Paris....

Recently, Luke got sent to Germany for work. Being the lover of travel that I am, I invited myself along! We stopped in Paris the first two days and then made our way via high speed train to Stuttgart, Germany.

We had an amazing time! Paris was surreal. We've all seen everything Paris has to offer in pictures or in the movies so it was crazy and amazing to actually see everything in real life! 

We had quite a few adventures, starting with the lugging of our suitcases through the crowded Paris subway system. Not fun. Parisians don't move aside... even when it's obvious you're lugging around a 

50 lb bag. Eventually we just had to start using the suitcases as weapons. :) Also, it's at least 7000 degrees in the trains. So yeah, not off to a super fun start but I promise it gets better! 

After we get there Luke and I go for a walk looking for an ATM and a place to eat. Oh, here's a little tip if any of you decide to go to Europe. American credit cards don't work everywhere. Europe uses a different type of card with a microchip embedded and you must enter a pin for purchases. Hence some of the automated machines like the train ticket machine and some restaurants and vendors can't read the mag strip on American cards. Anyway, back to the story. We've only been walking around for about 10 minutes and I'm gawking about at all the sights when BAM, I step on dog poop at just the right angle, slip, and seriously almost fall on my butt. I totally would have fallen if Luke hadn't been there. It was hilarious and disgusting. 

We were there for less than two days so here are some of the sights we saw. I hope to go back one day and see the rest!! 

*** Be prepared... I've only posted a fraction of the pictures I took but there's still quite a few! ***

 This is a movie poster for "The Hangover". I thought it was funny.

Notre Dame. Seriously one of the most amazing things I've seen in my life. It was so beautiful and the architecture and carvings are amazing. 

It was super dim inside and tripods were not allowed so I couldn't really get good pics but you get the idea. This is looking from the back of the cathedral towards the alter (?). I'm not sure it's called the alter... it's where the priest stands for services. It's still a functioning cathedral, they hold mass, there are priests for confessions, and there are candles you can light. The giant poster you see at the end there is of Pope John Paul II. 

I can't say enough about how much I loved this place. I was blown away.... it was so beautiful.

Gorgeous stained glass throughout. 

One of the famous rose windows.

This is one of the portals on the west side (in the picture of the outside above, it's the middle one.) It depicts the Last Judgement. Right above the doors in the rectangular area are the dead coming out of their tombs for judgement. Above that in the middle are the archangel Michael and Satan. Michael is weighing the souls and the worthy go to the left to heaven and the unworthy go to the right with the devil. 

Above that in the triangular area is Christ sitting on his throne with angels at his sides and the carvings all around are of the Heavenly Court. 

The larger statues at the bottom are of the twelve apostles. 

A close up of the Heavenly Court. 

We also went to the Louvre. It's a massive museum so we didn't go in to see the exhibits since we only had two days in Paris.... it would have taken far to long. Every building you can see in the picture above is part of the museum and that's not even all of it. It's giant.

The famous glass pyramid that is the Main Entrance to the museum. We went inside and let me tell you.... it's pretty to look at but it acts as a giant greenhouse trapping in heat. I started sweating the instant I walked in there. 

Later in the evening we went down to the Arc de Triomphe. I was a little iffy about why we were going to see a giant arch in the middle of a round-about but when we got there it was pretty cool. It's so huge! Also, the traffic around it is captivating. Paris drivers are crazy and fearless. You couldn't pay me enough to drive anywhere in Paris. Around the Arc is this giant, multiple lane round-about that Luke and I studied for several minutes and could not make any sense of. People were darting in and out and at one point a man with a child on a bicycle drove right through the middle of it all. Crazy.

The Arc is at the top of the Champs-Elysees. So we took a gander down that street. At one point we stopped to watch some street performers. As we were turning to leave, we saw Sam Donaldson... the news anchor. It was super weird! 

Our hotel was right by the Eiffel Tower so the last night we were there we went for a walk around it. Oh, and got the most delicious crepe I have ever eaten. Seriously, if we had bought one at the start of the trip instead of at the end I would have been eating one hourly. It was that good. 

**Pardon the blurriness. I didn't have my tripod**

These next pictures somehow made it to the bottom of my post. These are from the first day were were there. We went up to the top of the Eiffel Tower that day.

Arc de Triomphe from the top of the Eiffel.

