Paris!

Spring Break this year was amazing.  Bella and I spent it in Paris.  We've been planning to do this for years and it was so fun to finally make it happen.  We stayed in a cute studio apartment in the 9th arrondissement, walking distance from Mont Marte.  It was the perfect place to be equally close to nearly everything.  The trip was a fun mix of things Bella likes (shopping, eating) and things I like (history, culture).  We saw all the usual bucket-list places.

The Louvre (and the Mona Lisa):

The Versailles castle and it's surroundings (gardens, Grand Trianon, Petite Trianon, and Queen's hamlet):

The Eiffel Tower:

Notre Dame Cathedral:

Arc de Triomphe:

Place de La Concorde where the Guillotine once stood (with the Egyptian Obelisk, Jardin des Tuileries, and the Champs Elysees, not all pictured - even in France, I often am too in the moment to think of taking pictures):

We also visited the Pantheon (where many notables are buried, such as Voltaire, Rousseau, Victor Hugo, Alexandre Dumas, and Marie Curie), the Hotel des Invalides (where Napoleon is buried), the Gallerie Lafayette (the most famous and fancy store in Paris), the Sacre-Coeur Basilica, the Luxembourg Gardens (gorgeous place to hang out and location of the French Senate), the Saint-Sulpice Cathedral (2nd largest church in Paris after Notre Dame), the Place de Sorbonne (the famous university square where many political uprisings have begun, and the Jardin des Plants (giant conservatory and zoo) :

In addition to all the great sights, we had a ton of fun doing other little side quests every day.  We took a boat ride on the Seine.

We visited adorable little shops and ate our weight in gelato, croissants, baguettes, and pain au chocolat.

This one is called Fruitini.  The owner freezes fruit, scoops out the pulp, makes gelato out of it and puts it back into the fruit shell.  So she just has a bunch of fruits on display to buy but when you open it up, it's gelato inside, not fruit.  All natural, no sugar, and absolutely delicious.  We had mango, kiwi, and pineapple.

This little crepe shop was NEXT DOOR to our place.  The temptation, I tell you.  It smelled amazing all the time.  

We also had to stop at the Jelly Cat Cafe for Bella.  She was dying to experience what she'd seen on instagram and participate in the pretend making of a Jelly Cat stuffed item.  If you haven't seen this, look it up, but basically you stand in front of this French chef who hands you fake frosting bags, whisks, etc. and the two of you pretend to be french bakers making a french pastry of your choice.  He makes it really fun and dramatic, and in the end you get your little stuffed macaron or stuffed lemon tart, or whatever you chose to buy.  He wraps it up all fancy and pretends it's actual food.  It's a fun time.  Definitely had to try it once.  Bella and I got matching tarts - she got strawberry and I got lemon.  They are adorable.

Keeping with our tradition of finding sushi every where we go, we also found a delicious sushi place, Sushi House, right on the same street as our place.  One night we got take-out and ate it at the base of the Eiffel tower (Bella's idea).  It was magical.

On Sunday we attended the local ward which meets across from the Centre Pompidou - the modern art museum.  It was a bit disappointing because I'd expected to meet French church members, but they shuttled all visitors into a separate room immediately upon entering.  We sat with 150 other tourists watching church on a screen and then left by the same door as soon as it was over.   We never even saw the rest of the building or spoke to anyone native.  (No pictures)

While we were in Versailles, we visited the Paris Temple.  Sadly the visitor's center was closed for renovations, so we just took a few pictures outside.

We also took a croissant and pain au chocolat baking class.  It was so fun learning a new skill from a native Parisian along side people from London, Los Angeles, and Alabama. Bella was the star of the class.  Everyone else needed a lot of correction and help but Bella seemed to have done it all before.  The teacher just kept complimenting her and moving on to others.  Eating croissants fresh from the oven was amazing.  Those were the best ones we ate the whole trip.  How cool is it that we made them?!

