Saturday, November 22, 2014

My Girlfriend's Wedding….




I recently had dinner with a friend and  sharing over Sushi at Nobu' bar (our get together cantina), our thoughts about life, infinity, black hole, religion and…girlfriends.

I cannot envision my life without my girlfriends. We are always there for each other, with quite a few years behind us, we all have experienced the roller coaster that is life…our joy, our fears, our defeats and successes, but above all the incredible support and love we have for each other.
I am truly blessed with the most loving friends and their trust in me.

While walking in the woods near my house, my friend Cheryl announced in passing that…YES! she was getting married to my good friend Tom….I introduced them to each other a year ago at one of our Interieurs' party. Then I asked: where are you getting married? We looked at each other and without saying we knew…at the house, right? The house being our home in Connecticut where we celebrated my friend's Suzanne's (referred to at the time as my kids' second mom) wedding… a beautiful affair 10 years ago. On a side note, my husband is a lucky man, having been surrounded all these years by these beautiful, kind, funny, generous women, the women in my life.

Cheryl and Tom said yes on a glorious autumn day….not a dry eye under the tent… there was so much happiness, love, tears and laughter. This was a very intimate wedding,  lunch in our living room, where we spent so many moments together, Christmases, Thanksgiving, celebrations, always great food and wine, compliments of my husband, the chef and patriarch who knows how to take care of "his girls".

My friend Judith and Francesca (she really is a med student..) helped me with the flowers, my sons  moved all the furniture out of the house, Julie baked the most amazing cake. Everyone was there to celebrate. To Tom, this is an official sealed welcome into our crazy, fun, loving  family.


The setting




The preparation: flowers in season


Lunch for 40





The beautiful ceremony officiated by Tom's sister


Austin gave his mom away…


mom and daughter


The dashing boys…Austin and my sons








Tuesday, November 11, 2014

A PERFECT DAY in a life….






Our dear friend Marsha Harris of Splenderosa is asking us to pick one of the 
best days of our life, for this month's "By Invitation Only" post.

The timing of this post is so perfect as I am living in a personal turmoil, having made some big (but very positive) changes in my professional life that will impact my work and my family.

For a moment, I will leave all worries and demands aside, take time out and relieve some synopsis of my life…flashbacks…moments of pure joy…moments of pure freedom…A vision of my children on the day of their birth flash immediately in front of my eyes, however I must pick one day, one day so perfect that it  ecapsulates the very best life can bring us.

Instantly a vision comes to me,  the sounds,  the colors, the scents, the humidity, the calm and heaviness of the air, a moment in time as far away from civilization and culture as I have ever experienced.

That glorious day started with my two children, husband Luke and myself waking up in the early hours of the morning to the sounds of chattering Proboscis monkeys, aboard a boat on a Kalimantan black water river, in the heart of the rainforest of Borneo's Tanjung Puting National Park. Writing these sentences,  transports me back ten years and I even now feel the pure moment of joy and elation as if I was experiencing the moment now, surrounded by so much life, serenity, beauty with the man and two boys I so intensely love.

We were alone (save our boat's captain and our guide of course) in a world about to vanish, and the awareness of that moment in time, the fragility of all the beauty surrounding us made this moment even more powerful. I had wanted for my children to understand how precarious all the world's beauty really is. My son Hadrian completed his sciences project, communicating with Seeswee, a beautiful orangutan whose life is in jeopardy due to the loss of habitat.


Living on the deck of our little boat

The amazingly beautiful, fast disappearing rain forest


 After  days and endless patience, Hadrian became close to Seswee, he made her a necklace which she proceeded to place around her neck, after watching him do so.




A bientôt,

Francine



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