Memorial Day (and the weekend)

    

 

A few weeks ago Jon and the kids decided to challenge our neighbors to a basketball tournament.  They bought a special poster board and a medal so they could issue the challenge.

They brought it to the neighbor's, rang the doorbell, and then ran away.  A few hours later they returned the favor with their response to our challenge.

It was a super fun day.  Their little boy (the one in the Jazz shirt) was super serious about the challenge.  He loves basketball, and he was outside every second of last week practicing; we know this because my kids spy on the neighbors through our windows.  On the day of the tournament, he was counting down the minutes.  I drove by about 15 minutes before they were going to come over, and he was sitting in his driveway with his basketball just waiting for the big event.

Check out Hallie's super cool basketball clothes.  She put these on specifically for the big game -- she knew this was exactly what we needed to help our team win.
Unfortunately, the neighbors won the challenge, and they now have a lovely medal hanging on their front door.  Luckily, we also played some action-packed games of lightning, and Rachel won a few of those, so she didn't feel like the afternoon was a total loss.

We ended the day with a barbecue at our house and smore's at the neighbors.

We were so excited for Memorial Day because Jon got to stay home and we didn't have any yard work or music school to worry about.  We started off the day with Jon and I going for a run (separately of course so the kids wouldn't be alone).  After an early lunch, we spent the rest of the day outside.

 

We went for a hike on a little trail at the top of Gentile.  The kids were so excited and kept running, which resulted in a few scrapes, but they handled it well.  Rachel's favorite part of the hike was playing in a tree along the way.  We got to climb it on the way there, and the way back!  Sky did surprisingly well for her first hike -- she walked for more than half of it, which was pretty good.  For most of the way back I held her, but she chose to walk for some of it.

 

After the hike we went to Jensen Park for a bike ride.  There are running trails and a big lake that you can ride around.  Jon and the big kids stuck together, and I ran alongside Sky.  She is so funny when she gets on that bike.  She'll just be going regular speed, and then she'll suddenly lean down over the handle bars, look over at me, and say, "Gotta go!"  Then she pedals her little legs as fast as they can go.  The greatest thing about riding at Jensen Park as opposed to our neighborhood, is that it's within riding distance to Iceberg.  After the kids (and Jon) rode for a few miles, Sky and I went back to the car and met up with everyone at Iceberg for some icecream (Sky has to ride in the car as opposed to riding her bike there -- it makes her pretty mad because she "can ride super fast like the kids") .

 

 

 

 

It was such a fun weekend, and now we begin our regular lives again.

 

Mothers Day...and a few Other Things

I'm a little slow on the Mother's Day report, but better late than never.

I had a wonderful, but busy, morning.  I woke up early to prepare a lesson for Kale's class and then quickly jumped back in bed for a 5 minute nap before the kids came and woke me up with the wonderful homemade gifts they had made.  Hallie's school teacher had told the kids that maybe they could wake up their moms with a huge hug, give them their gifts, and then their moms would probably cry.  Hallie knew that this was exactly how things were going to happen at our house, and so requested that I sleep in on Sunday morning instead of waking up before she did.

So, I woke up with a huge hug, was given gifts, and yes there were even a few tears involved.  It was all Hallie could have hoped for.

When we went down for breakfast it was like Christmas morning.  The kids had taken all their money and chosen out special gifts for me.

The earrings are from Kale, the bracelet/ring combo from Sky, and the shirt is from Rachel.

In this picture the shirt is from Jon and the necklace from Hallie -- oh yeah, those earrings are also from Kale.

We spent a fun day talking to missionaries and spending time with the Hansen family.  Thank you to all for helping me have a fun and relaxing Mothers Day.

Hallie has recently lost her 2 bottom teeth.  They've been loose for a really long time, but she didn't want to bother them too much in case it hurt too much.  All that changed when Rachel pulled out a tooth that was barely loose.  Once that happened, Hallie was determined to get her teeth out too.  So, Sunday night we pulled one out, and then Monday night the second one came out.  Hallie was so excited.  

Hallie wrote a special note to the tooth fairy.  It started out "To my friend the tooth fairy..."  I wish I had taken a picture of it.  She asked all sorts of questions and then requested that the tooth fairy write back if she had enough time.  Hallie was delighted to have received a reply the next morning.  She even left a Swedish Fish for the tooth fairy with her second tooth after inquiring as to whether or not the tooth fairy liked candy.  I love that kid so much!!

