The week end which just passed we went to Strasbourg for two reasons:

  • Our friend Jose (and Marc's witness at our wedding if you were there) birthday party
  • The birth of our common niece: Mazarine.

But before that we had to arrive in Strasbourg. We were supposed to take the plane Thursday (the 18th of January in case you are not following!) evening. For that we took our half day off. All that morning there was a lot of wind, so we decided that we should leave the house quite in advance in case there would be some traffic (2 hours ahead of schedule, this detail is important).
We were right, we had to stop three times because of traffic jam, until we arrived at the junction of the M25 with the M11 which goes to the airport. The M11 was closed!!! Because we didn't have a detailed map of England, we stayed on the motorway to take the next exit. 20 minutes after we were stopped in a big traffic jam: 8 miles in 1h!!!!
We gave up when we went out of the traffic because we were at 30 minutes away from the airport, but the checking was closing in 5 minutes.
We stopped to a services area to walk a bit, and buy a detailed map of England ;)
We went home in one and a half hours (without any problem), we had just spent 6 and half hours in the car!! And during the time Arthur has been an angel. When we arrived at home at 8.30 pm I booked a single ticket for the next morning at 7 am!! Which means: wake up at 3.30 am to leave at 4 am. So obviously we went to bed straight away. We can call this kind of afternoon was a F...... afternoon!
But we made it to Strasbourg!!
The Friday, then, we went to see Mazarine. She is so cute! She barely cries and when she does, she sounds like a kitten who's meowing.
In the evening, we went to sleep to my brother Jerome and my sister-in-law's new flat that they just bought. It's really big and spacious. They are really well settle in it.
My nephew Iago who's 2 and half years old didn't want his mummy to look after Arthur and at one point he said to Sylvie while she was holding Arthur: “Thraw that!!”, but he played a lot with him and it was funny to see them playing together.
Saturday lunch time, we went to see our friends JB and Mimi (Jean-Baptiste and Myriam for their real names) who were leaving in Poland at one point: melted Mont d'or (a stinky cheese) on patatoes. DELICIOUS!
At the end of the afternoon, we went to my parent's house to get ready for Jose's surprise birthday party (which wasn't a surprise after all). The party was taking place at l'Escale (a social and cultural building) in La Robertsau (a neighbourhood in Strasbourg) near my parent's, so we went there with Arthur, this way our friend were able to see him and we brought him back to my parent's at around 9pm for them to look after him while we were still partying. He was knacked because he didn't have any nap the all afternoon, but he was really smiley and enjoyable and obviously he had no problem to fall asleep at my parent's place.
We spent a lovely evening. There was a really good buffet, we dance a lot and we saw a lot of friends we didn't see for a long time and also met some people we never saw before.
Went to bed at 4 am, the next morning was pretty hard for Marc. My father wanted to take care of Arthur, but he didn't know how to deal with the washable nappies so Marc wake up to show him, then he didn't know what to give him for breakfast, so Marc did it. Remark for next time: teach the grand parents to sleep longer!
For lunch, my mum made a Choucroute for me (a typical Alsacien dish). My sister Veronique, her daughter Melanie-Dior and my grand mother joined us. We drank coffee with my friend (and also witness to our wedding) Aurelie and her mother. They almost missed Arthur who slept for 3 and half hours!! A record for him, he slept for the day and the day before!
In the evening, we had dinner at Marc's parents house with his three sisters and their respective boyfriends (if you are following the Leroux-Carlucci saga, my brother Pierre-Emmanuel and his children was there too). So we saw Mazarine again a little bit! For dinner we had home made pasta and some meat ball. A real dietetic weekend!!
Monday lunch time, we ate at our friends Marie-Salome and Robert house with their daughter Camille. Simple menu, but delicious. There too Arthur had a long nap so when he woke up it was time to go back to Gambsheim (a small village where Marc's parents live!) to pack and have dinner.
The way back home passed without any problem with a little Arthur really excited instead of sleeping. He was partying in the plane with one steward and the air hostess. He slept well in the car back home!!
Here we go our long week end, but too short when we are going to Strasbourg. We didn't see half of the people we wanted to see like Cedric and Stephanie, my neighbours, Phil and Isa, Slim and Laurence, Christophe and Elizabeth, Cecile and Cedric... three days it's too short, but with this daily rhythm it's enough to not come back home died!!