Gorgeous. Again.

It is GORGEOUS. Again. Sunny, not a cloud in the sky and about mid 70s for temperatures.

I think that THESE are the days people imagine me having in Paris. Like every day of my life is sunny with no problems and highs in the mid 70s. Having lunch and sipping wine at cafes. Yes, this is what people think my life is like I suppose.

But the reality is...we only have days like these probably 5-10 days out of the year. That's it.

Every other day, you could climb to the roof of my building and touch the deep dark clouds as they roll by.

Week Recap

Our weather has been INCREDIBLE this week. Fall is rolling in, but with the sunshine of the summer still. So we have been enjoying sunny weather with highs in the upper 70's. Gorgeous.

On Tuesday, we visited our friend Mary and George out in the suburbs of Paris. It was a bit of a trek, but it was well worth it! Michael had a great time playing with George, and I had a wonderful time catching up with a friend and enjoying her delicious lunch!

On Wednesday, Kirsten/Jonah/Ella and Katie/Karstyn/Eleyna came out to my local mall where the kids watched a free puppet show and dined on McDonalds afterwards for lunch. Michael decided he couldn't sit still and eat so we had to go home early and leave all the fun.

Thursday, we ventured out to the 16th and had a playdate with Jonah/Karstyn/Elise. As always, great fun. And then we had Natalia and her new baby over for dinner. She is married to one of the funniest Frenchmen I know. Well, I only know 4 and they are all just so funny. The exact opposite of what I imagine a Frenchman to be, stuffy and snobby.

Friday, we stayed around the neighborhood to rest. And met up with Laura/Oliver/Henry at our park to catch up with them. As always, great conversation and Oliver has started to say "Michael!"

Saturday, another French family in our aparment invited us over at the last minute for "aperodinatoire," which means appetizer extravaganza which results in dinner. What's not to like about someone making all the dinner arrangements for you? We had a great time catching up and their 2 boys played well with Michael. It was really cute. And great French practice for me! Luckily, I did ok! Despite not getting my one lesson a week, I am still conversational!

Today is Brian's day off. He went running with a friend and had breakfast with him. Came back and we went to church and had lunch together. Brian cracked up Michael with his muscle poses.
Then, he played American football at Les Invalides, Fantasy Football draft at the Atkins and then poker night.

One point - we changed our seats at church. We used to sit in the back with all the families. We never understood much because of the echo of the speakers in church.

Now, we sit RIGHT next to the speaker so we can understand better. And -Oh-My-Word. Made a WHOLE lot of difference! We could actually take care of Michael while at the same time listen in French and understand most if not all of the readings and homily. Makes going to church much more worth it for me because I am getting something out of it and not just taking care of Michael the whole time.

Just wanted to write about our week before I forget. Scroll down for posts with pictures.
P

2nd Part - Brittany, France

After our grand D-day tour, we headed to Brittany to savor the region and see Mont St. Michel.

We lost our Rick Steves book while in the American cemetary. And all our hotel information for Brittany was in that book. RATS. Luckily, Brian had written the small town it was in on our itinerary, Plouer-sur-Rance. So we drove to that town based on my superior navigational skills and just hoped there would be a billion signs for the place when we got there. And THERE WAS! So we made it just fine.

The first day in Brittany, we drove along the coast between St. Malo and Mont St. Michel. The views were spectacular. We got out of the car and played on this beach with an island home in the backdrop.Along the way, we stopped and bought some Calvados, a French apple brandy, from a guy selling some from outside of his van. Sweet. He also sold some of the best apple juice and raspberry apple juice I've ever tasted.

