here are some cute pictures:

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I also took Owen to Cottonwood Farms to play in the Hay Maze. The camera battery died but here is one cute picture I managed to capture:


Owen is also learning lots of new skills. For example:

1) YOGA


2) Pillow diving


3) Imaginative play (usually with trucks)


4) Smiling on command


He's really fun! You are all welcome to come visit us in France to see for yourself!

Hungover baby?

"I had too much to drink last night and I think I'm going to puke all over my cheerios"
-- what Owen might very well be thinking

Vandalism!

I had never stumbled across wet cement, ripe for the picking, in my life .... until last week when I was walking with Owen to the playground. How could anyone resist? Well, I couldn't. Despite the orange cones hanging yellow "stay out" tape around the cement, I got in there and wrote boyo's name in big letters with a stick:



Then we went to the playground, swang on the swings and slid down the slides, and saw a couple of construction guys pouring more cement. Luckily, there were not onto us. But, it seems that they noticed our little act of vandalism and tried to sandblast it away. Unfortunately for them all that did was to make the OWEN in the ground stand out more! (as Owen's shadow noticed a few days later:)




As anyone who knows me knows, I am not one to go against the grain and commit random acts of vandalism! (And as anyone who really knows me knows, that last sentence is a load of crap). But I am super pleased with myself for carving boyo's name in the ground in a place that we hang out a lot and in a way that should stick around for a few years at least. Take that, mr man!

over & out
Sean

More pics from Owen's photo shoot

Here are more pictures of Owen from the Bruz Wear photo shoot:

These are the original shoots (ie no cropping or photoshopping!). I have to say, Owen is quite a cutie! And he LOVES trucks!

Owen: a model child?

Even as a fetus, Owen has always been quite photogenic (see his "Blue Steel" impression from August 7, 2007). So, when a local clothing company (www.bruzwear.com) needed models for their catalog, I signed Owen up.

The shoot was on July 2nd. We met at a nearby playground. Sean was already in Seattle and Owen and I were headed to the airport after the shoot. Unfortunately, Owen decided to get up quite early (5am!) that morning so by 9, he was quite cranky. But the photographer was wonderful and she was able to capture a few good shots of the little guy...


For those of your with small children, I HIGHLY recommend Bruz Wear pants! Not only do they have cool patterns, but they are super durable and practical. The patches on the knees are actually knee pads! Owen's first pair of Bruz Wear pants (as seen in many of the pics below), are hand-me-downs of hand-me-downs. That's how long they last!

Ok, enough of this commercial break. We now return you to our regular scheduled blogging.... :)

Marisa

Lots of new stuff!

Hi everyone

We have become quite bad at updating the blog! Right now Marisa and Owen are both taking a nap, so here are a few cute things from recent times...

Owen was sick when my dad and I tore down and then rebuilt the fence (May 16). Marisa took care of him -- she let him chill on the couch and then watch us at the window, with food by his side at all times:




We have also started taking boyo to the pool quite often and he loves going on the big big waterslide!



We haven't been hiking with boyo that much because it's a little tricky to pull off, but we did a month or so ago, and he was even pretty happy in the backpack! It was really muddy and we didn't go that far but it was a fun time (may 24).



Owen was pretty cheery and he looked pretty cool with the Eldo/Bear Mountain backdrop.



One last story for this post: I decided the day beforehand (the day before Memorial day, that is) to run in the Bolder Boulder, a 10 K road race that is run by about 50,000 people every year. I caught a bus to the starting line thinking I would be get there about 20-30 minutes before my wave, but there was humongous slowdown and I got there right as my wave was pulling away. So, no stretching for me! Still, it was a fun time and I think it may have been the longest I've ever run (on purpose, anyway). Marisa and Owen took the bus down to meet me after the finish line, along with Ken and Megan, who are really fast and finished before I even started.



They gave us all a free can of low-calorie beer -- a nice thought. Later that day we hit the Rockies game with Craig -- they got blown out by the Dodgers but it was still a fun time. At one point Owen wanted me to read him some books as he couldn't really follow the game. But when the Rockies started coming back he broke out the rally cap and got really excited!






All right, Owen and Marisa are both awake so I'd better go!

meow!
Sean

ps - There were humongous ground sloths and beavers as big as black bears in North America up until about 10,000 years ago! I would love to see some of those.