The windows in our hotel room opened up WIDE! 

And, of course, the bidet. Which I never did use.... I think it would feel weird. 

Stuttgart.....

Schwip-Schwap- an odd orange/cola drink. I prefer Coke. ;)

OK- I can't get my words to go above the first pic so here will have to do. On to Germany. I LOVED Germany. It surprised me how much I liked it. When I pictured Germany I pictured it all gray and industrial looking. Not so. It was very green and foresty. It was also very clean. And the German people were much, much friendlier than the French.

Stiftskirche (the Collegiate Church). This was an old church right in the middle of the modern main shopping area in Stuttgart. 

I have this weird interest. I love old cemeteries.  I like to walk around and look at the interesting grave stones and wonder about the lives of the people buried there. I find them to be very peaceful. So one day I ventured out on my own to find this cemetery called Pragfriedhof. Above is the crematorium. 

I thought this one was super interesting. It has a door with a lock on it. It really made me wonder what was inside. 

See how peaceful?? 

Near the end of our trip we went to Heidelberg. One of the men Luke was working with lives there and said there was a great old castle we should see. His co-worker (Joe) and his wife took us up to the castle and then we went to dinner with them afterward. Which I must say was much easier because we had someone who spoke German to help us decipher the menu! :)

Heidelberg Castle. I hauled my butt up 314 stairs to reach this baby and it was totally worth it! 

Looking down the street of the Altstadt (Old Town). Charming isn't it?? 

Looking down on Heidelberg form the castle.

Heidelberg Bridge. It's the original bridge used by the castle inhabitants. It was erected in 1786-88. I think part of it was damaged in the war and rebuilt. 

Part of the turret (is that the correct term?) collapsed leaving a view inside. 

The castle all lit up at night. 

Recent Activities......

Well, it's been a crazy couple of months! As some of you may know I some health troubles that lasted nearly the entire month of March. In fact, it started 2 days after my 30th birthday! When Logan was asked why Mommy was sick and in the hospital, he replied, "Because she's 30!" Awesome. Not to worry, I'm feeling much better now..... even though I'm still 30. ;)

So here are a few pictures of the kids that I took a month or so ago. 

Izzy is growing really fast. She's 8 months old and has already been creeping and crawling around for about a month and a half. She really wants to be able to cruise along the couch but her legs aren't quite strong enough yet. 

Logan is still enjoying preschool. It's really helped him come out of his shell. He will actually answer most strangers when they ask him a question. For those of you who don't know my son... this is major progress. He had Kindergarten Round-Up this month and seems to be OK with going to a new school with new kids. I can't tell you how relieved this makes me. Although I must confess, when they took all the kids to see the classrooms and the parents stayed behind I got a little teary eyed. I don't know why it's different than dropping him off at preschool. It just felt different to me somehow. Maybe it's because it's such a big step. I mean, preschool was a BIG step but now he's going to be in Elementary School. Where does the time go???? 

Last weekend we went with Alicia and Ben up to Baby Animal Days in Logan. It was nice in the valley but intermittently pouring rain up there. We decided to tough it out since we drove all that way. By the end of the day we were muddy and damp but I think the kids had fun.

Pretty Peacock

 Logan freaked out that the pretty peacock was going to attack him from behind. 

We live down by the Weber River in Riverdale. The river has been running high this season and with all the rain we've been getting, it flooded. Several homes in our neighborhood had their basements flooded. I thanked the Good Lord we didn't buy a house in the flood plain. Whew! It was quite the mess.  When I took these pictures the water had gone down a little bit. You can see on the trail where it's wet... that's where the water was that morning. Over on the left you can kind of tell where the natural curve of the river usually is. 

 Below is the pass under the road. I'm guessing if I was nuts and waded in there, the water would be at least up to my neck. 

Catching Up......

Isabel is 6 months old! 

A few things about Isabel.....

*she's 15 lbs 13 oz and 25 inches long

*she is the most smiley baby I've ever known

*she ADORES her brother

*her brother ADORES her

*despite the fact that she's not teething... she drools non-stop

*prefers to be on her stomach or sitting up

*just started to eat baby food... which she scarfs up

*has yet to roll over but she gets up on her knees and rocks back and forth like she's getting ready to crawl

*HATES having her nose wiped

*loves bath time

*has been sleeping all the way through the night since she was about 3 months old

*is a pretty friendly baby... she's starting to get a little wary of strangers but nothing too bad yet

*she's a very easy going little girl and we're so happy to have her in our family!