Finally, we made it to Mont St. Michel and were greeted first by crowds of people and then HUGE rainstorms. Luckily, we got some family pictures before that began:

After hiking uphill towards the abbey and taking the stairs, Michael decided he was tired and ready for his nap:

Don't know how he got so tired when he didn't actually DO any of those stairs! :o) We signed up for an English tour of the abbey and were so glad we did. Despite all taking turns taking care of Michael, we all learned a little bit about medieval times and society. Some random interesting points:

• None of the stones used to build the abbey were from the actual rock island it sits on. The land/material from the location is considered sacred so it was not used.
• Quicksand and the fast rising tide are 2 of the dangers of the abbey.
• Pilgrims have been making the religious trek to this location since the 900's.
• It is suspected that the abbey was built structurally to represent the heirarchy of their society and religious life.

All in all, a very informative and beautiful stop. For dinner, we ate at this funny little Restaurant du Terroir, which was not only open, but practically empty, good, and reasonably priced. And to boot, they had 2 goats. Which once Brian and Michael discovered that the goats would eat anything...well....brings new meaning to "dining entertainment."

Brian spent the rest of the meal asking us, "Are you going to eat that vanilla bean? Let's see if the goat will eat it."

And Michael running around asking each of us, "Do you want to go feed the goats?"

I would not have been surprised if those goats had the runs after what Brian and Michael gave them to eat!

Well, after taking a bit too long in Normandy, we decided to extend our stay by one night in Brittany. After asking our hotel owner and stressing him out a bit and changing our train tickets, we found ourselves on vacation for another night.

The next day, we set off for Dinan, a town in Brittany. It was a normal European town, small, quaint, with cute architecture. We enjoyed the rampart views, despite the rain:

We finished with Dinan by early afternoon and decided to visit Dinard, a cute beach boardwalk town. But on the way, the entire car fell asleep and a storm cloud rolled in and spoiled all the fun. So we just relaxed for the remainder of our last day.

On our travel day back to Paris, we headed to St. Malo and wandered along their ramparts and enjoyed their beach views with sailboats.


Brian got our train tickets switched to get back to Paris an hour earlier! So there we were. At the end of yet another successful trip exploring France.

La Belle France. I could go on and on about how absolutely delightful the countryside is in France. Paris...you can take Paris from me and I would be absolutely fine. But in my heart, I'll always carry around my memories and sights from Collioure, Sarlat, the Cathar castles, and driving along yet another small windy country road in France.

It is THOSE moments that have made my stay in France something to write home about.

1st Part - Normandy, France

In mid July, we took a vacation to explore the Normandy region of France and, of course, visit the D-Day beaches. Prepare yourself for a very mini and hardly expert history lesson. I welcome any corrections on my info because it is VERY possible that I am mistaken at times.

We 1st visited a small charming port town called Honfleur:
There, we began our vacation in slow fashion by having a delicious seafood lunch. Michael got this amazing fish in a wine cream sauce and mashed potatoes and loved it! After this, we wandered around the small town, Michael rode the carousel a million times, and we hiked up to the top of the town for views of Le Havre, another French port.

After exhausting Honfleur, we checked into Madame Sebire's bonafide farm, which was about a 10 minute drive from Arromanches. She had new calfs in the barn and real cows in the pasture. Michael L-O-V-E-D that. At the end of everyday in Normandy, he would ask us, "Go home to farm?"

The next day, we drove to Arromanches to see their memorial and the D-Day 360 movie. Here is the view of the town from the top. See the mulberries in the ocean in the distant? These were used as a man-made dock to unload supplies etc. for the Allies.
After this, we drove to Longues-sur-Mer, which is where 4 German artillery bunkers still stand today. You can see 3 of them built kind of into the hills here:
Despite being bombarded by Allied naval fire, they are still standing. Incredible. Here is a closeup of one of the canons:
After this, we drove to the American Cemetary, where we were in awe of how meticulously kept it was. It was beautiful, serene, peaceful, and such a great dedication to our nation's soldiers who died for something really worth fighting for, freedom:
If I am not mistaken, the walkway between these reflecting pools and the memorial behind the photographer is the exact point where American soldiers first broke through enemy lines at Omaha and penetrated the top of the beach. If not here, it is somewhere here along the cemetary that it is.

