Cirque du Gavarnie

The guys in Elgoibar recommended I visit the Cirque du Gavarnie on my way back to Paris, so I did. It's south of Tarbes in southern France - follow the road to Lourdes, then Luz Saint Sauveur. Stay the night there. Get up early, to beat any other tourists there. Make sure it's a beautiful, sunny day in early spring, so hopefully there won't be too many other people anyway. Wear good boots, becuase there'll be some ice and snow, and it's steep in places. Drive up to Gavarnie. Park. Bring water, extra batteries for the camera, and layers, since it'll be pretty cold. Walk up the trail, about an hour or so, to the Hotel du Cirque. Take lots of pictures. Return to the car via the scenic route. Drive to Paris, and enjoy Test Match Special on Radio 4 Long Wave (198 kHz). It was the day that Bangladesh beat India.

A highly recommended Saturday.

Dinner, anyone?

Gabi Restaurant, Elgoibar, Basque country, Spain. Evening of March 15th, 2007. Business Trip.

Course #1, local sausage and apple:

Course #2: Salad, with prawns and sesame-encrusted chicken

Course #3: Local fish cake with pear sauce

Course #4: Local fish

Course #5: Local wild rabbit

Course #6, dessert, was frankly disappointing - stewed strawberries with yoghurt ice-cream. However, after 1-5, it really had its work cut out...

Too many posts...

Not all the posts I just made come up - there are too many to fit on the opening page. To see them all, just click on the March 2007 archive, just over on the right and down a bit.

NEW FEATURE! Video! So, click on that March 2007 archive and prepare to see death-defying feats of sledding!

And, by the way, it always makes most sense to read these in reverse order - so click on the March 2007 Archive, then scroll to the bottom and view bottom-to-top.

Assorted pics

Sarah with Annie B

Jakey with his new lightsaber

Bub and Annie B relaxing

Saturday morning, still in jammies.

Bub and Anna

Bliz and the Yojick

We found my old "Learn to cook with mother" book, from which Catherine and I learned to make cookies, cakes and messes, and Elizabeth saw the "Henry the Hedgehog" recipe and wanted to give it a try. Here's the result! I helped a little with brainstorming what to make the spikes out of (cereal), but other than that, it's all her own work. I had fun lookig through the book and remembering making some of the recipes, and remembering that Hedgehog in Russian is "Yojick" (the J is pronounced kind-of like the French pronounce the J in Jean), so my dad, who learned Russian when doing his national service, always used to call them Yogick.

Bubba's birthday

...and seven days after Lael's birthday, it's Bubba's birthday! Two years old! He's just starting to talk, his cutest line is when you shout "Bubba!" he shouts back "What?" Oh, I guess you had to be there...

Lael's birthday

Seven days after Miah's birthday comes Lael's birthday (so they're the same age for a week!) We had a few friends over for cake.

New Ohioans

We now have three more folks at or house. Lael's brother Nehemiah (Miah) moved out from Arizona in January. He's living in our basement. Then Lael's brother Josh and his wife Sarah (check out their wedding pictures from ~November 2006 in the archive) moved out at the start of February. They are now residing in the bushouse (remember the bushouse? check out the earliest listings in 2005 for pictures!) which is currently parked outside our front door.

Anyway, February 5th was Miah's birthday, so we had a party for him.

We didn't have a "3" candle, so I cut the side off an "8", and we went with it...

Annie B asleep

Annie B loves the bouncing chair - so much, she'll even fall asleep in it!

Sledding videos

The weather was very cold through most of February - rarely making it to 20F during the day, and usually around 0F at night. We had a couple good snowfalls, so we went sledding! There's a reservoir close to us with a good slope, and steps to climb back up!

The videos are on YouTube - just click on each link below and you'll go to YouTube. Each video is ~ 10MBytes or less. To get back to this blog when it's done playing, just hit your browser's "back" button.

This first is of Richard, Jake, and Em sledding - watch for Flossie running down after us!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TpgyiQLg_8U

This one is of Josh with Bliz - again, watch for Flossie!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q6GIVZqVdFA

This one is of Bliz sledding

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sok-wh29u20