Back in the early 1990's, we were blessed to have, thru the Nacel Exchange Program, a foreign student from France, who came for a month in the summer. We fell in love with our french "son", Sebastien. And we invited him to come back the next summer, which he did, on his own. Sebastien and his family also invited our son, John, to go back to France with him for a few weeks. The next year, they invited John and I for a visit too. We spent 15 wonderful days in France, mostly in Paris and Sevres ... memories I still cherish.
We kept in touch via mail and phone calls for a few years, then reconnected on Facebook recently. Sebastien is now married to Muriel, and they have 5 adorable children! They recently moved from Paris to New York, and will be in the States for about 2 - 3 years.
So when Kasey and I were planning our trip, we asked if we could stop in and see them... and they said YES!
I was so excited to see Sebastien again, and meet his wife and family...what a lovely family too! We drove through New York City area up to Mamaroneck ... (glad I don't have to drive THAT route often!).
Sebastien and Muriel took us to a wonderful French restaurant, Le Provencal Bistro, in downtown Mamaroneck for lunch. It was deeeeelicious!! I had wild mushroom soup and linguini seafood pasta with basil and spicy Provençal sauce....yum!!
It was fun to be with Sebastien and Muriel. Muriel had to leave to pick up the children from school, so Kasey and Seb and I walked around for a bit (however, my blisters from the NYC walks cut short our walk a bit, sad to say)...sorry Sebastien and Kasey. :(
So we headed back to their home, and arrived as the children were getting home from school. We had fun talking and getting to know the children more too. Kasey and I tried out some of the french words we remembered, and Noemie, Gabriel and Beryl entertained us, while Nathanael and Jean-baptiste did their schoolwork.
I'm afraid Kasey and I failed miserably at our french speaking (but we did remember our counting - 1-2-3's, and alphabet - A-B-C's)*lol*!
It was fun to hear how well the children had learned a lot of english in the two months that they have been in the USA!
Muriel had me read a book to Gabriel for part of his schoolwork, that was fun to interact with the children, as Noemie and Beryl also came over while I read.
Beryl played the piano for us, while Noemie and Gabriel danced around ..such fun kids!
And Muriel came to play with Beryl after Kasey and I were trying to remember the duet we often played as kids on the piano. Sebastien, Kasey and I had some good conversation, remembering old times, and laughing about the things we did back then.
Beryl and Noemie are also acrobats!! *lol*
Sebastien also entertained us on the piano ... when Sebastien was here with us, many years ago, he sometimes played, for fun, the Christ Church organ when I was there to work.
Check out the cute video of the kids ...
The children as they were about to eat dinner .... Noemie, Gabriel, Jean-baptiste, Beryl, and Nathanael.
Muriel fixed us a wonderful dinner too!! Very delicious! We enjoyed dinner and conversation and hated to see the evening end.
(Kasey has some photos I have yet to get to post here too of all of us before we left).
I hope they can all come to visit us sometime in Wisconsin... Thank you Sebastien and Muriel for our visit!! We loved seeing and meeting you all!! xoxox
Kasey and I headed on down the road for a couple of hours before finding a hotel, and look forward to continuing our Road Trip 2011 tomorrow...
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