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January 30, 2009
Adieu Rirette
Henriette Ponthus left this world Friday 23 January 2009.
Adieu Mamie. You'll always be in our hearts.
Posted by agnes at 12:54 AM | Comments (0)
January 27, 2009
Cille performs "Mama mia" from Abba
We've had a recent flurry of new videos that we uploaded to our YouTube channel thanks to the new Flip mino video-camera. The following is one of them and dedicated to Pascale. Enjoy.
Posted by bjoern at 4:42 AM | Comments (0)
January 4, 2009
Happy New Year '09
May all of you enjoy a wonderful new year baked with love, peace and happiness.
We celebrated this new year's eve in Sydney Harbour, with Mum & Jean Louis, on Goat Island, an extraordinary spot facing Harbour Bridge. What a blast we had, nibbling on sushis and "Charlotte aux fraises" (credits to mum), rinsing it all with a great red wine (credits to Jenny and John) and champagne of course (smuggled in from France by Mum and Jean-Louis , he! he!)
(Thanks to Jean-Louis for the movie)
Looking back on 2008...
It all started on the road north New South Wales, driving a campervan in the wilderness, testing waters on the north coast, getting to discover our adopted country a little more.
End of January we moved houses from 16 Bolwarra Road to 72 Alleyne Avenue (same suburbs... actually, pretty much the same hill!). A new large house much appreciated as we felt we needed expansion.
Last year was also Cille's start-up at school ! She wore her NNPS (standing for Narrabeen North Public School) uniform with pride (yes, even though not always visibly...) and went on making her way in a mixed Kindy / Year 1 class. Her class (K/1M) was taught by Mrs Mulkeen, whom she liked very much.
Cille had a bit of a hard start, being amongst the youngest and not necessarily getting 100% support and focus from her busy working parents. But she managed to get over the first terms ok, and made astonishing progress, well rewarded, the last 2 terms. Daddy Bjoern proved to be the most effective mum-dad ever, while I had to commute to the city pretty much every day. He mastered the mornings and evenings like a pro-mum, making Cille's recess and lunch every day (almost), picking her up from after school care, and getting the evening routine started. All that while expanding and managing our business. I'd say that deserves the "best business daddy award 08' ".
We also traveled over to Europe for a short 2 weeks in April during the Easter break. Mostly for business purposes, though we managed to squeeze in some fantastic family and friends time. Thanks to Martine we had a home in Paris and thanks to Helene, Cille enjoyed fabulous company while A&B minded their business. Petra and Julia came over for a day to hug and share time with us. We hopped to the South of France for a weekend in Sere-Rustaing with the extended Sylviane Ponthus family. Cille got to meet her cousins Marion, Yohan and Jairo. Claire, Bruno, Olivier, Sylvie, Pascale, Sylviane and Jean-Louis, were all there. It was fabulous to be with them all, even for such a short time...
I loved it to be in Sere, to run km over the hills with white-capped Pyrenees in sight, sharing meals at the large kitchen table with all the Ponthus attacking the plates like in the old times.
We also visited Belgium and met with our friends, Minifizz masters Francois and Sabine. Staying at Francois's mum place for a night.
We met heaps of people during those 10 days... Maryjane, Greet, Menno, Andre Koetting, etc..
We had a very busy autumn and winter. Business contracts to conclude, more outsourcing clients to set up. We also welcomed our first permanent employee Christophe, who came over to Australia with his girlfriend Melanie, from France.
July and August were crippled with illnesses that caught each of us. I got hit the hardest with a pneumonia that took me months to heal. But Bjoern and Cille got down with flu and bronchitis as well. We all spent a great deal of time at medical centers, doctors' offices and even the hospital.
For the 15th August, my birthday, we went for a prolonged weekend in the Snowy mountains with Matthew Wilson, his kids and other friends. Matthew managed to hire an astonishing lodge for 2 nights, in a large property not far from Jindabyne. A fantastic place with a large fireplace, plenty of bedrooms, and a great host. We had fun driving the beach buggy in the immense property. Bjoern and I even managed to escape for a long day of snowboarding. Magic. Even though I coughed up my lungs onto the snow the all day, and felt sick to death, we still went down the slopes until the rangers pushed us out :-)
Got so sick that i had to checked in the emergency the day after and confirmed a pneumonia :-(
August-September, Roben and Abhayan from our partner company in India came over for a new project at News Digital Media. A significant offshore operation setup requiring our full attention. Was supposed to last for at least 5 months but got stopped pretty much midway on the day News Limited announced the joint-venture between Careerone and Monster.com. Quite unexpected and for me a sudden stop to intense activities that had me stayed at News Digital Media for more than 20 months!
Which left me the end of the year to enjoy our Narrabeen offices on the beach with the summer coming. We also managed to launched an iPhone app (show the loo) in a 4 weeks effort handled almost single handedly by Bjoern.
On the sport side, both Bjoern and I learned how to surf!! Recently we bought boards, heading to the beach any time we can to perfect our beginner style :-). Loving it!
Cille ended school with a series of events and celebrations. Closing down her kindy year beautifully. Well done la puce!
I did some travel agent work for Mum and Jean-louis who joined us for a month stay and had in mind to visit Victoria and South Australia (traveling it right now!).
We had a nice family Xmas eve and shared our Xmas day in front of our office on the beach with a mix of frenchs and australians.
Mum and Jean-louis arrived on the 28th and we got to celebrate new year's eve in Sydney Harbor with them (see start of this post).
A very busy year indeed! Cille learned how to write, read and count. Bjoern got to see heaps of dolphins facing our offices, perfected his piano, administrated our business growth like a master, bought more wii games. I mastered many scrums at Careerone, understood what "a run-down immune system" means, loved to learn surfing, dreamed of time off, etc. ... And that's just random thoughts grabbed from my personal, very organic, time machine :-)
So what's up for 09?
We'll see. For myself I hope a more balanced life, more variety in my professional endeavors, getting into drawing for real. Taking time off to visit the country (target: Western Australia). Continue to grow our business sustainably and control our personal finances in order to maybe buy a house (!). Have fun, get excited, find peace, share the love, master the waves, both professionally and privately :-)
What about you?
Kisses and love,
A&B&C
Posted by agnes at 6:36 AM | Comments (1)
More good weather
GeoTagged, [S33.70560, W151.29539]
We are enjoying a string of great summer days. Today we had another nice beach stay with some body-boarding in some pretty rough waves.
Love,
A&B&C
Posted by theandb at 6:23 AM | Comments (0)