La Petite Cousine scares us all when she pretends to be a ghost!
Les Cousines taking a break from the fun and games. La Petite Fille, of course, mugs it up for the camera! She's such a ham nowadays.
La Petite Fille takes a peak out from under the fort only to duck back inside once the "monster" comes a looking!
Les Cousines make a run for base once found!
“I want to sleep on the couch!” exclaimed La Petite Fille at 6:30 AM Christmas morning.
Papa Trio took her by the hand and dutifully staggered out to the living room only to find that Onc Pierre was there. We established ourselves on the couch while Pierre did something to a computer… it is a family website so we’ll leave that right there. La Petite Fille took out her Christmas Eve gift — Boggle Junior — and began to play. Boggle Junior is the perfect gift for her: she knows all of the words and can spell them. She loves playing with the lettered dice and spelling out the words on the card.
Shortly — but shortly is a relative term and I’m not saying how long — everyone else got up. There was the great mystery of whether anyone was up at the Ayer’s Annex in order to retrieve sugar for coffee. Then there was the coffee, but first things first. L’onc kept tiptoeing across the hall to listen at the door, but to no avail, no clue was reveled. Eventually, La Femme put an end to the mystery by calling and discovering indeed that they were up.
The coffee provided by Les Suites is awful too weak by far. La Femme made the command decision to open one of Giang’s gifts and raid it for the Vietnamese coffee maker and coffee and a satisfying coffee was had by one and all.
The gifts were brought over and the opening commenced. La Tante played Pere Noel and La Petite Cousine, the elf. Each gift was handed out and opened. Much revelry was expressed by one and all as we all tried not to notice the absence of Grandmaman and Grandpapa. A break was called at 1o:00 AM and the remainder of the gifts were left for later which turned into tomorrow.
After much negotiation La Femme and La Tant left to visit Grandmaman and Grandpapa. Les Cousines and L’onc Grant went swimming leaving Papa Trio to fend for himself, so of course, he immediately set about wasting time and not calling his mom for Christmas.
22 December John & Joan’s House Burlington, ONOur last day in Burlington was a busy one! We got up at the crack of dawn and got down to business! Well, almost… The jet lagged members of the household were up at midnight. Papa Trio read and worked on all things computer and went off to bed at 2:30 AM to find Maman & Bebe Trio wide awake. Maman Trio had had enough and took the opportunity to give Bebe Trio some melatonin, which worked as advertised. We slept until 6:00 AM for Maman Trio and 7:30 AM for Papa & Bebe Trio.
Sun rise over the backyard at John & Joan's
Stephanie and Nathalie got up some time right through there with Grant in short order. But Gabrielle is a teenager and was up around 11:00 AM.
Nathalie cutting up fruit... and I mean fruit
Stephanie working on her breakfast
The rest of us had this and that for breakfast. Nathalie cut up lots of fruit: cantaloupe and pineapple. We made several bowls of cereal and yogurt. Plenty of toast to go around. Coffee. And Stephanie made eggs.
Mes Belle Filles making breakfast
Around 12:00 PM we headed off to the MALL for some shopping and lunch. Les Doux Petite Cousine conked out pretty early, i.e. right after eating lunch and Nathalie returned home with them for naps all around.
The rest of us stayed and were forced to endure Christmas mall. Okay, some of us enjoyed it. I’ll leave it to your imagination as to regarding who. In addition, we saw Santa, but we didn’t wait in the impossibly long line to have pictures taken with the boozy-breathed bugger. Okay, I made that last part up. I didn’t get close enough to him to smell his breath, see any empty liquor bottles rolling around his feet, or watch him stagger around the viewing area shouting obscenities at small children. But it certainly would’ve been fun if I had and makes a nice story.
Suffice it to say that things were bought.
On the way home Les Gros Filles stopped at a place to time their slap shots with radar — hey it’s Canada. La Femme and I went to a bookstore and had a quiet coffee.
Returning home there was much hand-wringing over dinner and leaving for Ottawa tomorrow that lucky me being a non-blood related non-French speaker didn’t have to participate much in. But, got to hang out with Les Doux Petite Cousine and draw groovy pictures, mediate sharing-based disputes, give baths, generally have fun, and be generally amused at the mystifying goings on surrounding him.
The rest of the evening is a blur of dinner — a big thank you to everyone in Hearst who gave food to the Chauvins to make this difficult Christmas just a little easier. What a lovely and moving gesture that helped tonight and will help many nights to come — movies, “Get Smart,” packing suitcase, packing suitcases and food into the suburban, and doing laundry.
