Fort Collins scenery

Why is Fort Collins such a great place? You are at the foot of the Rocky Mountains, you can see them wherever you are and you can always know which way is West! And this time of year you can see hundreds of wild geese on lakes all around the city.

The big Thanksgiving meal!

I now understand what Thanksgiving is all about: food, food and more food! But the best part is to spend it with family and/or friends...

A real traditional home-cooked Thanksgiving meal takes a very long time to prepare and is usually made of these dishes:

The main piece is, of course, the TURKEY! this one was 16 pounds (7,2kg)!!
some can even weigh 25 pounds

and it always comes with dressing, (bread, onions, green celery...) which tradionally is cooked INSIDE the turkey, but its easier and not as messy to cook it on the side :

....always with sweet potatoes...

....green bean casserole (with fried onions)...

.... topp it off with mashed potatoes and gravy...

... and you've got the real thing!

Congratulations to my Grandma Marilyn and the ones who helped for making all this delicious food!!

Wait, don't forget the desserts...

Pumpkin pie... (made by Uncle Jason)

... and Pecan Pie...

Enjoy!

Happy Turkey Day!

As a really important holiday over here and time to be with family and friends, we not only get the Thursday as a holiday but also the following day! So I am off to Colorado for this long weekend to celebrate with my grandparents and spend my first Thanksgiving in the US ... Will be back next week!

Happy Thanksgiving to all!

Sunflowers...

In order to start this blog and name it the way I wanted to, I first needed a good picture to illustrate it, but it took me a while before I got one (which is one of the reasons why I started so late). I actually had only seen one or two sunflower fields close to the Colorado border along Highway I-70 but none around Lawrence yet, until September when I heard of a farm nearby which growed sunflowers. The farmer's wife keeps a blog about it and was nice enough to let me know I should hurry up because the field was starting to fade out... Luckily I still had a few of them in full bloom and got a perfect illustration for my blog title!

Next year I will remember to check her blog in advance and not miss the best time to see the sunflowers!

First Fridays in Kansas City Art District

On October 8th, I went with my cousins to First Fridays in Kansas City Crossroads Art District.

Every First Friday of each month, the art galleries in Kansas City Crossroads Art District open for the whole evening, many of them have music, drinks and food for the occasion. The streets are packed with people and there is lots going on in the area. When it's nice weather like the Friday we went, its a great place to just walk around from gallery to gallery, stop at the different places and enjoy!

Some were giving out flyers for Halloween parties... and dressed for it already!

Kansas meets Spain

Having taken flamenco classes back in France for many years, one of the first things I did when I knew I was moving to Lawrence was to look up for flamenco classes... and that's how I found out about Michelle Hayes at the University of Kansas and started taking her classes in August. She is a wonderful teacher and dancer and loves sharing her flamenco passion - a passion so strong it has kept her teaching and dancing until she was 8,5 months pregnant!

And then on September 30th, something very rare happened in Lawrence : a genuine spanish flamenco company- la compania Jose Porcel - came to give a stunning performance...


As a pre-show, Michelle gave a little talk about flamenco with a dance demonstration, accompanied by Franck, an amazing spanish guitar player who also accompanies all the flamenco classes.

Chasing butterflies...

One of the many natural wonders of Kansas is the Monarch migration, which takes place in September and October. After I started spotting a few around Lawrence, I noticed there is an actual "Monarch station" garden on West Campus, where grows the butterflies favorite milkweed flowers.

During that time, many other types of butterflies can also be spotted...

as well as other weird creatures !

Festival of Cultures in South Park

Yes, there are many festival and events going on in Lawrence, and in the summer they mostly take place in South Park in and around its gazebo. September 25th was the Festival of Cultures with stands and performances from many differant nations from around the world, including Germany!
My eyes got caught on the Mexican dances with colorful dresses and little kids dancing like professionals with big sombreros!

Rock Paper Scissors at the Phoenix Piano Bar

As I had been told before coming here and came to realize since then, Lawrence as well as Kansas City have a really good music scene. My first concert was Rock Paper Scissors at the Phoenix Piano Bar in Kansas City, a great band full of energy and a very talented violonist/singer.

What's that noise??

Cicadas!

On my first day in Lawrence in August, all of a sudden we could hear a loud "buzzing" starting around 6-7 pm, and I heard it every evening until it became cooler in September. It took me a while to know where that noise was coming from and learned that it was the cicadas... a pretty strange looking creature. Wiki says they also exist in Alsace, but I had never heard that sound there. When one would land on my balcony, it was hard to leave the window open as they were so loud!

Food!

Eating out in the US is a lot cheaper than in France and I have already tried quite a few really good places, so while my Dad was here, it took him to my favorite spots so far:

Zen Zero for thai food

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23rd Street Brewery with our friends Nancy and Stuart

and Jack Stack Fiorella's for the famous Kansas City barbecue!

Hike in Woodridge Park around Clinton Lake

There is a beautiful lake on the edge of Lawrence with a few parks and a boating area around it, another nice place to be on a sunny day!

Dad's visit - 1

When my Dad came here to visit in September, one of the places we visited was the Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve, a beautiful place south-west of Lawrence, perfect for a walk on a sunny day.... until we bumped into some creatures along the trail and turned around!

Meet the cousins!

I NEVER would have imagined that, coming to Lawrence, Kansas, I would actually meet for the first time a part of my mother's family I didn't even know I had! Turns out, in Kansas City which is just 35 minutes away from Lawrence, lives my mother's cousin and 3 of my second cousins!

Squirrels

September seems to be a pretty crazy time for squirrels here... there are tons of them running around everywhere, collecting, picking, moving, burying, unburying all types of nuts of the winter...

More of the Japan Festival

I loved the crane-tree and couldn't resist taking tons of pictures! There were also women in beautiful kimonos.

JCCC Japan Festival - 2

One of the concerts of the festival was Denver Taiko, the drummers had so much energy, it was really a great show!


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