Timothée

Timothée is born on Wednesday December 16 at 4:30pm, 55 cm tall and weighing in at 3kg590. We are very happy! Everything went smoothly: the staff at Stanford hospital was great. We came back home on Friday afternoon, and we are now enjoying the first days of parenthood :-)

A short movie gives you a glimpse of his first three hours, and here are some pictures of his first days (as always, on the movie page, right click on the movie version and "save as").

MC & Goéric

New Albums

Just to let you know that a few albums are finally online.

Before Lieven left California, he still wanted to live a real backcountry experience in Yosemite ;-) So Lieven and Goéric, together with Michael and Alison, drove up on a Friday night and spent two days hiking and "climbing" to the summit of Half Dome.

August was the month of our first encounter with Asia. I went to Singapore for a conference, and then joined Goéric in Shanghai (Part 1, Part 2). We visited Inès and Tassilo who have been living there for a year.

Stay tuned: more albums coming soon... All the black and white pictures Goéric shot with his new medium format camera!

MC

Giro D'Vino

Yet another biking WE. This time in the Central Valley: a mostly flat organized ride through beautiful vineyards and local wineries. Maureen organized this trip in September and although we knew the weather is pretty dicey at this time of year we immediately signed up. And indeed, things looked pretty bad when the first "winter storm" (= some clouds and rain in "Californian") moved in on Friday. We were happy to watch a DVD in a sweet little cottage on Saturday as it rained all afternoon and night. On Sunday morning however the weather was pretty much perfect and everybody completed the 100km loop without any trouble (except one flat tire for me). Pictures here.

Goeric

San Francisco with Olivier

Our Napa tour ended on Monday with a visit in San Francisco. We parked the car on the Marin side of the Golden Gate. After crossing the bridge by bike, we visited the new Academy of Sciences (located in the Golden Gate Park). The museum reopened a month ago, with a new planetarium, a rain forest and a striking architecture including a "garden roof"... Quite interesting. Our day ended with a beautiful sunset while crossing the bridge back to the car.

For his last day in California, Olivier and I visited the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (Moma) and the Yerba Buena Gardens. The kids' play garden near the Moma is impressive: as always, Americans are experts in designing pedagogically interesting material for kids.

Goéric hopped on the Caltrain to join us in the evening for our traditional sushi dinner at Kabuto! And then it was already time for Olivier to pack his luggage...

Marie

Olivier in California

Hi all,

My brother came to visit us again! It's always very nice to have visitors, which are unfortunately quite rare :-(

He started his Californian tour with a few days in San Diego where two of his friends/colleagues had a conference. He visited the zoo, SeaWorld, as well as the UCSD campus and the Salk Institute in La Jolla. (If you want to see Goéric's old pictures of the Institute, click here.)

Last week-end we all went to Napa Valley. Beverly, my "American mom", had kindly reserved her condo there for us! We took a detour via Point Reyes, to show the lighthouse to Olivier. On Sunday we enjoyed a VERY long bike ride through the vineyards: from the resort to Calistoga, and back (total = 87km!). The landscape was beautiful, with the autumnal colors of the leaves. We managed to get a quick lunch in Calistoga before literally speeding back to be on time for a winery tour. Again thanks to Beverly, we had a private tour of the Rudd winery, as well as a delightful wine tasting! It was a great experience. And after such a long day, the hot tub and swimming pool in the resort were more than welcome :-)

Marie

Tour for Woodside

We did it! Two weeks ago, we participated in the "Tour for Woodside" with Lieven, Frank and Felicity. It was a lot of fun. It is a long bike ride in the area organized by the public high school of Woodside. Three rides are proposed: 32 miles, 55 miles and 100 miles, with rest stops along the way. It was funny to see the students greeting their teachers. We "modestly" ;-) went for the 55 mile ride which still had a total of 4,160 feet (= 1260 meters) of climbing! Lieven bailed out for the additional 20 mile ride to get to and back from the start. Our total mileage for the day thus amounted to 75 miles (= 118 km)... Enjoy the pictures, and maybe we will be back next year for the 100 miles :-)

MC and Go

Fourth of July

Hey,

We spent a very relaxing Fourth of July week-end. We enjoyed Independence Day at Shoreline Lake in Mountain View: picnic, followed by some sailing! Three boats, for the 12 of us. Before coming back for the firework, we played "Celebrities" at Lieven's place. To avoid traffic, we biked back to Shoreline: the ride goes along side the Bay, which at sunset is beautiful. We arrived on time for the firework as you can see on the picture!

MC and Go

Long distance call

Using Skype Marie is able to "visit" her little nephew Jean-Pierre about once a week :-) It's already hard for our generation to imagine the world without these technologies... But then, what about Jean-Pierre when he'll be our age!

Goeric