White Christmas

Heath and I had a snowy, quiet Christmas in Omaha.  We spent it watching It's a Wonderful Life...

Eating sushi...

With our latest obsession, a candle that smells like a wood fire...

And walking around the Old Market...

It felt like 20 below on Christmas night...way too cold.

Merry Christmas from Ohio

Owen got to play where the Columbus professional hockey team plays. His team won - he played awesome!

Isaac took this photo!

One of Santa's elves


The boys Christmas morning! They want to stay in their pajamas all day.

Merry Christmas Le Quang Family!!!!

Fwd: Christmas letter

Sent from my iPad

Begin forwarded message:

From: Jim Pugh <pughjse@yahoo.com>
Date: December 23, 2010 8:05:50 PM EST
To: "pughjse@yahoo.com" <pughjse@yahoo.com>
Subject: Christmas letter

Christmas letter

2010 has been a busy year for Ely And me. We started off with our trip to San Francisco on New Years to meet the Bernards, Sarah and Heath. We only spent 5 days there but had a great time. The Bernard's trip was cut short after the death of Blanche. She will be remembered by all.
We returned to work and a lot of snow! The blizzard in February produced about 2   Feet of snow. Our business at ely's to go continued to grow. Soon it was time to take our Summer vacation. We,and by that I mean the Pugh's, the Rose's and the Miller's decided to vacation together in Charleston, SC. Lia was staying with us at the time so she traveled with us and, the poor girl, had to put up with my humor.  
Weeks later after returning from our trip we received visitors from Texas, the Templin's. Then the Levy's from France, then Owen and Isaac, because it wouldn't be right to miss out on all that fun with cousins. It was hot but it made for a great time. Now you all know the size of our house so you can imagine what it was like trying to find a place to sleep. It all worked out and as far as I know everyone survived and loved the time together.
During all that family time a decision to expand ely's was suggested. those family get togethers are dangerous. We began negotiations to lease a small area in the existing plaza we are currently in. This meant we would become independent of The Bread Chef. Now I'm not prone to believing in destiny or things like "it was meant to happen, but the series of events that happened next are extraordinary. People learned of our expansion and came forward wanting to help, financially. Some were friends and others were just customers. The most helpful contributor to our new venture came from the family.
In October we took a long weekend and went to NY to meet Lily,Michel,Sarah and Heath. We all stayed at The Ace Hotel, A very interesting hotel. Once again we had a great time. It was in NY that the Bernard's offered to help ely's move forward. We had come to a point of accepting help from an outsider and giving up some control until Michel and Lily offered to help us obtain financing. It was an extraordinary gesture and one we are most thankful for. I guess you could say we have gone global!
We are moving along with our new venture and hope to be in after the New Year.  I'll send pics of our progress soon. Ely and I will spend Christmas in Columbus with the Roses. The Millers will be with us after the New Year.
We hope you all have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
 Ely and Jim          


Sent from my iPad

Bonnes fêtes et Joyeux Noël

Julie et le Père Noel vous souhaite un joyeux Noël !

Christmas with friends !

We celebrated Christmas with some friends a few days ago.
Each of us had to prepare something, we ate SO MUCH !!
It was a lot of fun

Windy City

So it's official...Heath and I are moving to Chicago in February!  Please come and visit us!!!

Breakdancing

So everytime Heath and I see this commercial, we think of Isaac :)  The little boy with the brown curly hair reminds us of his dancing!!!!

Happy Birthday to Jim + Ely!!!!!!

My Dad's 58th and my Mom's 60th!!!!!!!

Natural gas commercial

joyeux anniversaire laure!

Happy belated birthday to Laure!!!!  Love you!

Vegan in France

French Family...

Check out this post about vegan goods found in Paris!  It can be done :)

http://www.laziestvegans.com/

Thanksgiving Potluck

Heath and I attended a potluck at Daily Grub, my favorite restaurant in Omaha, for Thanksgiving.  The restaurant itself was closed, but friends of DG were invited (omnivores, vegetarians and vegans) to get together for food, drink and conversation.  

Here are a few things we enjoyed...everything is vegan unless otherwise marked.

Shepard's Pie with roasted vegetables and turnip mash

Roasted Root Vegetables with fresh dill

Spinach and Soba Noodle Salad (vegetarian)

Pumpkin Pie, made by the lovely Elle

And this is the magical pumpkin.  He looks whole in this picture, but his other half is in the pie!   

It was such a lovely evening.  I brought Chestnut Stuffing, not pictured, but you can find the recipe on Eat Pure.  And a potluck is such a great idea for Thanksgiving...only one dish to prepare!

Daily Bunny

I recently stumbled upon this site and I simply can't get enough.  I think I want a bunny.

The Tistics

Let's play a little
The other night, I went to a concert from an almost unknown groupe called The Tistics.
It was like a game where you had to guess the songs, because they sing english songs...in french !!!
Can you guess ? It's pretty easy when you hear the music, but they started by reading the lyrics in french, and sometimes it's pretty hard to guess !! We had SO much fun, they're really good, so if you (french family maybe) have the chance to go see them, it's really worth it !

Silk screening again !

These are pockets where you can put your forks, knives and spoons for a picnic ! It will actually be wooden cutleries from Merci store !

Antoine's birthday

This year, Antoine celebrated his birthday with 9 of his friends at home.
I thought it would be nice to organise a treasure hunt!
It was more tiring than we expected. Next year we'll organise it oustide!





To get some fresh air the following day we took a walk, the weather was bad but it was still great!

Silk screening

I'm taking silk screening lessons every tuesdays !
It's great, but you have to be patient !
Work in progress

At last!

Loïc came back to Toulon after 3 months of hard work (and some fun too in Bergen!)
The kids were so excited, especially Rémi who kept shouting "Papa"!!!