Michael at the cemetary:
From the cemetary, there was a tremendous view of Omaha Beach. There was a hiking trail that took you down there. Instead, we followed Rick Steve's recommendations and drove to Vierville where we parked...and walked 2 minutes to Omaha. I think I prefer that way!
Michael and Brian rolled up their jeans and went playing on the beach with another French family. It was a quite necessary part of the day as Michael had to be well behaved everywhere we went. So he needed that time to blow off some pent up energy!
Because one day full of history wasn't enough, we continued our D-day touring the next day at the Caen Memorial Museum. They had amazing on-site childcare with a certified childminder and lots of new, clean toys. It was like we had stepped back home to America instead of being in France. And it was FREE.

So us 4 adults had the chance to actually read the things in the amazing Caen Memorial. I won't go into details about everything we learned. But I will say that by halfway through the exhibit, I gave up and had too much of information overload! It was very well done though and we learned a lot. We also saw their very good D-day video which included German footage as well as American.

Continuing on our D-day tour, we also visited the Ranger museum in Grandcamp Maissy, which was actually very cool. It was very small...no where NEAR as big as the one in Caen or high tech. But it outlined the creation of an elite unit of soldiers called the Army Rangers whose first mission was to capture Pointe du Hoc. The trip was made really special because we were with a real live Army Ranger. Here he is at Pointe du Hoc: I learned a lot in that little museum. One special fact being that Aggie Lt. Col. James Earl Rudder was the Commanding Officer of the 2nd and 5th battalions of the Army Rangers at Pointe du Hoc. I'd seen statues of him at Texas A&M and there is an entire tower named after him...and it is just now that I know why. I hate to admit it, but there it is!

At Pointe du Hoc, Michael and Brian played in the craters that are still there today from Allied cannons:
I couldn't possibly post all the pictures we took. It was an amazing part of our vacation and we learned a lot. Stephen Ambrose's book on the D-day invasion made it even more meaningful as I learned about all the planning and execution it took to stage such a history-changing event.

Paris Plage

We took the kids to Paris Plage this past Wednesday, the 19th of August! In the summer for about a month, the north side of the Seine is transformed into a mini beach/ mini boardwalk.

There is some sand, misters, etc. It is a bit cheesy, but welcome for the kids! And this past Wednesday afternoon, our temperature high was in the low 90's WITHOUT air conditioning...so we were baking.

The kids loved the misters in the hot weather:
We are very fortunate to have this new little playgroup! There is an even balance of boys and girls and they are all within a month of each other, which makes for great play! AND they are all good kids, with good hearts, and play well together. I think we are going to find some great times ahead of us!

Here's a picture of them by the Seine:

And holding hands while walking down the boardwalk. I was pretty proud to be the adult getting to hold their hands. I love being a mom:

Love,
P

biggity biggity boudin

I made this lunch for Michael a while back.




We have boudin noir (black pudding/blood sausage) with apples, mushrooms sauteed in butter, some cucumbers (gross), and then some charcuterie (rillettes, Serrano ham and "Grandma's pate"). He loves the ham, the rillettes (some kind of fatty shredded goose meat), the pate and the mushrooms. The boudin not so much. I don't know why. It's one of those French things that looks and sounds disgusting, but is super delicious especially with the apples. Phuong and I were craving the boudin noir this evening.

Catchup - June visit Home!

This year, we took a super quick trip home to Houston because Brian was going to be in North America for a conference anyways!

So I spent 2 weeks relaxing in Houston and enjoying the quiet pace of life. We did a whole lot of nothing except playing and well...playing! Our local library had a nice story time/craft hour so we went to that a couple of times.

I got to catch up with my neighbors, The Folkes, who have known me since I was born! They have an awesome pool where they taught me how to swim. Here is a picture of all of us.

Top row: Michael, me, and their daughter Kimberly who is 3 years younger than me
Pool row: Mr. Johnny, J (their grandaughter who is Kimberly's daughter), Mrs. Glenda, and Brian.

