Mathieu's B-day

OHHHHHHHH, fire.....

Mathieu's 1st Birthday

It has been a crazy week leading up to Mathieu's birthday. He had a cold last week which turned into two ear infections. Last Friday we has to pull him out of day care because he was so down. It was definitely a bit scary since we had never seen him so sick before. He went through one really bad night but felt much better on Saturday which was just in time for Sanoe's (Mathieu's friend) 1st birthday. We took some pics at Sanoe's birthday and some more for Mathieu's birthday, oh, and there are couple from a picnic the same weekend, so take a look at "Our Photos" for the link. I will leave you with one here on the page to hold you over.

Nimes

They stole our baby.

Matt and Mahe

Fun in the tub and who will get up to the top of the slide first.

Weekend with family

We spent last weekend near Nimes in the south of France visiting Mathieu's cousin Mahe (pronounced Ma ay). The weather was beautiful, as is typical of the south. We spent a bit of time Nimes, known for bullfighting culture and then some time in the small village where Val's cousin lives. The village and the area was so beautiful that we will be going back soon. Even better yetm it only takes 1 hour and 1/2 to get down there on the train. Here are a couple of the pics I really liked from our trip.

Nothing Like Musilac

Well, for all of you who have never heard of Musilac which is most of the world, it is a 3 day music festival held in Aix Les Bains each summer. You can't beat the location since it is right on the lake overlooking the mountains. There are 2 stages that face each other. They are about a soccer field length apart so there is plenty of room. Only one stage is live at a time and within 5 minutes after a band finishes their set the second stage starts up so it is very well organized. You basically just walk across the field to the other stage or turn around depending on where you are standing.

We have been going to Musilac for 3 years now and have yet to be disappointed. The first year I didn't know any of the bands except Simple Minds (80s band) and I wasn't really excited about going. But once Simple Minds took the stage they really took me back and they put on a great show. The same night we saw a band called Cali which, once again did nothing for me but he put on an even better show. He actually crowd surfed from one stage to the other (think crowd surfing the length of a soccer field) and then started singing on that stage.

The second year we saw the Pixies and Muse. Both were excellent shows and I was really excited to see Muse so it made the experience all the better.

This year was a bit different. Once again I was a little less excited but Valerie wanted to go since Vannessa Paradis was performing. However, Patti Smith and the Babyshambles also were playing so I thought they might be fun to see. Having Mathieu with us makes everything a bit more challenging, however Val's uncle lives right by the festival site and he volunteered to watch our him for the night.

Anyway, when we arrived they were predicting rain so we decided to walk down early with Mathieu in a stroller and just take a look at the festival. We hadn't bought tickets yet since we knew we could buy them on site and plus we were afraid it was going to rain. The festival started at 4pm but we planned on going around 8pm depending on the rain and since the shows we wanted to see were playing late evening.

At the festival Val went up to the window to check out the tickets. They said they had plenty at 49 euros/piece. Val wanted to buy right away but I wasn't so excited looking at the sky above. I told her we didn't need to buy them until 8pm that way we wouldn't waste 50 euros if it started raining. So we decided to sit down and people watch for a while right by the ticket booth. Well, 15 minutes later this woman comes up to us and asks us if we were going to the show and if we had tickets. Val said we were a bit hesitant because of the rain. The woman replied, "here are 2 tickets, enjoy the concert." I asked if they were real and she said yes, go have fun and enjoy Patti Smith. Val and I looked at each other and all we could say was thank you. We had just saved 100 euros and now we didn't care if it rained or not.

So, we decided to go in for 30 minutes and after we would take Mathieu back home and come back. However, there was one small problem they don't let you reenter once you exit. I went up and asked to verify this and he said no. Val decided to go to another gate and ask and the guys were really nice and said just come back to us. I don't know what it was, but everything was in our favor.

Well, to make an already long story short. After we returned from dropping Mathieu off we went to watch Patti Smith. If you haven't seen her, I recommend it. She sings with her heart and is very emotional. She put on a great show. Next we watched the Babyshambles. They were a bit disappointing. The music was good but Pete slurred out only a few words during the show and never really acknowledged the crowd. Finally the last show Vanessa Paradis was the most interesting of all. About 5 songs in it started pouring rain. All of sudden the sound went out. The band stopped playing and that was it. However, they felt really bad. They all stayed on stage for about 5 minutes waving goodbye and working the crowd. The concert promoter had to announce that the show would have to stop there because of the rain. By then I had had enough and was ready to go home. All in all this year's festival will definitely be memorable and it was FREE.