Annabelle's First Swimming Lesson

I decided to start taking the kids to swimming lessons last week.  Caden has repeatedly told me that he doesn't want to swim without his puddle jumper (float) until he's bigger.  So I was pretty worried that he would not enjoy them.  I thought Annabelle would have fun.  Boy, was I wrong.  While Caden was pretty apprehensive during the day leading up to actually going to the lesson, he did awesome when we got there.  Annabelle, on the other hand, screamed bloody murder the majority of the lesson.  I was in the pool with her, and she clung on to me with all four appendages the majority of the 30 minute lesson.  Whenever we talk about the swim lesson, she immediately says, "I sad." 

 

Due to the fact that I was in the pool with Annabelle, I did not get any pictures of Caden in the pool during his lesson.  Here are a few pictures after each of their lessons.

 

Annabelle had a lot of fun watching other kids swim after we were finished.  I'm hoping this week is better. 

 

We had a good Mother's Day weekend.  I can't believe I completely forgot to take a picture with the kids.  I'll have to remember to try to take one after church next week.  Both kids gave me cards from school and a card that Daddy helped them make.  Part of Caden's gift from school was this questionnaire.  He's so sweet; I love #9!  Although, I think he was a little confused about the age question; he definitely knows that I'm older than 4 :).

Park and Arboretum Fun

It's been nice to have some time playing with the kids after my vacation away from them.  We've been enjoying the nice Spring weather at parks and the Arboretum.  I'm not ready for 100's yet, so hopefully, they won't arrive any time soon.

We went to the Arboretum last week, and I tried to take a few pictures of them in the matching nautical outfits that I made for them.

 



Here are a few pictures from playing at a park last week.  They wanted me to squeeze into this tunnel.  It was not very comfortable.

 

Driving the Jeep at the "Jeep park".

 

And driving the fire truck.

Europe trip, Day 7

Our last day was spent travelling.  It was a rough day starting with train delays due to an incident on the Metro that stopped all trains for a good 15 minutes.  It would have been really nice to have spoken French during this mess, as we really had no idea what they were saying.  There were a few messages on the monitors that I was able to sort of translate that helped a little. 

We arrived at the airport only about 15 minutes later than we hoped.  We were aware before we arrived that our flight from CDG to LHR was delayed 90 minutes (cutting our London layover in half), but upon arrival, the British Airways ticket lady insisted that we would not make our 90 minute connection at Heathrow.  She wouldn't even issue our ticket; she just told us to go stand in a line to get a new ticket on a different flight.  It was quite maddening.  The other line was incredibly slow, and ultimately, we stood in it until we reached the front of the line, only to not get helped and have to full speed sprint to our gate.  Fortunately, during our hour and a half wait in the ticket line, Brian stalked the first crazy ticket lady, and ended up insisting that she print our ticket.  Because we thoroughly believed we could make our connection.

Once in the air en route to London, our flight was delayed 20 more minutes; we had to circle London 6 times.  Heathrow air traffic was apparently off all day due to morning fog.  This now put our connection at 70 minutes.  The flight attendants basically told us there was no way that we would make our flight.  We had to take a bus to switch terminals, and then go through security.  Then we sprinted through our second airport of the day.  But we made it!  With only a few minutes to spare.  We were so relieved, since our flight was the last direct flight to DFW of the day.  Had we missed it, we most likely would have had to connect through Chicago (and no doubt been bumped from first class).

All in all, it was a great trip.  For the most part the weather was great.  We covered a lot of ground.  Brian wore his ped the whole time.  Here's a summary of our steps/miles.  Tuesday, 4/29 was the winner with almost 32k "steps"; although, some of those steps were actually pedaling the bike. 



Europe Trip, Day 6: Paris

Tuesday morning, we headed to see the Catacombs. 

At the entrance.

 

There are tunnels all over Paris, but the one's included in the Catacombs tour cover about 2km.  Most of it is just walking through dark tunnels.  This was an open area where some guy carved a few cool palaces.  Here's one. 

 

And Brian with the other. 

 

The walkway from the dark tunnels up to the entrance to the ossuary, where about 6-7 million people's bones are.  They were put there in the 18th and 19th centuries.

 

A close up of the piles.  The front is very orderly looking with long bones and skulls lined up. 

 

There are a few crosses throughout. 

 

After the Catacombs tour, we headed North with plans to go in the Louvre.  On our way, we hit Laduree for some macarons!

 

Unfortunately, because I was extremely busy with work the weeks leading up to our trip, I had somewhat dropped the ball on finishing our Paris plans.  Had I planned better, I would've realized that the Louvre is closed on Tuesdays, so we just took a few pictures in front of the building and were on our way.

 

We then headed over to Notre Dame.

 

Next stop the Arc de Triomphe.

 

A brief stop for lunch at La Cantine du Troquet.  My garlic, pesto mashed potatoes were amazing! 

 

Next stop was going up the Eiffel Tower.  Here we are at the bottom.

 

A view South toward the Military School from Deck #1. 

 

A view North from Deck #2. 

 

We ended Tuesday with a night bike tour.  Up to this point, we had great weather in Paris.  Unfortunately, it was a steady downfall on us the entire night bike tour.  It was about 2 1/2 hours on the bike, and then ended with an hour boat trip up and down the Seine.  All in all it was fun, but we were pretty wet by the time we got back to our hotel around midnight.

 

Our tour took us through the St Germaine area and the Latin district over to the back side of Notre Dame.

 

 

A bridge just North of Notre Dame.  The building over the river behind my left shoulder is one of the most expensive hotels in Paris.  The winner of the Tour de France gets to stay in the Presidential Suite free of charge for a week (it costs ~$10k/night).  Rumor is that they sent Lance Armstrong a ~$420k bill for his 7 weeks of stays after he was stripped of his titles.

 

The front side of Notre Dame. 

 

One of the "Locks of Love" bridges.  Our tour only took us over 2, but I think there may be 3 of them.   

 

At night, on the hour, the Eiffel Tower sparkles.  It's really hard to tell from a still picture. 

 

A view of the tower from our boat.  You can see the rain coming down.



Europe Trip, Day 5: Paris

Early Monday morning, we took a train from Brussels to Paris.



 After we checked into our hotel, we headed out to see some of the city.  This beautiful church was about a block North of our hotel.  Our hotel was really nice and in a great location just on the North side of Luxembourg Parc.

 

We stopped to eat lunch in a café on Boulevard de St Germain.

 

Our lunch... 

 

A view of the side of the Louvre from the South side of the river. 

 

Looking East down the Seine.

 

Monday afternoon we took a bike tour.  Eiffel Tower was the first stop. 

 

A church built by Louis XIV. 

 

The back side of the Military School.  This is where the Nazi's retreated to in WW2 during the Liberation of Paris, when the Allies were regaining the city.  They hid here because they knew it was too important of a building for the French to bomb.  You can see tons of bullet holes sprinkling the building.  

 

Military school from the other side. 

We took a break in the bike tour in this garden right next to the Louvre. 

 

Our treats...a nutella crepe and orange crème brulee. 

 

We finished the tour with a few of the other side of the Eiffel Tower. 

 

Someone at our hotel highly recommended a little restaurant tucked in a small street just North of Luxembourg Parc called Chez Fernand.  It was incredible.  Our starter...pesto escargot. 

 

Our dessert...cheesecake and chocolate soufflé.