Spring Break 2019

1/3: The guided tour of one hour of the Pentagon in Washington DC was a little boring. Our group was quite large, and the one and a half mile walk was nothing more than a quick glance of the building and its belongings.

2/3: Serge had reserved tickets (online at 6:30 am) to visit the National African American History and Culture museum. That was the only Smithsonian museums we had not seen. It opened its doors recently in 2016. I just loved it and would really encourage anyone to go visit.

3/3: Visit of the Phillips collection, a world-class collection of more than 4000 works of modern and contemporary art. The painting of Renoir "Luncheon of the Boating Party" which Duncan Phillips bought in 1923 was the most interesting to me. Pierre-Auguste Renoir painted his real-life friends, including his new girlfriend, Aline Charigot. While everyone at the luncheon seems focused on flirting, Renoir shows Charigot looking at her dog, perhaps because dogs are a traditional symbol of loyalty.

That evening, we also went to the movies and saw Green Book. We really liked it and would recommend to watch to everyone. It is about a working-class Italian-American bouncer who becomes the driver of an African-American classical pianist on a tour of venues through the 1960s American South.

5/3: Visit of Christine David, a Belgian artist living in Lancaster. I went with Marian Brandt, a lady whom I met at Mt. Cuba last summer. 

6/3: We went to "The Upside", a remake of the 2012 French film "The Intouchables". Although the movie was inspired by a true story and I liked the plot, I honestly appreciated the French version so much more. It has a better flow. The showing of the movie was a little tricky, there was only sound. Serge had to ask twice to replay because of technical problems and therefore got two free movie tickets.

Here are some pics:

When Midland comes alive thanks to the Dow Tennis Classic

Too bad we only have this tournament once a year. There is nothing else here in this town. Especially not without kids. 

Two years ago, we hosted the Belgian player An-Sophie Mestach. Unfortunately, I never got to see her play. While she was playing her first game, that she lost, I was teaching French at Delta college. I was so bummed. This was not going to happen to me twice!

This year, we were lucky to be able to host Yanina Wickmayer (once number 12 in the world) and her new coach Germain Gigounon who just stopped his tennis career as a player.

The week before she played in Midland, Yanina participated in a tournament in California. I can't imagine how hard it must be to go directly from warm temperatures to extreme cold ones. During that particular week, Michigan was suffering under brutally cold temperatures. Consequence: No school for the whole week. So we strongly advised our guests to continue their travel on Sunday night as they did manage to get to Chicago but were stuck there because of flight cancellations. Luckily, they did not ignore our advice and were lucky to stay just a couple of hours ahead of the snow storm. They arrived safely early Monday morning.

We enjoyed the games throughout the whole week starting on Monday.

Yanina stranded in the quarter finals (single match) and the semi finals (double match). Her partner in the doubles (see photos below) was Christina McHale. Her coach Peter Lucassen is from the Netherlands.

It was such a joy to watch her play six times in total. We asked her to sign our big tennis ball with already signatures of Kim Clijsters and Justine Henin (both players were once number one in the world).

Our happy place on Marco Island

Happy and healthy 2019 for everyone!

We keep the family tradition of getting together for Christmas high, so this year was our 6th time. Rainier stayed with us the whole time and Gauthier arrived on Thursday before Christmas and stayed until Saturday, the day we all left.
As usual, we had a smooth flight (2,5 hours) and arrival in Fort Myers. Then, we only had a 50' car drive to the island. The weather was a little colder than last year, between 20 and 25 degrees Celsius and we only had two days of rain.
The very first day of our vacation, we met with realtor Dawn Snyder to see some properties on different spots on the island and we have found our happy place. Stay tuned!

One immediately slows down its pace on an island. Walking and/or running on the beach, shelling, biking, reading and sun bathing are activities that relax you in no time.

This year, we went on a manatee tour with a guide that was just an average experience. Gauthier and I went paddle boarding for one hour, the boys went jet skiing the last day of the vacation but we all learned something new: how to make a gun safe and could also practice some shooting. Our instructor, an Irish man from Belfast had been in the British Army for 10 years and had been a cop for about 20 years. Safety was key and he took all the time he needed/wanted to explain us all about gun safety.

Christmas eve was a lot of fun, we all enjoyed the buffet in the famous JW Marriott hotel. The many Christmas decorations like the huge trees inside the hotel really brought us into a good mood.

Enjoy some family pics!