Also, Sister Anna Hansen sent the kids little missionary tags, and she even changed the "Sister" to "Elder" on Kale's.  They were thrilled to have real missionary tags.  Sky liked hers so much that she wore it to bed.

MJ and Brian came into town for just a few days to get their stuff from Mom and Dad's, participate in some graduation festivities with the Lee's, and spend some time with the Castleton's.  Lucky for us, they slept at our house on Saturday and then came to church with our family.  Brian helped Jon teach Kale's class, so I got to go to classes with MJ.  I loved every second of it.

After church MJ and Brian hung out with the kids while I made dinner and Jon did laundry.  I loved listening to the kids have so much fun with those 2.  Brian spent some quality time learning some different languages with Rachel and Kale.  And Mary-Jane spent at least 30 minutes listening to Hallie read.  It made the kids feel so loved and special.

Before they had to head to the airport we were able to play some games and get some much needed fashion advice (thanks MJ).  I loved having them here even for just a few short days.  Hooray!

Today was crazy hair day for the 2nd graders at Rachel's school.  She was really excited about it, so she wrote a list of different ideas and then decided on just one style.  Here was the end result.

Paris

Get ready for the longest post ever!

 Jon and I were so excited to go to Paris, but we were sad about leaving the kids, so we decided to start our vacation off all together.  The night before our flight, we went and stayed at a hotel closer to Nick and Heidi's.  We had dinner at Red Robin, swam in the pool, and stayed up late watching Ratatouille (in honor of our trip).  Actually, only the girls and Jon stayed up, the rest of us fell asleep in the first half hour.

 When we got to Paris it was only like 9 am, so our room wasn't ready yet.  It was rainy outside and Jon and I were both so tired so we tried to just hang out at the hotel.  We walked around, went downstairs and lifted weights, and then we just sat on the lobby couches waiting until a room opened up.  We were both so tired that we just fell asleep -- I felt pretty embarrassed about it, but no one woke us up and shooed us away, so I guess it was fine.  We finally checked into our room, and after a nap, we went to dinner at a place called Ratatouille.  It was just a cute little place off the beaten path.  On the way home we walked by the Arc de Triomphe -- our first tourist attraction.  It was pretty cool, even in the dark.

 Bree had recommended that we watch some Rick Steve's (he's some guy who's been all over and has a show on PBS about traveling to different places).  Anyway, Jon watched one of his movies and found out about a place called Chantilly.  We decided that's where we wanted to go, so we set out.  We looked at the little train map we had and it seemed like the train heading north would take us right to this little town.  We found the right train, feeling so proud of ourselves, and then it stopped after about 3 stops.  We confusedly got off and then found a different train that continued in the same direction; unfortunately, it had the same end result.  We finally got on a train that was supposed to go all the way to Chantilly, and then realized that the ticket we had didn't extend all the way up the line, so we had to get off again and buy another ticket and then wait for the next train.  Aaaaagh -- I was feeling especially nervous through the whole ordeal -- I hate not knowing what I'm doing -- but we finally got to our destination.  The trip was supposed to take about 30 minutes, and it ended up taking us 2 hours.  Even though the train debacle was crazy, it was really okay.  Jon and I were together, and we didn't have anything that we had to do, so it was more of an adventure on our first day of Paris. 

 We walked to manor from the train station, and it led us down this lovely little wooded path.  We thought we had arrived when we saw this beautiful building (the one Jon is in front of), but it turns out that this was just the horse stable.  It was huge and super fancy, so of course it made sense that we would have made the assumption that it was a house.  Whoever this guy was must have really loved his horses.

 This was the actual house and it was lovely.  It had a cool moat that went around the whole place except on one side where it led down into their gardens.  The grounds were lovely and extensive, but it was too cold for me, so we didn't walk around too much.

 When we bought our tickets for the ride back home, we were pretty sure we had bought the ones for the 30 minute train ride, but just to be sure we were in the right place, we asked some random girl who was standing on the platform.  Turns out she works for Rick Steves (remember?  the travel guy that Bree told us about?).  She updates his travel guide books.  Anyway, she was super nice and talked with us all the way back to Paris, and even told us what areas she thought were worth seeing.

