More Thanksgiving Pictures

These are from Michigan where Monique, John, Brigitte and Arsen gathered, with Katie looking on to give thanks. Here are a few pictures.

First, the evening before was pie baking and stuffing preparation time, as we raised a glass to wish Michelle a Happy Birthday from a distance.





While the turkey was baking, we had deviled eggs, olives, and cheesies. We added the pies to the picture because they looked so nice. John sure makes lovely pies!



And then, right on time, the turkey was ready. Too bad John was making such a silly face...




We foolishly neglected to take a picture of all of us around the table using the automatic camera control as our Parisian family did. But, Monique got a nice shot with John and Brigitte at the table.



After dinner we headed next door to join Wendy, her mother, Ann, her brother Jed, and her little girls Anna and Lexi for pie and coffee.







It was a lovely day.
We hope yours was too.

Happy Thanksgiving from Paris

Bon appétit!

A close-up of Max who has now reached the age of discretion...

And a belated Happy Halloween from Stella...

Soon Michelle will penetrate the Google wall and post here ad libitum—as we who speak Neanderthal might say—but this time she lacked the time.

Happy Birthday Michelle!

So who is this lovely young girl?

Why, it's the birthday girl herself.
Our dear Michelle, just a few years ago...

Still Red Although the Frost Has Come

Red to the left of us...

... and red to the right of us.

November Shopping Trip

The men try on hats...

The ladies try everything, not least—well, you find the object in this pic...

The place was Loehman's on Orchard Lake Road. The challenge was to find the right sizes...

Footnote to Halloween

At our Wolverine Lake Pumpkin Carving Night, Brigitte was too busy separating pmpkin seeds and helping with the cleaning to advance all the way to the Grand Finale—the carving of her own pumpkin. Never mind. Halloween night she decorated three little left-over pumpkins in a hurry so that our own visitors would have something to behold. As it happens, we left our camera at Monique's and didn't get it back until yesterday. So herewith what might be labeled as a “Historic Reconstruction” of the event!

A Michigan Halloween on Wolverine Lake

A few pictures of our annual pumpkin carving get-together, a favorite event around here. This year we combined this event with birthday cake and gifts for Monique's birthday. However, as she was the photographer, a roll she likes, there aren't any pictures of the birthday portion of the evening. It was fun!

We'll start with pictures of the finished pumpkins.


In the dark....


and in the daylight.

These were carved, clockwise, starting on top, Monique, Anna, Arsen, John, Wendy, and John. Busy knife, there, John! The hearts, we think, have it!

And here are a few of the artists at work.











Hummnn... looks like we have mostly pictures of the cleaning of the pumpkins, which was fun. Let's see, any of actual pumpkin carving?

Ah, here are a couple of the artists really carving away:






And there was chili too. It really wasn't very spicy as Monique made it to be enjoyed by people who have varying levels of tolerance to spiciness. John decided to spice up his bowl a bit and then forgot to stir before eating so that first bite was... HOT.



In addition to chili and two beautiful and tasty cakes—yes TWO cakes!—there were...



COOKIES!

A very fun evening, indeed. And, we can not conclude a Halloween posting without a picture of some costumes. Here are Anna and Lexi in their trick-or-treating duds, Anna the Avatar and Lexi the butterfly fairy.



All for now.
Cheers!