GNO

Today is the Wright boys annual pilgrimage to Salt Lake City to Mecca, aka Rice Eccles Stadium.  It actually did turn into a Wright boys trip - with Jay, Henry and William picking up Brad and Boston in Ogden and meeting Andrew and Colin for some pre-game pizza and fun.  Actually, as I type this the game hasn't even started yet since it was a late kick-off.  Thank goodness we don't have church until 1 pm this year since I doubt Jay and the boys will make it back to Hyde Park much before 1 am.

Tessa and I did our annual Girl's Night. This year we started at the Green Canyon Corn Maze, where Tessa's dance class performed their Halloween dances. I got a little on video but am having trouble uploading the video right now.  I'll try again later.

After the performance we went out to dinner.  She chose Apple Spice Bakery.  I was kind of surprised but she has apparently been wanting to try it and she loved it.  She had a grilled cheese sandwich and shared part of my chef salad.  After dinner, we rented a video from Redbox (her choice again - the new Barbie DVD The Princess and the Popstar) and made brownies. 

She kept talking about how it was "just the girls" today.  She even informed me during dinner that I was pretty lucky because I had her to talk to while the boys were gone.

She's right.  I'm pretty lucky.

Pumpkin Walk

Over UEA my friend Nicole and I took our kids to the Pumpkin Walk.  The weather was absolutely perfect and we had a good time.

Henry thought this one was cool until he realized it commemorated the Utes loss against the Aggie this year:

 People are so talented with their pumpkin carving:

 The Robinson and Wright kids:

 Of course Tessa had to be Snow White...

 ...and Cinderella

Other than the Pumpkin Walk, we really didn't do much for UEA.  Jay and I had the post-Best Vacation Ever grumpies so we just hung out, which was kind of nice. 

Reflections

Now that we've been back from our trip for a few days and are (mostly) back to normal, I've been thinking about a few things.

*Thanks to Jay's meticulous research, we were able to do most of what we wanted to do with little to no fuss.  We left the airport with our 2 Day L'Open bus tour tickets and our 6 Day Museum Pass, which saved us a little money but a whole lot of time, since we didn't have to stand in too many lines.  We knew roughly where we wanted to go and how to get there with minimal fuss.  I've been teasing Jay for a year about how much he has researched and read about Paris, but it really paid off. 

*We were originally planning to both leave and return on a Saturday but before we cashed in Delta Skymiles for our plane tickets Jay suggested that we leave a day earlier, giving us an extra full day in Paris.  It was a great decision, because that Sunday was the best weather day that we had.  We ended up with 8 total days for the trip - 2 travel days, 1 day in Normandy, 1 day at Versaille and 4 days in Paris.  We could have easily filled more days in Paris because there is just so much to do.

*Museums are great but it was good to break them up.  We did the Louvre on one day, the WWII museum on one day, Versaille on one day, the Orsay on one day and the Pompidou on one day.  We spent the most time at the WWI museum (and we could have spent more time there, but we were on a schedule with a tour guide) and Versaille, but they also required the most travel to get there.  It was nice to break up the inside, crowded museum stuff with just walking around, enjoying the city.

*Trip Advisor is your friend.

*As far as the hotel is concerned - location, location, location.  We had a great one (again, thanks to Jay - as you can tell, he did 95% of the planning for this trip) and it paid off.  Even in bad weather we were close to restaurants and the Metro and there was always somewhere close we could go in the St. Michel/St. Germain area.  We used hotel/American Express points to pay for our hotel.  There were other choices that would have worked - maybe had a bigger room - but the location we had couldn't be beat.

*It's OK to cry when you are leaving your kids for 8 days as long as you relax when you get there and have a great time.  I'll leave you to figure out which of us cried most of the way down to the airport. 

So, Paris.  Great trip.  Jay even managed to get an audio tape of me agreeing to go to Cambodia for our 30th anniversary.  In my defense, he had just surprised me with my replacement wedding set and I was overwhelmed emotionally.  I would have agreed to any number of things at that point. 

Oh well.  I've got 15 years to change his mind.  Or just give up and go with the flow.  As long as he does all the planning again.

Au Revoir

Our last day in Paris was decent weather-wise.  It wasn't raining (although it did rain a bit later that evening) so we decided to do the Tower at Notre Dame (we were going to on Thursday but the line was around the block and we wanted to go to the Orsay) and then just spend some time walking around Paris.  The line to get into the Towers was really long - over an hour - because they let 30 or 40 people go up every 10 minutes.  But the views were worth the wait:

After we left Notre Dame we walked a bit and came upon the Pompidou Center, which holds a fantatsic collection of modern art.  We originally were thinking that we didn't want to do any more museums but we changed our minds and we were glad we did.  The building itself is apparently quite controverisal - it is very  modern in a Renaissance era city - but the museum was wonderful.  If you like modern art, this is a must-see.

