Préfailles

Last week saw the Cassidy-Schwab household transplanted to the Loire-Atlantique town of Préfailles. Here we met up with assorted Cassidys, Nolans and Conneelys for a very pleasant holiday.

I can definitely recommend the accommodation if you're looking for a 9-bedroom self-catering place to house 12 adults, 5 children and two  dogs.

The photos are to be found here. I like this one of Rosalie particularly:

Liam of course could not leave the country without his Laufrad. Here he is posing in front of his favourite cousin Alannah.

and my dear wife was also on hand to do some insane smiling :-)

For those who claim that Germans are immune to humour, my brother-in-law proved otherwise by changing the locks on our house while we were away. The humorous part was of course to not tell us, so on our return at 3am I had a chance to impress my family by breaking in. What fun and games.

More mischief

Digging through recent photos it has become clear to me that my daughter is not not always the angel she at first appears. Take the photo below as an example. The photographer is pleading with her to be reasonable and not climb stairs at the tender age of 10 months, and all she can do is giggle her head off..

Mischievous Giggler

I've known for some time that my son has a mischievous streak to him. It wasn't until I captured the photographic proof below that I realised my daughter has inherited the same sense of humour...

Bike Trailer for kids

Transporting 2 children by bike brings a new set of challenges compared to a single child. With Liam alone we used a Römer Jockey child seat, as shown below (not actually ours, I grabbed the pic from eBay).

We have 2 of these, so theoretically we can bring both kids anywhere we want to cycle. However, for visits to the Freibad, where a significant amount of towels, floating toys, sandwiches and sand toys are required, or indeed any situation where the adult:child ratio is less than 1:1, this is not applicable.

Thus once Rosalie was old enough, and the weather sunny enough (=end April) we splashed out on a Chariot Captain XL, shown with contents below.

The kids love it, and I'm impressed too. It's far easier to pull it than I had feared, the suspension soaks up the bumps for them pretty well. Uphill is still a struggle, but fortunately there's not too much of that on our regular routes anyway. The luggage space is pretty impressive, all "necessities" for the swimming pool can be brought along, including the (deflated) life-size dolphin.

The only catch is that Liam is so keen on cycling himself these days that he refuses to be carted anywhere less than 5 kilometres distance...

Liam takes a cold bath

As the weather has warmed up in the last few weeks, we've put out Elektra's paddling pool, which is filled with cold water. She loves to jump in to cold water on her return from a walk in the sunshine.

However we hadn't counted on Liam's enthusiasm for a cold bath al fresco. He spotted the water, and within seconds his clothes were off and he was in.

Footnote: we tried the same trick with Rosalie, but she was not having any of it - anything less that 30C is out of the question for her...

Facebook, but for real

The video below is great - what happens when people transfer their online manners to offline situations...

Rosalie tries out her new Stokke Tripp Trapp

The advantage of being able to sit up while eating is clear - it's even easier to smear your food around the house...

This is what happens when three-year-olds dress themselves

 

Notice the detail of boots on wrong feet, the whole look is simply captivating. It's just bound to catch on.

Animoto Slideshow of Liam's birthday

A remix of photos set to music, courtesy of Animoto

Pavement Artist

About the same time as her brother was learning to cycle, Rosalie was using her artistic creativity to enhance the pavement outside our house. As the video below shows, the biggest issue was to first choose the right colour of chalk...

Liam learns to cycle

Liam has been using his Laufrad since his second birthday, and his bicycle plus stabilisers since Xmas 2007. Today was lovely and sunny, so against Heike's advice, I let him have a go without the Stützräder.

A video of how he got on is embedded below. He was hesitant at first, and agreed after an attempt or two that it'd be wise to wear a helmet. Then he suddenly got the hang of it, and was off cycling towards Rosalie at top speed!

I think I learned to cycle about age 6, so it can't be my natural talent that he's inherited :-)

Liam's third birthday

Liam celebrated his third birthday today, first at home with a candle-lit birthday breakfast, then with his classmates in the Kindergarten, then in the JumpInn indoor playground.

A slideshow of Picasa photos is embedded below:

My choice for US President

Everyone has an opinion about who to vote for in the US Presidential election. Apart of course, from Scott Adams, who considers himself not well-informed enough to vote, and me, who has not as yet made the effort to understand the candidate's policies.

Up to now I've been of the opinion that replacing GWB with just about any other US citizen would make a marked improvement. Indeed, opening the rules to allow Arnie into the White House would have my support, if only for the amusement value of a half governor, half cyborg combat chassis running the White House.

The candidates all seem agreeable enough on first inspection. McCain has been vocal in renouncing torture, Clinton obviously cares about the healthcare disaster, and Obama seems like a generally nice guy. But that's somewhat less than an understanding of their policies...

But now, thanks to an online questionnaire from Der Spiegel, I don't need to make the thinking effort - I have discovered that I support the policies of Barack Obama, followed by Hillary Clinton, then John McCain.

Here's my political profile:

Disclaimer: I'm disenfranchised enough already by being non-resident in my country of birth, and a non-citizen in my country of residence, so please don't point out the bleedin' obvious fact that this election has nothing to do with me ;-)

Uses for a butterfly net

I was intrigued by this picture of Liam taken at his grandfather's house in Walldorf... Is it just me or does he look like he wants to catch those deer heads in his butterfly net?

Alannah's Christening Party

We were in Dublin at the weekend for my niece Alannah's Christening party, or more correctly her welcoming party, as she didn't get any water poured over her.

Unfortunately my camera batteries  died in the church, so I didn't get any pictures of her there, but we got a few of the party back at my parents house later. It was great to see all the assembled aunts, uncles and cousins again, there's nothing like a good family bash for that.

Liam and Rosalie had a great time too - Liam is always thrilled when he meets up with his Irish cousins. Here are Rosalie and Oran enjoying a bit of sofa time together.

Definitely a fun weekend, and once again congrats to Alannah on her welcoming ceremony.