Michael LOVED the pool and would ask to go over to Mr. Johnny's house all the time.

My parents have 2 dogs. They are chihuahua - weenie dog mixes. VERY funny. Michael, of course, adored them. Here is Michael picking up Chewy:

One of our hot days, we went to the Houston Children's Museum which was pretty cool and CRAZY. Full of kids, of course! Michael had fun at an outdoor water display that showed the effects of water, pressures, waves, dams, etc. Here is a picture of my parents with Michael there:

Inside in the air conditioning, they had a pretty cool little toddler/baby play area. Michael loved this giant glo-art thing:
And there was also a little market. Check out my healthy shopper:

Lots of fruits and vegetables there! So proud of him!

Those were the highlights of our trip! Two weeks is really not long enough for a visit at home. By the time we had recovered from the jet lag, we only had about 10 days left. In that time, we did get a lot of playing done, but I wish we could have seen so much more! We also spent a day at the Woodlands Children's museum, which was interesting.

One night, we visited with my old college friend, Shane, and his new wife, Erin. A lovely couple who we wished we lived a bit closer to! We had a nice dinner on their porch of barbequed steak kabobs. DELICIOUS.

That's it! We did a lot of shopping, a lot of playing, and a lot of relaxing. The best vacation!

Ok...up next is Normandy/Brittany!

White-Boy-B-Ball

We had an action packed weekend. Full of activities and sweat.

On Saturday, we spent the day with The Daniels where we met at the splash pools at the Luxembourg Gardens. The boys enjoyed that and Michael got pretty brown. I think he gets that tropical skin from me.

Then, we went back to the Daniels apartment where they helped me eat my 3 heads of lettuce that I bought because it was a good deal (3 heads for 2 euro). Note to self: It takes a lot of people to eat 3 heads of lettuce.

Nap time had by the boys and then we hit the main event of the day - an inner city basketball court. Complete with graffiti and everything. Jonathan/Kirsten found this basketball court near their place and wanted to try it out.

Well, a pack of inflating needles, 2 mini basketballs, and 1 adult size basketball later...we found ourselves trying to make half court shots. The boys decided they needed to be up high. And when I asked for a picture, they started slapping and grabbing their dads faces:
A bit hard to see...but squint and you'll get the hint.

Michael attempted some free throws of his own:
And then I put the camera away because I was afraid I was going to get thwacked in the face with a renegade basketball.

On Sunday, Brian went for a run in the morning, came back and announced that we had to be at Gare de Lyon in an hour and we were leaving in 30 minutes. We had plans to visit a co-worker's of Brian at her husband's grandmother's house.

Her house was situated at the edge of the forest of the chateau Fountainbleau. Not too shabby!
Ok, so that wasn't her house. But it is Fountainbleau and it has a huge forest attached to it as part of its hunting grounds. And the house we went to is on the edge of said forest.

We had a great time there! They barbequed for us chicken breasts, sausages, spare ribs...the works! It tasted amazing, and I ate so much I couldn't button my pants for the rest of the afternoon.

Michael loved playing with their son, who is about 6 months younger. They watered things together, played on the swing/slide, shot water guns...played in the tent and choo choo. FUN TIMES. I would have pictures, but their son was half naked the whole time so I am not comfortable with posting half naked pictures of other people's kids on my blog. Not smart.

Then, we went to the forest of Fountainebleau and hiked up a ways and looked around. It was AWESOME.

I LOVE hiking. I am no good at it and not sure-footed at all. But I love trying to find the way to get up somewhere, making sure where I am stepping is going to hold, and climbing up not-too-difficult places. I love the lookout when you get where you are supposed to be...because Mother Nature IS that amazing. I love the quiet that surrounds you. I just love it.

Unfortunately, I didn't take my camera because that's how much I have to focus.

And Michael...God bless my little hiker! He LOVES to hike and climbs really well. No fear. When we were going down, he would turn back to me and say, "Mommy, this way. Put your hand on this rock and go down."

