Christmas 2006

For Christmas, Claire prepared Pheasant with Blueberry sauce, Truffade, and "Coquille Saint-Jacques" as well as a nice Chocolate cake (Buche de Noel).
I made 2 breads, Polka and Walnuts plus a Brioche.
The kids waited for the presents. They were not disappointed by Santa Claus since they behaved well during the year :)

Polka bread.
Brioche Vendeenne.

The setup with a nice Pouilly.

The pheasant with the sauce.

The buche au chocolat.

Benoit and Lucas waiting for Santa Claus.

Star Wars Lego, you cannot be wrong.

The kids put at work.
Live is good with all those presents.

Bear Valley - Ski trip

We are back to the Bear Valley slopes. The season has just began and the snow is mostly ice which make it more difficult for snowboarders. Lucas and Benoit are learning very fast. Benoit can jump and grind. Lucas is so fast that I can barely follow him.

Bear Valley - Ski trip

We spent one week on vacation at Bear Valley just before Christmas. Only few slopes were open because of the lack of snow but that did not stop us from skiing and snowboarding.

Lucas and Benoit did very good. They are ready to go to the blue slopes soon. We stayed at Tamarack lodge few miles from the Bear Valley.

Bear Valley ski resort is south of lake Tahoe. The resort is family oriented which is good with our kids.

Tamarack lodge is very close from the slopes. They were not busy so we enjoyed the lodge for almost ourselves.
The kitchen is very handy.

Benoit snowboards...

Lucas-la bomba skies.

They have one room just for kids.

Benoit is reading some Scooby-Doo story for Lucas and Claire.

Christmas tree

Christmas is around the corner. The time has to come to cut the Christmas tree so Santa can drop the gifts for the kids.

We drove Empire Grade north the University of Santa Cruz. The tree farm is a great place for kids to go, they can pick and choose their tree, cut it and drag it to the car.


The farm has few chicken so the people from the city can see what they look like. Lucas and Benoit did not care since they spent much time in the farm in France.

This place is huge and must have several thousands trees to choose from.

Lucas was in charge of the saw (pretty scary).

Benoit was in charge of the trailer.

Benoit is ready to pick up the fallen tree.

Right in target.

Lucas is fooling around on this antique tractor.


The tree goes through the tree-machine so it is easier to carry around.

Benoit and Lucas are carrying the tree to the car. Nice team work.

Done for this year, now, let's wait for the "pere noel".

Castle Rock with Brian and Rob

Brian, Rob and I went to Castle Rock about 2 weeks ago. I could not even remembered the last time I climbed at Castle Rock. It must have been one and half year ago.

The conditions were just perfect with a chilly sunny day. We got started at Indian Rock warming up on the ash boulder.

Few weeks back, while hiking with the kids I noticed that untouched boulder. We decided to check it out. We put 3 new routes in the V1, V2 range. Rob got the first ascent (FA) from the City Wok, Brian from the left City Wok and myself from the right City Wok.

If you ever want to guess why we called that route City Wok, you must watch South Park :)




Rob on City Wok













Rob on City Wok reaching for the sloper











Brian on City Wok crimping the sloper!












Brian starting City Wok route

Happy family

Finally my new fish eye lens has arrived! The kids got completely exited once they saw the distorted images. We all had a good time.




Lucas and Benoit












They are getting so big so quickly.












What happened to Benoit?












and Lucas?












Happy family