'Hanging with friends'

The BEST part of going back to the United States is that we get 'to hang with' friends! I just LOVE seeing all our old buddies but also making some new friends along the way... isn't that just the greatest??!!

YES it IS!!

So I met up with my good old DUTCH buddies Marion, Suzy and Gonneke and we went out for dinner. Just talking Dutch was the best... we could share secrets outside on the patio and nobody around us could understand us... and we had some saucy talks.. and laughed and laughed and the people around us were looking at us, but didn't have a clue what we were talking about!

FUN, FUN, FUN!!!

Isn't that what vacation is all about??!! Having fun!!

Suzy, me, Gonneke & Marion. My good old Dutch buddies! All traveled around the world and ended up in Ridgefield!

Then another surprise invitation, which was so fun! Bob and Val where we were staying have some friends in their street who moved to Ridgefield just about the time when we left Ridgefield and since then they are hanging out with each other.

Well, the week we were there the Welby family invited us all for an impromptu dinner. These moments I cherish, because most of the times these kind of spontaneous invites are the BEST!!

And this one was GREAT!!

We had a wonderful evening with Allan and his wife Sandra, 2 of their kids Adam & Adriana who baby sits the Liu girls all the time and tonight kept all the girls busy with bead work and other crafts while the adults hung out and had a FAB dinner!!

SO NICE!!





Look at these sweet faces, aren't they the cutest!!



What a few great evenings we had in Ridgefield, but our time is over there and we are now in Bethany Beach, Delaware.
More to come!

Isn't summer just the best?
Love, M xx

Concert in the Park & Birthday cake

Since I was just 1 week in Ridgefield and there are so many friends I wanted to see we decided to meet all on Tuesday evening at the concert in the park that is a weekly event in the summer.

So much fun to hang out with all my 'old' buddies!! It is so much fun to be in Ridgefield in the summer :-)

Everybody brings chairs, blankets, some food and drinks and meet here on Tuesdays.

While the moms & dads enjoy some drinks the kids are off to play at the playground.



My good friends Liz, Suzy, me and Val. And Emmy and Jasmine having fun with cake.

Me, Alex, Liz and Val.

Alex, Patsy, Liz and me again, having fun in the park.

Anna & JJ. Wow, after seeing all the kids after 2 years they have grown so big!

Mia & JJ.

Ella, Anna & JJ.

It was also Emmy & Ella's 9th Birthday that day, so back at home we celebrated with 2 different cakes and cupcakes!

Best buddies Emmy & Jasmine and a red velvet cake.

And also best buddies Ella & Juliet with double chocolate cake. Each had their favorite :-)

And big sister Mia with the twins, so good to see each other again. It was as if we had never left!!

What a fun day, seeing all my friends again! We clicked all immediately again and had such a good time!!
We definitely need to stay in touch!!

Friends are precious!!
Mireille xx

Graduation Galore...

We had 2 other friends who had their graduations this week.

Sisters Alexandria and Sarah Sabido did both their graduation. Alex for Middle school and Sarah for Elementary school. So we went to their party as well! So much fun to be there for the special occasion!

Alex got even a special recognition from the principal, so we were all so proud and crying when they called her name after this beautiful speech. Such a special moment to be there!!

The Sabido kids with JJ & Jezz. From L to R: Jasmine, Sarah, Juliet, Alexandria and cutie pie Liam.

Sarah with the twins, good friends! We always love to visit when in Ridgefield!

Proud parents Alex & Patsy with their beautiful daughters.

Then we bumped into Nicole, another friend of us, who also graduated.

Our week in Ridgefield was definitely all about graduating!!

Well done girls, now up to the next stage of your school years!
Love, Mireille xx

Back with friends, back in Ridgefield!

The first week we were back in the USA, we stayed with our good friends Bob & Valerie and their daughters Mia, Emmy & Ella. These are the best friends of JJ & Jezz, so we all had a blast seeing them again after 2 years!

But when we arrived in Ridgefield all the kids in Connecticut still had school, so we asked Barlow Mountain, their old elementary school if our girls could join a day and sit in the class with their friends. So fun to be back in their old school, the kids had so much fun!!

Mia, Ella, JJ, Emmy & Jezz, so happy to be together again!

While at school they ran into an old classmate and friend; Gina.

Mrs. Moran, Jasmine's kindergarten teacher was still there as well, so fun to see her again!

And Juliet met her Pre-School teacher, Mrs. Schumacher again, so much fun to see their teachers again!

Mia graduated that week from Elementary school, so we had a party at school!

Watching Mia's graduation.

JJ & Jezz had flowers for Mia.

Proud parents Val & Bob with Mia, the first one to graduate.

Mia & Trey, a good friend. They look like a married couple, said Juliet... haha! Even their clothes match :-)

This was the first graduation we celebrated this week, but 2 more to follow. LOL we didn't realize that we would be here to celebrate all these graduations, but it turned out that all our old friends were graduating this year. So fun to be here for these special occasions!!

I am finally settled a bit and uploaded all my pictures, so more to follow soon!
How is your vacation?
Are you enjoying the sun, sea and sand, or just some down time??

We are having a blast seeing all our friends again!
Mireille xx

Can't wait!!

To see this bunch of FUN kids again!!



By the way don't they all look like sisters??