We also did a food tour with a bunch of others around the area of le Marais in the 3rd and 4th arrondissements.  Our tour guide, Lucilla, walked us all around town for 4 hours, stopping in various cheese shops, bakeries, restaurants, etc. and buying various items for us to try.  She would describe the history of the item, how it was made, why this place makes it well/different than other places, etc.  It was a lot of fun.  I tried things I would never have thought to try on my own.  One place we went in and sat for a while, others we ate as we walked.  We ended in a cheese and wine place whose dining area was in the cellar.  That was very unique.  She got grape juice for me and Bella and we enjoyed some of the best cheese ever while talking to our newly-made friends from Norway, Sweden, and New York.  It was fantastic.  

The trip was amazing and I'm so glad we went.  It was easy to get around and everyone we met was friendly and helpful.  Bella also found some cute clothes and a pair of shoes for graduation.  I'm so glad we went. 

The only downside the bureaucracy of France.  I wasn't going to write anything negative, but just briefly, I want to make note because it was something that really hit me while we were there. I love so much about Europe and I see lots of failings in America, but in America the customer is always right.  If a rule is inconvenient, you can almost always get management to bend it to keep a customer happy.  It's where the whole Karen phenomenon started - because it works.  In France, and to some extent in Europe in general, a rule is law and no amount of logic or common sense will change it.  That frustrated me several times.

For example, the longest non-resident metro card you can purchase is a 5 day pass.  However, we were there for 8 days.  So when I bought the 5 day pass, I asked to also buy a 3 day one to use after the first expired.  No, can't do that.  Have to buy it on the morning of the 6th day because they are time stamped at purchase and if you buy them together the dates won't work.  Already a dumb idea, but ok, fine, we have to find a way to buy another card on day 6.  Day 6 was the Eiffel Tower, so before we can go there, we have to buy a card.  The man in the booth tells me he can't take cash, I have to use the machine to buy it, but the machine is malfunctioning and issues me faulty cards.  So I'm out 120 Euros.  I go back to him and explain that the machine messed up, hand him my two non-functioning cards and the receipt to show I paid.  He remembers me from moments earlier when I tried to buy from him, so he knows I'm telling the truth and he goes and checks the machine and discovers the problem.  He and I both agree that the simple solution to this is to issue me two new functioning cards and we both be on our way.  But that's not possible because his rule is that I have to pay for every card I get and if he were to give me two new cards, it would look like he just gave them away for free and he'd be liable.  He insists I pay another 120 euros.  I politely ask hm to call his manager and see what he says.  He was super sweet about it, understood my plight and plead my case to his manager for 20 minutes with no success.  The only option was to pay twice and then petition the metro online for a refund of the original 120 euros.  Absolute insanity.  He had a stack of cards right there at his desk.  He had receipts and proof I'd paid.  How much easier would it have been to issue two new cards than to now go through the whole process of refunding internationally??!?!  That kind of lunacy would never have happened here.  The guy would have taken two seconds to see the situation and he would have handed over two new cards and we could have been on our way.  Instead we were an hour late at the Eiffel tower and out 240 euros for metro cards.

This kind of silly, stupidity happened more than once during the week and I really started to get why the founding fathers dumped the tea and revolted.  I wanted to do the same.  Americans are rebels against stupid government systems and although I consider myself very German, my American came out strong at times on this trip.  I would like to go on the record, however, and say that I was never a rude Karen.  I was always kind and polite and represented my country well.  And if nothing else, these frustrating situations were good chances to practice my French.

Bella and Christian's News

 After a whole post about Peter, I have to mention Bella and Christian's latest news too.  

Bella had her Eagle Scout court of honor a few weeks ago.  Kelly and I were so focused on the moment that we didn't get a single photo.  That stunk but it's so typical of me.  I got this semi-ok photo of an award she received afterwards that show her in her new Eagle Scout neckerchief.  We're so proud of all the hard work she put into this journey.  What an amazing accomplishment.