What's not to love about that? Not only does he find his own way, being independent and brave. But he turns around to make sure I am ok and to let me know how to get down too in case I need help. If Michael is the only child I am able to have, I thank God that he gave me someone who is so easy to love and someone I am so proud of to know every day.

Mommy on the Phone

Tonight, about 30 minutes after Michael's bedtime, I hear the doorknob jiggle to the living room. This indicates that my Michael is looking for his parents.

So we get up...and go get him...My Michael who really never gets up in the night. We have this conversation:

Michael (holding about 4 stuffed animals): Michael want to sleep in Mommy's bed.
Mommy: No...you have to sleep in your big boy bed. Are you scared of something?
Michael: No. Mommy talking.
Mommy: Is Mommy talking too loud? Is it keeping you up?
Michael: Yes, I can't sleep. Please no more talking.

I think this means no more phone conversations with Kirsten after Michael goes to bed. Got it. My son, telling me I am too loud. Sadly, he is not the 1st person to complain of this, and he will not be the last either I suspect.

He regressed today. He peed in his pull up this morning and then peed in it again before dinner. SIGH. 15,000 steps forward, 2 steps back.

Also, I am deleting my post saying I am on a hiatus. I am obviously not on a hiatus. I am just being lazy about blogging our visit home in June, the trip to NOrmandy, and wandering around Paris with the parents. I have to pick out pictures and refer to notes.

Love,
P

Have to

I have to post this. I have to because I want to!

Now, if you don't care for photography at all, DO NOT READ THIS POST. If you do, continue.

I have some readers who, very much like me, are struggling to learn more about how to take good pictures. Who would have thought a little black handheld box would be so difficult? The longer I take pictures and the more I fiddle with settings, the more I realize how much I DO NOT KNOW.

Here's my newest realization:
DSLR - you cannot completely trust its metering. You can use it's meter as a guide, but in the end, it is YOU and your artistic eye that determines what exposure is best.

It's aggravating. So, here is an example:

In Aperture priority, I took this picture of Michael on Omaha Beach...the camera set it up to be "well exposed." Well, I disagree. This picture is too DARK:
Angrily, I threw it in manual, exposed it to be 2 bars too bright (over exposed) and I like the results much better. Maybe a little blown out in parts? But overall, a well lit image!

I prefer it much more to my previous "correct" one.

So for those who have a DSLR, I challenge all of us, to quit using Aperture priority or Auto and throw the dang thing in manual.

And then, do what all professional photographers do...doctor it in photoshop! Cheating, but this is what sells lately.

Ok, that's it. Discuss if you want. Disagree, don't disagree? Post results of your manual vs. camera determined exposed shots. Whatever. Just wondering who is willing to talk to me about this. That's it. I am thinking it's going to be 1 person. 2 Max.

Some things worth blogging about

So I know no one should be reading but I have to blog so i don't forget.

Last week, while The MOM was still here, Michael started peeing in the big boy toilet. For real.

On Saturday, we went to Fountainbleau and then out to our Indian place for dinner. When we got back, MIchael was standing by the bathroom door screaming, "Michael has to go pee pee in the big boy toilet." He is doing the antsy gotta pee dance so we let him in there and lo-and-behold.

Pee pee. In the big boy toilet. Since then (that would be a week), he has had only 1 pee diaper (we were out and about and he had A LOT to drink at the water cooler in the doctor's office).

And today...he did a poop in the big boy toilet. A POOP.

But I don't think he knew what he did. He told me he needed to go pee so I said OK! Go do it! Then, he comes to get me in the living room and says, "Mommy?" and looked all confused. So we went to look and there it was. Poop with his pee.

And we had to tell him that he made poo poo in the toilet. He really wasn't aware.

So imagine his surprise to find out he gets an ICE CREAM bar after doing THAT in the toilet!

When am I going to get the guts to change to pullups??? Or full on underwear???

Ok...back to my blog hiatus. I say this...but I wonder if I actually mean it.