Will someone please tell me how to better arrange photos and commentary so that this doesn't look like a deformed puzzle? On most people's blogs the pictures are arranged with a nice caption underneath yet mine looks the work of a two year old (maybe because I have the patience of one when it comes to doing these things. All for you grandparents!! :)Oh well, c'est la vie. Which leads to our next subject, a quick but great visit to Paris (and a run to Versailles). We, the chitlins and I, took the Eurostar last Thursday to Paris and met up with Mark on Friday evening. After spending a week in CA for work, he flew from San Jose to London, then from London to Paris. We went straight to a very tasty sushi dinner with our friend, Micheline, who is pictured with Emma at the town hall of Versailles here. Micheline was Emma's occasional babysitter and turned out to be the sweetest angel whilst we lived in Vaucresson. She used to make us all sorts of good food and spoiled Emma like her own granddaughter. It was fun visiting with her and catching up on her life.
On Saturday Mark and Nico secured our time chips and goodies for the race, then we dropped off Mason at his friend, Max's for safekeeping. We had lunch at a regular's type of bistrot and then walked around a bit at the Trocadero before heading to La Defense for some shopping (not really, just surviving the crowds and making our way to the train to the suburbs). At the Troc, we enjoyed a show from some street dancers. They weren't the greatest, "Diversity" they were NOT, however, they did their best and entertained our kids for a bit. We also witnessed Elvis' secret love child in the crowd, although he seemed to be mysteriously German and walked away quickly when he noticed me taking his picture. He was quite the poseur!
Later that evening we traveled to the Crook's, in our old home of Vaucresson, for a carbo-loading spaghetti dinner. Although they used to live down the street from us, they've since moved to a beautiful home with hopefully no more plumbing issues. They have three kids who match up more or less with our younger three, so everyone had a great time playing and meeting the family's new member, dog Daisy. I wish I had taken some pictures there. I think I was too tired to think at this point! They graciously offered to have our kids spend the night so Mark and I could sleep soundly and participate in the race without any worries. It was so nice of them!
The next day (yes, we broke the Sabbath), we ran the lovely Paris-Versailles, starting from the Tour Eiffel and ending at the Chateau de Versailles. It's a ten mile stretch through the quais/riverbanks of Paris and into the forest leading to Versailles. The weather was beautiful and I felt really good. There were some killer hills but overall, it was a wonderful experience. Mark was feeling not so well, with the jetlag and his body giving him trouble, yet it was our goal to finish together and we did! After meeting up with the Crooks and claiming our children, we ate lunch with Micheline at a local creperie (which was painfully slow but ok). Then we took the train back to Paris where I picked up Mason from Max's home and I finally took a shower (at the hotel)! Wow, I just realized how terribly uninteresting this blow by blow description of our weekend is . . . no wonder I don't write much on these things! We had a mostly uneventful trip home to London and Esher, unless you count our taxi driver being an hour late to pick us up; we arrived home at midnight and everyone crashed as the show went on with school and work the next day. I've yet to feel totally recovered from the whirlwind but I'm hoping the upcoming five day weekend will help--thank you parent/teacher conferences! Sometimes you just sit back and say life is good and I'm really blessed. That's how we feel as we've been so fortunate to be able to do many things like this during our time in Europe, from the very beginning in 1998 Perigueux to 2009 in London. Praise be to the big man upstairs for all these opportunities. We love you!