Finally, the day is done and thankfully we are all in our beds… except me, I’m posting this and finishing the laundry, but that’s jet lag for you.
Once again, a very big heartfelt thank you to John & Joan for opening their home to us. It made getting over jet lag a lot easier! Be sure and check the photo gallery of day two in Burlington!
21 December John & Joan’s HouseWe are now safely ensconced in Burlington thanks to the hospitality of La Femme’s “in-laws,” John & Joan.
By the time we had arrived, we had traveled for about 30 hours. That time is from awakening to arrival at John & Joan’s. We had an eight hour layover in Hong Kong International (pics are here).
The flight was uneventful. La Petite Fille was never a problem. I always introduce myself to our neighbors and ask them to let me know if she bothers them. There were two fellows sitting in front of us who were very nice and talkative — thankfully they talked to each other (they were strangers not travel mates)and not to us — and they reported not a disturbance at flight’s end.
Air Canada has a very nice entertainment system on its long haul flights, and La Petite Fille was able to amuse herself by watching G-Force three times! She also drew using a clever book giving instructions on how to outline your hands and turn them into various animals and things. La Femme watched a documentary on food production — it is a Canadian airline after all, I think there is some national law about including that kind of fare along with French translations of everything. I watched District 9. That was it for our viewing pleasure. There isn’t much time for that kind of thing when you’re traveling with a four year old.
La Femme’s overhead light refused to turn off once she turned it on. Luckily, she had a sleep mask and was able to sleep soundly in spite of it. The flight attendants were good about it and tried to fix the problem twice. La Petite Fille had a hard time falling asleep, though. She is an unfortunate size: too tall to curl up in the seat and too short to be comfortable reclining to sleep. She tried putting her head in my lap, but that didn’t work. She tried laying on me, and I hoped that would work; it didn’t. Finally, I fell asleep and woke to find her sleeping: her head half on my lap and half on a pillow, her feet wedged into maman.
All-in-all it was one of the easiest trips I’ve ever taken and especially as the Trio.
Of course we’re jet lagged. I led the charge by getting up at 2:45 AM. Les Filles got up about 30 minutes later. We went to bed at 10:00 PM, so that wasn’t too bad all-in-all.
Les Filles all snug, cozy & awake in front of the fire: Jetlagged at 4:00 AM
We’re traveling. We’re on our way to Ottawa for Christmas.
During our layover here, we had the scare of our lives. I’m still trembling, and when I think of it, I’m sick all over again…
You see, it is cold here, and we have no winter clothing. So, once we landed, we began shopping for a sweater or something for La Petite Fille, but there are no children’s clothes other than souvenir t-shirts.
We were in a clever shop of inscrutable Japanese tiny gadgets when it happened. Innocently enough, La Femme offered La Petite Fille a pair of plaid earmuffs. Curious, La Fille let them be put on her ears. Then, ran to the mirror to see herself. She stood there admiring the cuteness reflected back at her and then… then… she said it.
“I want mittens!”
At first I couldn’t believe my ears. Surely, I had heard wrong! Mittens?!? Matching mittens?!? I thought we had at least five more years before facing down this horror: coordinated outfits, matching accessories, deliberate planned cuteness, refined taste! The horror! The horror!
Luckily, the earmuffs were too big, and La Petite Fille has a short attention span. We were able to slip them quietly back onto the shelf.
We had a first, though. La Petite Fille successfully shop-lifted a measuring tape. We were sitting and having lunch when I looked over at the luggage cart and spied it sitting precariously in the gap in the waft and weave of the metal basket. Humiliated, I took it back. The sales girl seemed non-plussed.
La Petite Fille loves the automatic sliding people movers. She loves to stand on them. She loves to walk along as we glide. She loves to walk against the tide staying in one place. She wants to take every opportunity to ride the sidewalk.
During lunch, I kept La Petite Fille entertained while La Femme sought food. She returned regaling us with all of the good food that was coming our way: Dumpling soup, honey-glazed chicken, iced tea. It sounded good and I was hungry. Then the food arrived and La Femme remarks almost casually, “Oh, is that what they meant by chicken claws.”
Confused I look over at the basket but the contents are unrecognizable beyond their golden brown sticky honey glaze. Seeing the confused look on my face, she continued. “I didn’t know they would be feet!” Hunh!
SSIS Christmas Charity Bazaar! Today we went to the bazaar and it was so much fun! Let me show you what I did. First we got our faces painted: Dad, Mehar, & me! 