Later that night we went to see Notre Dame Cathedral -- it was big and beautiful and there was actually a service going on inside.  We didn't really realize it at first -- I just figured it was always super packed with that many people -- and then we heard the priest singing some sort of prayer or something.  Kind of cool to see.

Lots of the bridges leading onto the island had locks stuck on them with people's names on them.  It was pretty crazy.

 We went to Versailles, and it was ridiculously amazing.  We had an audio-guide for the whole thing, and it made the whole experience so much cooler.  We got to find out the history behind everything.  I especially loved it because I had just finished reading some spy books that took place in Paris during the time period of the revolution and right after when Napoleon was in power, so it was interesting to learn about all the places I had just been reading about.

 Jon made us take a picture of this because he loved it so much.  It was tall enough that I could have stood upright inside of it.  I think Jon secretly wishes he had been born an emperor so he could have huge rooms (and fireplaces) that had no specific function -- they were just to be awesome.

 Luckily it had warmed up this day, so we were able to walk around and enjoy the grounds.  It was super packed with people, probably because it was the first nice day in a while.  We walked around the grounds for hours.  We didn't take a picture of the beautiful tulip gardens, but they were in bloom and were so bright and happy.

 After Versailles, we went to the Rodin Museum.  It was a cute little house that Rodin lived in for the last 15 years of his life.  It had a bunch of his sculptures and paintings.  The garden out back was like a miniature version of the Versailles gardens.

 That night we went to a different kind of restaurant.  There was no menu or anything.  You just went in, they would give you a table, and then they would bring you whatever they had decided to serve that night.  So, everyone in the whole place was eating the same thing.  It was really good food (minus the weed salad with horseradish dressing -- yuck!), but just a different experience than anything we had done before.  The tables were touching each other (literally), and there wasn't an empty spot in the whole place.  When you finished your meal, they just came and piled more food on your plate -- as if anyone could have been hungry after the first serving.  They did have a dessert menu, and their chocolate desserts were super delicious -- the best desserts we had the whole trip.  It was a fun experience.

 

We went to the Louvre, which was way cool and ridiculously big.  We actually got so turned around that we were lost in the Egyptian antiquity section for about 30 minutes.  We couldn't figure out how to get out and find another section.  That was pretty annoying.  I mean, Egyptian antiquities are super cool, but after you've seen the same ones about 10 times, they start to get boring.

We went back to our room every afternoon for a little nap before setting out for the night.  Unfortunately, we were awakened by the fire alarm on this particular day.  It was pretty terrifying.  We quickly shoved our feet into our shoes, Jon grabbed our passports, and we stumbled out our door.  Turns out they were just doing a test -- seems like the kind of thing you might want to tell your guests about.  It was the longest and loudest alarm ever.

Later that afternoon, we headed back out to see a few more museums.  Jon loved the gardens outside of the Louvre.  There were tons of people just hanging out around the little fountains and ponds -- enjoying the nice weather.

 

Our last day in Paris we went to all the normal attractions.  We saw the Arc de Triomphe (this time during the day so we could actually see it), the Eiffel Tower, Sacre Couere, and the Paris Statue of Liberty.

 

The Eiffel Tower was super cool, but made me feel pretty scared.  I am super terrified of heights and I don't like to ride in elevators with lots of people.  That meant we had to take the stairs, and I am convinced that it made the whole height issue worse.  I tried to just look at my feet and not glance anywhere else.  It worked great going up, but coming down there was no way to avoid seeing how high we were unless I wanted to run into stuff.  Needless to say, we only made it to the first level, but that still seemed cool enough.

   

 After the Eiffel Tower and Statue of Liberty, we went to the armament museum.  That's where Napoleon's tomb is and they had rooms full of all the old armor from the days of knights.  Jon probably thought it was going to be a quick little visit, but what he didn't anticipate was the whole section on WWI & WWII.  Since I'm kind of weirdly into that time era, I spent like 2 hours reading all the plaques, and Jon would look for a few minutes and then sit on a bench at the end of the room until I was done looking.  He was nice to not try and rush me -- what a good husband!

This is Napoleon's tomb, and it's in the middle of some huge church.  It was super freezing in this place for some weird reason.  They have since put other notable people's tombs in this place as well.  It was way fancy just to be someone's tomb, but I guess when you're the emperor, whatever you say, goes.