soleilisme

Part of my family’s origins are from Hungary. We lately learned that Barbara Spitzer, a French film maker, who seems to be related to my family, made a documentary on her quest in finding her Hungarian roots… which is our roots too!

With my Dad, we’re trying to find an online version of the film named “Ce qu’il en reste“, with no luck so far. The closest I got was finding an excerpt of the film. You can find it here or here (it requires Real Media Player… and the ability to either speak Hungarian or read French subtitles). There’s also a wonderful blog post here quoting her talking about the film. Again, it’s in French, but Google Translate does a pretty good job at, well, translating.

My great uncle, Peter, is actually going to meet with her in Paris this spring. We might get juicy information on genealogy and maybe a DVD? I can’t wait to get more information!

As I mentioned in my previous post, my cousin Kelly had many photos of me and my family in the late 70’s - early 80’s.

Here are a few of my favorites…

Me in Oct 1979. Look at those chubby cheeks! Still haven’t totally lost them.

Mom cutting Dad’s hair… classic.

My Grandfather, Papi Claude, teasing my cousin Jill.

Group family shot. From Left to right: Renee (my grandmother), Chantal (my aunt), Barbara (my half great aunt), Claude (my grandfather), me (facing back), Christiane (my Mom) and Jean-Claude (my Dad).

Justin and I flew to Austin, TX for Christmas to see his lovely family. This year, I took advantage of the little extra time we planned to stay, to visit for the first time in many, MANY years, my family who also lives there.

Kelly is my grandfather’s half brother’s daughter. We had a wonderful brunch in their lovely home and took the old pictures box out! A treasure of late ’70s memories. Justin got to see me as a toddler, as well as my Mom with her super long blond hair and my Dad with his beard and dark sunglasses.

David, Kelly’s husband, who is a professional photographer, treated me with scanning all these photos and put them on a CD. What a precious collection!

Below, here we are all on their front porch.

From left to right: Justin, Aaron, Stephanie, Benjamin, Kelly and David

Oh and Kelly’s sister is Jill, who we saw in California last August. Just connecting the dots…

Luna, my beautiful niece. She’s already 4 months old!

Lately we’ve been honored to meet with family members we haven’t seen in a long time.

This weekend we had the pleasure to have dinner with our “American” cousins. Jill, is one of the two daughters of my grandfather’s half brother… Get it? Yeah, whatev’.

We had a lovely paella dinner (yum!) at my Dad’s house and Monday night we met them for another dinner in SF… this time, hamburgers and fries, classic American diner style (yum too!).

We had a wonderful time, and even got to take a picture of the 2 kids on my Vespa! Maybe I’ll be able to post it one day, if Jill figures out how to send pitcure attachments on her email, which, apparently isn’t her forte. Eddy, ya better help her out on this one, ’cause they were too cute!

Anyhow, I’m digressing. Thanks for coming out you guys! Next, we’ll come down to L.A.

(from left to right, top to bottom) Sabine, Jean-Claude, Stephanie, Justin, Rebekah, Jill, Edward and Ethan.

La semaine derniere, nous avons eu le privilege de voir et re-renconter Laetitia, ma cousine germaine (?) et une partie de sa famille. Je dis re-rencontrer car je me souviens vaguement l’avoir rencontree, mais quand j’etais plus jeune et ma memoire flanche.

Ils ont fait un voyage faisant le tour de la Californie en passant quelques heures a San Francisco. Franchement c’etait un peu court, mais tres agreable. Sabine et Papa en ont profites pour venir les voir aussi. Ont a tous dines dans un resto indien du quartier, d’ailleurs tres bon, Indian Aroma.

Donc pour la relation de famille… Laetitia est la fille du frere, Tonton Claude, de ma grand-mere paternelle, Mamie Renee.

Ci-dessous de gauche a droite: Justin, Stephanie, Laetitia, Jeremi ( le fils), David (le mari), Sabine et Jean-Claude.

Laetitia et David ont aussi 2 autres filles, Sharon et Coralie qui sont restees en France pendant ce voyage.

Ah, et le plus beau, c’est que Laetitia a un blog et Jeremi aussi!

Aurelie (my sister) and her daughter Luna… I want to stare at this picture for hours.

Des photos!!!!

Luna tranquille

Aurelie, maman sereine

Michel, Papa heureux

My little niece, Luna, was born this morning at 10:33am (France time), in Nice.
She weights 2.9 kg and is 47.5 cm long.
Aurelie (my sister) is fine and apparently doesn’t look too tired. The whole delivery process was 5 hours long, which, considering many stories I’ve heard, is fairly short (dear goodness!!)
The dad (Michel), seems to be OK too. He’s a little shook (who wouldn’t be?) as he was there for the whole thing and even cut the cord! Wow!

Oh wait… that mean’s I’m an aunt! Yey!!

I will post some pics as soon as I get some.

Ma niece, Luna, est nee ce matin a 10:33 a Nice (France).
Elle pese 2.9 kg et mesure 47.5 cm.
Aurelie (ma soeur) appaprement va bien et elle n’est pas trop fatiguee. L’accouchement s’est passe en 5 heure, ce qui d’apres pleins d’histoires qu’on m’a reconte, est assez court (mon dieu!!)
Le papa, (Michel) a l’air d’aller bien aussi. Il est quand meme un peu sonne (qui ne le serait pas?) car il a assiste a tout et a meme coupe le cordon. Wow!

Je mettrai des photos des que j’en ai.