Midnight in Paris

We spent a few midnights (literally) in the beautiful city of Paris.  Joy had been to Paris a few times before, but it was Dan's first time to be in Europe.  Although we only had 3 days in Paris, we took advantage of every minute and saw as much as we could.  We saw the key tourist sites, visited the palace in Versaille, walked along the Seine at midnight, and ate a lot of croissants and crepes.  Ah, Paris! 

Day 1:  

We walked from our hotel to Montmarte to view the painters in action, then went to visit Sacre Coeur and Moulin Rouge.  

Afterwards, off to Trocadero to view the Eiffel Tower.  Joy has always wanted to take a cool picture with the Eiffel Tower in the background.  Unfortunately, everyone else had the same plan and didn't move out of the way for our photo op.  Maybe next time...

It was just our luck that only one of the four elevators to the top of the Eiffel Tower was working that day.  Since the lines were ridiculously long, we opted for the shorter (still long) line to walk up.  We only walked up to the first two observation areas.  We decided that the view was good enough so we didn't feel the need to head to the very top.   

Day 2:

Before we left Houston, Dan saw a show on the NatGeo channel that talked about the history and famous paintings of the Louvre Museum.  So, he was really excited to see everything he had seen on TV in real life.  It was a rainy day, so everyone had the same plans to visit the museum.  However, we were able to bypass the super long lines (thanks to our museum pass) and see all the famous paintings and statues.  Good thing Dan is tall so he could take all our pictures.   

After spending a few hours at the Louvre, we walked to Notre Dame.  We made it to the top of the Tower, walking up circular small steps, to see a great view of Seine and the city. 

There happened to be a big tent outside Notre Dame, and we discovered it was a bread tent.  When in Paris, do as the Parisians... eat a baguette! 

We happened to walk along this bridge as we were leaving Notre Dame and noticed all the locks with couples names on them.  Looks like this is the 'love' bridge. :)

Latin Square is where we found cheap food and more importantly cheap crepes. We visited the same bakery everyday to eat nutella crepes.  It was delicious!!  

Day 3:

We didn't think we'd have time, but decided last minute to visit Versaille.  King Louis XVI really knows how to build palaces.  This place is so ornate and perfectly manicured.

After spending most of the day in Versaille, we managed to make it to Musee D'Orsay in the nick of time to see some impressionist paintings. Joy loves this museum because it is housed in an old train station.  Then it's off to Champs Elysee and Arch de Triomphe.  We had some great views of the bustling city.

Since we had not seen enough of the Eiffel Tower, we decided to return to Trocadero to get one last view of the tower at night.  We're so glad we did because we got some cool pictures and got to enjoy our last midnight stroll in Paris.   

So that we won't forget, we wanted to document the location of our stay.  Our lovely and TINY hotel room.

Sprint for Life

For those of you who thought this was really a 'sprint', you should know better! ;)  This was actually the Sprint for Life to raise money for Ovarian Cancer.  A family friend of ours passed away last year of ovarian cancer, so we went to support and remember Candy Hanis.

Who knew the 'Kiss' band would be there too!

Waiting to start the race (or more like a walk)

 Lilian, with her speed walking, managed to keep up with Dan's long strides 

Not far behind them were Kimball, Mama Kong, and Papa Kong

Joy trying to keep up with Dan

Mama Kong waving to her 'fans' as she crosses the finish line

Mama Kong quote of the day: "Dan, you're not the tallest guy here.

That guy up there is taller than you.  He's at least 7 ft tall."
It was a true statement, that man was pretty tall.

Girls Brunch

This post is for you Stephanie Fitzgibbons!  After months of not seeing each other, we finally found a time where all of us were available to meet up for girls brunch.  We met at our usual location - Grand Lux, and everyone had their usual meals.  Angie and Joy had breakfast and Alison, Erin, and Lilian had lunch.  It was so fun to have Evie and Logan there with us too.  We missed you Stephanie and your two girls.  We'll just have to schedule a time for you to join us next time!

We have a few more additions to our group now.

 

2nd generation brunch attendees

Year 2

In addition to buying a house, skiing, painting, packing, and moving; we also celebrated our two year anniversary. We decided to postpone our celebration by a week since it was just too hectic before moving day.  This way we got to relax and enjoy our meal.  Yay, for making it to year #2!

Moving Day

While it was REALLY exciting to buy our house, we were NOT excited for the move.  We've known about the move for a while, but being the procrastinators that we are, we didn't really pack until the week of the move.  We were surrounded by boxes EVERYWHERE!  Joy felt like she was living in a hoarder's house... her biggest nightmare!  While we were packing, Dan came to the realization that "we'll probably be in packing mode for a few more weeks."  Oh bless his heart, try a few more months!   Unfortunately, we still have a lot more boxes to unpack.

The mess of boxes at our apartment

The mess of boxes at our new house.  Fortunately, we do have a little 

more space to spread out the boxes. 

It's now officially our house, after Joy is carried across the threshold. 

First (and probably last) DIY House Project

Now that the house is ours, we thought we'd be brave and do a simple house project - paint an accent wall in the master bedroom.  This is as brave as we get. :)  We intended for it to be a dark gray accent wall, but the 'volcanic ash' paint color we picked ended up looking more like a slate blue.  Well, it'll just have to do because we are not repainting it.

Joy focusing on her area, the lower half of the wall

Dan was in charge of the upper sections of the wall

Being the perfectionist he is, Dan had to 'clean up' the edges.  

The unexpected finish product, a Slate Blue accent wall.  Not too bad, eh?

'Dental' (aka Skiing) Conference in Park City

Dan made plans last year to attend a 'Dental Conference' in Park City, Utah.  It was supposed to be a little bit of dental conference and a lot of skiing.  Two weeks before the conference, the organizers told Dan the conference was cancelled due to 'poor skiing conditions.'  Apparently, skiing conditions can impact the effectiveness of a dental conference.  Since we already bought tickets and planned for the time off work, we decided to still go and make this our first annual ski trip together.  It was Joy's second time skiing, and she survived.

Joy getting ready for her ski class with all the other beginners.

A view of Mr Stein Eriksen's skiing medals and trophies

Getting ready for our 2nd day of skiing

Beautiful and (more importantly) warm day at the slopes

A smiley face at the tree!

Rawson perfecting 'the tuck' to ski faster

Lisa came out with us on our last ski day

Rawson getting some help from Chief

Can you tell it was a REALLY cold day?

The view halfway down the mountain... nobody there but the two of us