More Catching Up.....

A couple weeks ago during that lovely warm spell we had, Luke and I took the kids out to Farmington Bay. There were a bunch of bald eagles that come there to feed on the carp (or something) when the ice melts. It was pretty cool to see. I couldn't get very good pictures of the eagles.. my lens wasn't long enough. You could see them pretty well through binoculars, though. 

 You can kind of see the Eagle in this one. You can see the brown body and white head.

Despite the fact that it was still quite cold... we took the kids down to the river walk. We're pretty lucky to live down by the river in Riverdale so we take every opportunity to get out and walk around down there. Logan loves it because he can throw rocks in the river. 

 Logan has become quite the poser. 

Do You Believe In Miracles???

I was watching a show last night on OWN, Oprah's new network, called Miracle Detectives. I thought it was really interesting. The premise is that 2 people, one a believer and one a sceptic, go around the world investigating claimed miracles.

This particular episode was about miracles surrounding 9/11.  The first story was one I had actually heard before about a group of 5 or 6 firefighters in stairwell B. They were headed up when the first tower collapsed and they knew they had to get out, so they turned around and started down. They came upon a woman named Josephine who physically couldn't walk down anymore stairs. She was basically just standing in the stairwell waiting to die. The fire-fighters couldn't leave her there so they pretty much dragged her down the stairs with them. They were still in the stairwell when the building started to come down. After the rubble settled... they were all still alive.

So was it a miracle? Later, they talked to a structural engineer who explained that had they been anywhere else in the building they would have perished. The specific structure of the building created a void in Stairwell B. There was an area of I think 10-15 floors they had to be on to survive. They were in that zone and they survived.

One of the firemen was asked... "Do you think God was with you that day?" He said he had a hard time believing God was there with him that day. Why wasn't he with the thousands that perished? Why was he chosen?

Another firefighter, John, had a story. John was in one of the buildings that collapsed and walked away with a few scratches and that's it. He said later, as he was walking over a bridge, I think it was the Brooklyn bridge but that's neither here nor there, he met a construction worker who said he was working on a roof in Brooklyn and saw both of the towers collapse. John told him he was in one of the towers and he survived and was lamenting the tragic casualties that day. The worker told him that God had a way of doing things and God made him survive for a reason and to go out and tell his story. The construction worker then walked off somewhere. When John got to the other side of the bridge he mentioned the worker to some officers wondering where he went. The officers didn't know what he was talking about. They said they saw John on the bridge and John was walking alone.

I'm sure there are many more miraculous experiences that day. Were those experiences just coincidence? Just a handful of lucky people to survive a great tragedy perpetrated by evil men? Or was it something more?

My opinion is this.... just because one person survived and one person didn't doesn't mean God was with one and not the other. Maybe God was with them both. Maybe God has a plan for each of us that we don't necessarily need to understand. Sometimes Logan will get mad at me for making him do something that he doesn't understand.... like keeping his seatbelt on in the car. His mind can't comprehend the fact that he's not safe if he's not wearing his seatbelt properly or not at all. Just as our minds might not be able to comprehend what God's plan for us is. Logan feels safe because he's with me and he doesn't understand yet that bad thing can and do happen. I have a plan for him that includes him not flying out of the windshield if we were to get in an accident. Do you get what I'm saying? :)

I'm not implying that God had anything to do with that terrible tragedy that day. That was the work of downright evil men. Plain and simple. However, I do think God was there that day. Just as He is with us all in our times of need.  Do I think that God chose specific people to survive that day? I'm not sure. It's hard for me to understand how God could do that if we are indeed his children. Could you choose which of your children to save and which to die?

Anyway, enough of my rambling. What do you think? Do you believe in miracles?

It's Been A While....

It appears it's been a while since I posted anything. Well, you're just going to have to wait a bit longer. I hooked up my camera to download pictures and it seems there are 162 images.


While you wait I'll leave you with this lovely image courtesy of peopleofwalmart.com. Enjoy! 


The Mighty Jungle


There isn’t enough camouflage in a freakin’ jungle to cover up that body hair bro!