Sunday, November 8, 2009

Halloween in Haguenau (Part II) (Halloween à Haguenau - suite et fin)

Halloween in Haguenau was a pretty grizzly, black and white affair as you can see.

Halloween à Haguenau nous réservait quelques frissons en noir et blanc comme vous pouvez le constater.

But before we scare any sensitive souls away entirely, we'll first give you a few of the more peaceful moments we spent with Papy, Mamy and our cousins.

Mais avant de faire fuire toutes les âmes sensibles, voici quelques images plus paisibles de notre séjour Haguenauvien. Tout d'abord, comme tous les ans nous avons levé nos verres à la santé de Mamy! Verres pleins de jus de pomme artisanal, pressé annuellement par Papy a partir des fruits de ses pommiers d'Etueffont.

First off, a toast to Mamy! We're drinking homemade apple juice pressed by Papy. He makes it every year from the apples he gathers in his small orchard in Etueffont. (In the foreground here, you see Simon, Alban's older brother who is just a few months older than Stella.) And in this next picture you see us cousins in concert. Henry on the violin and Alban on the glockenspiel - that's the cool German word for xylophone, right? In Alsace people sometimes use cool German words!

Cousins en concert!

Henry au violon et Alban sur le glockenspiel - c'est comme ça qu'on dit xylophone en Allemand quand on est des djeunes cools, n'est-ce pas?

And, as we said in the last post, Papy took us to the forest to commune with nature...

Papy, qui est un grand amoureux de la nature, nous a emené en forêt où il a tenté de partager avec nous sa passion pour les arbres...

Bon. Nous aimons les arbres mais il faut admettre que nous préférons jouer à Tarzan...

OK, OK! We love trees too, but we prefered the action figure version of our walk in the woods...Here we are doing Tarzan!

Here we are at boot camp!

Parfois, il nous fallait des béquilles pour avancer...

But they let Malcolm keep his greenish-blue sneakers...

Even Papy managed some of the easier exercises as long as one of us stayed alongside to reassure him!

Même Papy s'y est mis! Et avec notre assistance vigilente...

...il y est arrivé! Bravo, Papy!

But, at heart, Papy is basically just a mild mannered nature lover. And I - Malcolm that is - can relate to that.

Mais au fond, malgré ses exploits sportifs, Papy reste un promeneur solitaire plein de rêveries... même quand il n'est pas seul...et moi - c'est à dire Malcolm - je veux bien le suivre dans cette voie.

Alright, already! Let's get back to Halloween! Bon, bon, et Halloween, alors?

Henry went as Scary Movie V... Henry était déguisé en Scary de Scary Movie!

Stella was disguised as... Stella s'est déguisée en...

...well no one's really sure what Stella went as but, unlike us, she was far more frightening in color!

...Eh bien, personne savait exactement en quoi Stella s'était déguisée mais, à l'encontre de Henry et moi, elle était bien plus effrayante en couleur qu'en noir et blanc! Bien que, en couleurs, Alban avait un petit côté Benny's Video qui faisait assez froid dans le dos...

Although, Alban, even in color, reminds Mom and Papa of Straw Dogs and that's bad enough! But, basically, in color or black and white, we loved our masks!

En gros, couleur ou noir et blanc, on était super contents de nos masques!

Henry looks a little like Micheal Jackson, no? Henry ressemble un peu à Micheal Jackson à la fin, non?


Unlike last year when we got almost as much candy as horse chestnuts...


Au contraire de l'an passé, quand nous avons récolté quasiment autant de bonbons que de marrons d'Inde...

...this year's haul was fairly meager. ...cette année, le butin fut maigrelet.

But, but... oh no! Did Atlas get into the candy! Bad Dog!!!

Mais, ah, là,là! Atlas a fait sur les bonbons! Ce n'est pas bien! Non! Non! Non!

I admit, Alban and Henry were a bit angry with Atlas for pooping on the treats...

Bon, faut admettre que c'est assez rageant quand un chien fait ses besoins sur les bonbons, mais quand même les gars...

...but still, Halloween or not, that was no reason to do away with him entirely!

...vous aurez pu avoir un peu pitié....ce n'est qu'un chien après tout, il ne comprend pas toujours tout...

Too late! Chalk another one up for All Saint's Day, boys.

C'est trop tard, les gars! Il est mort et enterré! Encore une âme à fèter pour La Toussaint 2010!

2 comments:

  1. Pictures of your Papy, thanks.
    The walk in the woods looked lovely.

    Now, those Halloween masks, those were impressive!

    I can hardly believe that you didn't get a whole lot more candy. I can just imagine people, jumping back from the door, startled, and dumping bowls of candy into your bags... out of sheer fright.

    When it comes to Stella's "constume" I'm thinking... well... it might have had something to do with the strange dichotomy between the distructive power of Godzilla and the power of the simple smily face. No?

    I have to tell you guys about one of the funniest costumes we saw. It was on a group of boys, probably around 13 or 14 years old, and as they approached we thought, Gee, they could have at least made a little effort." Then we saw their signs, worn across the chest. In large letters they read: Nudist on Strike.

    Glad you had a nice Halloween, even if Atlas added his own, unwanted contribution to the "take."

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  2. You all really were the scariest looking trick-or-treaters, for sure! The Scream mask looks most frightening to me and I am glad no one came to my door in it.
    Your take of candy does look a bit meager. And while I promised to send any left-over candy I am sorry to say we ran out of 6 large bags of ours by 9:15 already. Fortunately my profuse apologies were accepted by the goblins who were kind enough not to perform any tricks... the neighbors ran out too. That's how many ghosts and scary masks came down McKinley this year. Must be the economy.
    I think I would enjoy nature walks with Papy and Malcolm, too, and hugging trees is my favorite activity in the forests. I LOVE TREES!
    As for Atlas' contribution, I suspect this was the edible kind, right? Though not a tasteful looking one, I admit.

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