As for Christian, he got a superior rating at the latest piano federation competition he competed in.  He had worked very hard on his pieces.  I wasnt' allowed into the judging space, so no pictures or video but from what I heard from teh hallway, it sounded perfect.  He's really a talented musician between his snare drum in the marching band, his saxophone in teh symphony band, and his piano at home.  He's amazing.  Here's a picture outside afterwards.  Relief!  All done for a while.

Two days later, he had his pectus excavatum surgery.  That was an ordeal.  The surgeons and everyone else at the hospital were fantastic but it's a very difficult surgery from which to recover.  He's been mostly in bed ever since.  We can see steady improvement, though, and we are sure that in the end he'll be happy with the result.  I promised him no embarrassing hospital pictures or post-op recovery pics, but here's an x-ray of his new chest.  You can see the bars they placed under his sternum and the way they curve outward to push his ribs and sternum into place.

His scoliosis is particularly evident in this picture.  It was such a dilemma deciding which issue to focus on because without a crystal ball no one could say for sure which would become a bigger problem 5 years from now.  We're praying we made the right choice.

To end on a happy note, before the surgery, Christian helped Peter build a cool fort in the living room.  They build a rocket-ship style fort and the two of them had a great time inside.  It was a bit small for Christian, but they made it work.

Winter is Finally Gone

The robins are back in our yard.  Jackie, our neighbor across the street that spends every winter in Florida, is back, and I haven't needed my electric blanket in weeks, so all the signs of spring are here!  It's wonderful.

With the end of winter came the end of basketball for Peter.  I was devasted to see it end because I think he learned a lot and it was very good for him.  I also loved the moms I met in the stands and will miss our weekly chance to get together.  However, Peter is thrilled to be done with his sports ordeal.  The boy really doesn't love ball sports.  It's sad.  I'm proud of him for giving it a good try and going every week and doing his best.  I definitely noticed improvements in his sports skills and also socially.  It was a good experience overall.  

I was hoping to post a cool action shot from a game, but he never contacted the ball a single time in a game all season.  That was a bit of a bummer, but it was just as we wanted it (as you can see where he spends his time in the game - he's the little guy at the back).  He did try hard in practice, though!  I think the fast pace and the flying ball is a bit intimidating.

March always means Pinewood Derby in Cub Scouts.  Kelly wasn't too thrilled to have yet another pinewood derby car to build.  I think he thought he was done once the church got out of scouting.  But we've been really happy with Peter's cub scout troop and he was very excited about having his own pinewood derby car.  He named his car "Speed Racer" and he came in 2nd place among the other tiger scouts.  First place beat him by less than a second.

His is the golden car leading the pack in this picture.  They raced the cars 4 times each for each lane of the track and against various cars because they had so many tiger scouts.  He won so many of his heats that we thought he'd win overall but the math said otherwise.

Kelly made sure he was involved in the building process the whole time.

Peter was also star student this past week.  That means he got to present a poster about himself on Monday, read a book of his choice to the class on Weds, bring show-and-tell items on Friday, and be line leader, teacher's helper, and all sorts of other cool stuff in between.  Pretty much the best week ever.

His teacher has an app where she posts pictures throughout the week.  These are the ones containing Peter.  It's fun to see him interacting with kids at school and doing well.

Every so often they have 6th graders come join for activities.  They are called "buddies."  Peter loves his buddies.  He gets so excited on days they join him.  This day they made bug headbands with the kids.  Peter loved his.

The library had a STEM day planned where the kids could go to science experiments but it got canceled last minute and Peter was so disappointed.  I told him we'd go buy some dry ice and have some of our own science fun.  It worked out great.  He had a blast watching it bubble and steam up in the bowl and the various other fun things we did with it like blow up and pop bags.  Never has sublimation been so much fun.  We played for hours (didn't even want to stop for lunch - just ate while he played.)  Mom for the win.