This video shows the Blue Series by Joan Miro' - we really like Miro and have two prints of his paintings in our home:

For our last night in Paris, we ate at Little Breizh, a cute little cafe specializing in crepes, then we went to visit the Sacre Couer.  It had just finished raining when we got there and so not too crowded but it was really dirty, with broken bottles and trash everywhere.  We walked around a bit and bought some cheese at a kind of farmer's market that they were having, then headed over for one last look at the Eiffel Tower:

15

Thursday, October 11th - our 15th Wedding Anniversary.  We have now been married about 1/3 of our lives.  That seems crazy to me! 

We spent the morning touring Notre Dame, then  walked over to the Ile St. Louis (one of the two islands in the Seine) and found a little cafe for lunch.  It started raining while we were there and it rained off and on the rest of the day.  After a long lunch (most meals in France were long, we found) we headed over to the Musee d'Orsay.  This museum was on my must-see list.  It is in a restored train station and houses some beautiful examples of Impressionist paintings, including Monet, Manet, Degas and Renoir. 

Again, it was fairly crowded but the layout of the museum made it seem much less crowded than the Louvre.  We stayed there for a few hours and bought prints of some of our favorite Van Gogh paintings.  I felt kind of bad - according to the audio tour, the paintings that we liked best were done during the period when Van Gogh was teetering on the edge of insanity.  I'm not sure what that says about us, but there you go.

Notre Dame:

 A statue of Joan d'Arc, inside the cathedral:

 Inside Notre Dame:

 Musee d'Orsay:

Thursday night was our big anniversary dinner.  To celebrate, we went to Guy Savoy, a restaurant in the Champs Elysee area of Paris.  I don't even know how to describe the it as anything other than a once in a lifetime experience.  We were there for over three hours; there were tables there that were there when we arrived and still being served when we left.  The food was amazing.

The cheese tray:

 Jay loves his fromage - as you can see:

 Here we are, 15 years later:

At dinner, Jay was acting weird.  It was more than just "I'm so happy to finally be eating this dinner that I've been planning for months".  I finally called him out and said he was making me nervous.  I seriously thought that he had some bad news to tell me - like, "hey, enjoy your dinner because I'm being reassigned to a new Utah State campus in Siberia for three years" or something. 

It turned out he was just excited because he had managed to surprise me.  About a year ago, I lost the main diamond in my engagement ring and so I haven't worn my rings since then.  I was sad about it but since diamonds can be kind of expensive I figured it would be a while before it was replaced.  Jay decided to replace the diamond before our trip and give me a new ring for our anniversary.  I was so relieved (that we won't be moving to Siberia) and happy (because I missed wearing my rings) that I started crying right there at the table.  He did good! 

Originally he was going to take me to the Eiffel Tower and give me the ring there but it was raining (again!) so we just headed back to the hotel.  It was the perfect end to a perfect anniversary.

Only one more day in Paris! 

Versaille

On Wednesday, October 10th we took another day trip - this time to Versaille.  It was a quick 30 minute train ride out of Paris.  The palace itself is located in central Versaille but it seems like another world away.  The palace, again, was crazy crowded.  It was incredibly interesting to see the State Apartments but it felt a little like being herded along through small passageways.  Once we got out of the palace, we spent hours in the gardens.  They were gorgeous, even though most of the flowers had faded and many of the fountains were drained.

The ceiling inside the chateau of Versaille:

 The Hall of Mirrors:

 One of the paths in the gardens:

This is a farmhouse the Marie Antoinette used to come to when she wanted to escape from life at court.  This may have been our favorite area of Versaille, partly because we had to walk a long way to get here and it wasn't very crowded.  It was full of cute little buildings like this - almost like a little French village set away from the tourists.

 You can see it was overcast and drizzly this day as well.  You can kind of see behind us how vast the gardens at Versaille really are:

We spent about six hours at Versaille.  We had dinner in Paris at a little place attached to a great little chocolate shop - Un Dimanche de Paris (which, translated, means A Sunday in Paris).  The food was really good - French cuisine, again - and we had a nice evening.  We walked around Paris a bit after dinner and took a few more nighttime pictures of Notre Dame:

We had to rest up because the next day was our 15th Wedding Anniversary and Jay's long awaited dinner at Guy Savoy, plus a big surprise for me.

Normandy

Tuesday, October 9th was a road trip day.  We took a 7:00 am train to a town called Caen to visit the Caen War Memorial and take a tour of the D Day beaches.

Jay and I both enjoy history and were really interested in taking this little side trip. It was so interesting to go through the museum - which was really well done although we didn't have quite as much time as we wanted to really look at all the exhibits since we were on a schedule and with a tour group. We went through the museum in the morning, had lunch at the restaurant in the museum and then spent the afternoon driving to five different spots on the Normandy coast to see first hand the area where the D Day invasion occurred.

The Memorial de Caen:

The view of the Normandy coast from inside a German bunker:

 Pont du Hoc, where Rangers landed on June 6, 1944. 

 The view towards Omaha Beach from Pont du Hoc - as you can see, it was another drizzly day:

 

Omaha Beach:

 The American Cemetary on the Normandy coast:

 

Our tour guide, Sandrine, was wonderful.  She knew so much about the landings and history of the area.  The town of Caen was mostly destroyed during the battle for the Normandy cost in 1944 and it is amazing to see how it was rebuilt and restored over the years.  We were happy to have made the effort to see such an important part of the world's history.