When we moved to Ridgefield, CT in August 2003 the girls were just 16 months old. And since this was a new area for us, I needed to make some friends. So I went immediately to this mommy and me music group and saw a DAD there with his twin girls, same age as JJ and Jezz. So we started talking and planned to meet. But it didn't happen at first. So I just did my thing and I guess he did his thing... till we went to our first Halloween parade in town and there I see this little girl with EXACTLY the same outfit as JJ in a stroller, and the face almost looked identical to Jezz.... you guess who it was.... the father with the twins I had met at the Mommy and me music group. So now I was not planning to let them go without any contact details!! LOL

So we hooked up and the rest is history!!

The other twin girls, just 2 months younger than JJ and Jezz are called Emmy and Ella and with their 20 month old sister Mia we have been friends since that first Halloween in 2003. The girls grew up with each other the 5 years we were in Ridgefield, and we MISS them dearly. But we are so EXCITED to go and visit them now next month!! We will be there the day Emmy and Ella turn 9, so a big surprise party!!

I guess you go through life making many friends year after year, but at least for MY girls, their FIRST FRIENDS are THEIR TRUE FRIENDS and they still are always talking with so much love for these kids, so we make the effort to go back and back to see them and to keep the friendship alive!! And I hope to keep that alive no matter where we move, we will be back to see them and hang out with them. 2 years ago we went back and spend a vacation together on Cape Cod and now we will go back again and vacation together, how fun, we CAN'T WAIT!!

A funny detail: when we would arrange play dates or in the winter we would go and let the kids play in the Mall the dad (was in between jobs at that time) so he would do the play dates with his 3 girls and then me with JJ and Jezz, you would see the stares of the other people.... You could see them thinking how can this couple have 5 girls under the age of 3 and handle this?? Because they all looked like each other, although the Liu kids are half Chinese / half Puerto Rican. Nobody saw that difference, and honestly you can't see it.

We would go to NYC together and do DIM SUM or planting trees on Earth Day...



Jezz, Ella, Mia, JJ & Emmy.

Or rent a house together in Cape Cod and spent a whole vacation together having fun, good food, magnificent drinks and enjoy the sun, sea and sand!!

All together in our beach house in Marshfield, directly on the sea. Having lobster and drinks was the ultimate dinner!!

Emmy, Ella, JJ, Jezz & Mia looking for crabs between the rocks.

Just the 2 sets of twins, Ella & JJ and Jezz & Emmy selling lemonade.

Fun memories while cleaning up the beach!!

We had some good times together, and we will soon again!! I can't wait!!
Soon we will be there guys!!

Have a great day,
Mireille xx

Part 6 ~ Ridgefield & NYC

The last 2 weeks of my vacation we've spent in Ridgefield, Connecticut where we used to live and the Big Apple, my favorite city!!

It was so great to see all our friends again, we had some grand parties on the beach at Rainbow Lake our old hood. Although I have no pictures of that... ;-(

We stayed at our dear friends the Liu's house for most of the time, and some other good friends the Cope family where we also had a girl's night out: a Twilight movie night on the big screen. (Also no pictures)

We had a few parties; a 'welcome back' and a 'goodbye again' party at the Sabido's house hold, which is always fun to hang around!

It was just great to have some fab meals, hang out and have some wine with good old friends. We really missed them all, and it was just great to see them again.

The last 3 days I booked a hotel right in the heart of Manhattan and the girls and me met some friends, hung out in the City and enjoyed the food, the sights, the smells, the shopping.... it was good to be back!!

My dear old friend Espen who lives in Soho and his girlfriend Helen, came to visit us in Ridgefield for an evening out of Tapas in Georgetown... it was yummy!!

We met Jen, my dear blogging/email and now met in real life friend! And we had the grandest lunch in the City and just chatted... we could have talked for hours more. The girls really warmed up to her towards the end, so it would have been nice to see each other again.

We also spent a whole day with one of my best friends Marion and her 2 adorable sons Max and Sam in the Big Apple. Wow, these kids were troopers... we walked and walked and they never complained.. all of them!!

But they couldn't complain, because we had promised them a visit to the biggest toy store in town... FAO Schwartz. They were so excited!

Then we had lunch at Mars 2112, a fun Alien themed restaurant where you enter by space ship, this was a real treat for the kids.... not so much for Marion and me...

On the way back we walked past Jekyl and Hyde, JJ wants to visit this next time we go to the Big Apple!

We met Sponge bob Square Pants, Mickey Mouse, and some other 'celebrities' and of course they had to pose with some of them!

JJ and Jezz met a friend in Central Park, and look at their gorgeous dresses they got from Jen. Wanted to wear it immediately when we came back to the hotel!

And on our last day in the City we met Evelyn, a friend who lives next to Columbus Circle and Central Park, so posing with the Statue of Liberty is something you almost can't NOT do!!

Then in the afternoon we went to Helen and Espen and the 3 of them had a swim in the pool at the condo where Helen lives. Swimming under romantic chandeliers.. not bad huh?

We also went bowling in her private bowling alley... just for residents, then we had some yummy rice and Chinese tea...


And that was the end of our more than 4 weeks vacation... We had a grand time!
Thank you all dear friends to spent time with us, partied with us, shopped with us, dined and wined with us, we LOVE you ALL!!

See you next time!
Mireille