 

We took a 7 pm train back to Paris and were back at our hotel by 10 pm.  We ate dinner at the train station in Caen and the food was surprisingly good.  I think every town in France must have a number of bakeries because everywhere we went the bread and pastries were just wonderful and so fresh - even at a random train station in northern France.

 

We had one more day trip planned for Wednesday - Versaille!  Picture the same 9 billion tourists from our day at the Louvre and that will give you an idea of Versaille.   The grounds made it worth the effort, however.    



Mona Lisa Smile

The Louvre is one of the world's largest and most visited museums.  On Monday, October 8th it felt like both. 

Our plan was to ride L'Open Tour buses again today, but we awoke to rain.  We tried to stick to our plan but it was too wet and rainy to ride in the open part of the bus so we moved to the bottom and it wasn't nearly as much fun.  We gave up pretty quickly, hopped off the bus at Napoleon's Tomb and got back on a different line to the Louvre. 

If I had to say one thing we did in Paris that we would not have done in retrospect, it was visit the Louvre.  It was insanely crowded and huge.  It was hot (and we weren't even there in hot weather - I cannot imagine a summer visit).  It was the only thing that we did in Paris that felt gratuitous.  We were in Paris, after all - when in Paris, isn't it mandatory to go to the Louvre?  We enjoyed looking at some of the Egyptian artifacts and the Greek and Roman sculptures.  We saw the Venus de Milo and the Mona Lisa.  After a few hours we were pretty happy to head back out into the fresh air.  By then it had stopped raining and we happily hopped on L'Open Bus and took it down to Notre Dame, where we caught a Batobus (the river version of L'Open Tour) and cruised up and down the Seine to see some additional sights.


Venus de Milo:

Sphinx:

 Winged Victory of Samothrace:

 Mona Lisa (and all her admirers) - this is as close as we could get without pushing our way through the hordes:

 Notre Dame from the Seine:

 Another view of Notre Dame from the Seine:

 Eiffel Tower from the river:

 View from the Seine:

 Jay on the Batobus:

For dinner we went to La Jacobine, a French restaurant close to our hotel.  It was lovely.  If you know Jay well, you know that he is a foodie.  He loves to try new foods and eat at nice places.  He spent a lot of time on Trip Advisor and another site that I can't remember right now reading reviews of restaurants and found this place there.  It was quaint and cute and the food was good.  After dinner we headed back to the hotel for bed because Tuesday brought us heading to Gare St-Lazare to catch a train to the Normandy coast. 

Next up - D Day beaches and WWII museums.

Bonjour, Paris

Hey, look at that.  It's been two weeks since my last entry.  My good excuse is that Jay and I took our long-awaited trip to Paris.  Grandma came and hung out with the kids while we spent our 15th wedding anniversary in France.  It was amazing.  Once I got over the shock of driving away from my children and purposefully leaving them for so long I was fine. 

We arrived in France on Saturday, October 6th.  Travelling to Europe (or anywhere, really) can be a pain when you have to worry about flight connections and such.  Since we were booked on the direct, non-stop flight from Salt Lake City to Paris the trip itself was easy.  We got on the plane about 4:30 pm Friday and got off in Paris about 11:00 am on Saturday.  We were tired but took a nice little 2 hour nap in the hotel before dinner.  Our plan was to wander around our neighborhood and find a quick bite to eat (we stayed in St. Michel, just a few blocks from Notre Dame and it was a great location) but unfortunately we woke up to rain.  Sigh.  We soldiered on, however, and did a little walking but it was hard to see anything in the dark and the wet.  We grabbed some Asian food and headed back to the hotel to bed.

Sunday was the best weather day we had.  We had bought tickets on L'Open Tour, which is a bus tour where you get off and back on the bus as many times as you want at various stops around the city.  It was a great way to see alot of Paris in a short period of time and we enjoyed it.  It was sunny and pleasant and a nice way to spend the day.


This was the view from our hotel room.  We loved just walking around Paris - all the little streets and alleyways had some interesting buildings and architecture.

We were lucky to get a room with a little balcony.  We wanted to sit out every morning and eat our yummy pastries but alas, the weather didn't cooperate.  The first morning, however was lovely.

This is a view of Paris from the Arc d'Triomphe.  It was quite a climb but had some great views of the city:

 A view of the Arc d'Triomphe:

 Another view of the Arc d'Triomphe:

 Jay took this picture of the Eiffel Tower from our L'Open Bus. 

 Here we are on the bus:



 A picture of us on top of the Arc d'Triomphe:

 

 

We ended our first day in Paris just walking around St. Michel.  We were pretty tired still so we just grabbed a gyro from a little place in our neighborhood.  It was probably our least favorite meal of the trip.  One of the cool things about Paris was just being in a big city with all the different places available to eat.  We went with mainly French food for the rest of the trip.

 

Next up - a rainy day in Paris means the Louvre with about 9 billion other tourists.  Stay tuned.