Au Revoir!

We're blogging now from the Hilton at the Paris airport just before we run and get on the plane, but we wanted to share our last few days with you before we left. Number one rule we learned, do not drive in Paris on a Sunday night. That was REALLY bad, but we'll spend more time on the good stuff!

Our last few days were spent in the Loire valley where the main attraction is culture, small quaint villages, and historical cites. Our very own Countess Marnie had laid out a nice plan for us to tour.

We saw many chateaus, specifically one where Napoleon's governess grew up, then it was on to a poets birthplace (which none of us thought was to exciting) and then to a tiny church where there were still original 12th century frescoes on the walls. That was amazing to think that the paintings had made it that long. But what Lynn and Bob truly loved was the troglodyte houses! They've actually decided to ditch the new house in Venetian Estates and build their very own cave house. Yeah right!!! Since prehistoric times, people have lived in these caves. Now it's very chic to have a cave house. Artists and models from Paris come to the the village of Troo on the weekends to have parties in the caves!

After our culture tour, we embarked on another adventure. The Countness and Count cooked a wonderful 5 course dinner to celebrate our anniversaries. Here all of us, minus Lynn, discovered our love of cheeses. We must have had three rounds of cheese between the three of us, especially the homemade goat cheese made on the farm next to the chateau. We also both ate salmon and duck a la orange! We're all turning into food snobs. So, one bottle of champagne, five (yes five one with each course) bottles of wine and an after dinner, "illegal" cocktail of homemade pear liquer, we had a very nice rest for our last night in the chateau. The count is a bit of a "young at heart" playboy and loved a type of music called "Dub" so the count and I jammed out to this reggae music and he was really getting into it, headbanging and all. So there I am jamming in his study with a count to this techno/reggae music. Yeah, that's something I'll never forget.

The next morning we took off for the quaint village of Amboise to have lunch with Lynn and Bob's friends Denise and Jack. Denise is a renowned Opera Singer who worked with Lynn at HCC. They cooked for us in their home and we had another lovely meal and enjoyed hearing Jack fill us in on the history of the two chateaus we were about to visit.

We visited the most beautiful chateau, Chenoceaux, and the biggest Chateau, Chambord, in all of France! Chenoceaux straddles the river Cher, and Chamboard is by the village Blois (pronounced blwah)... and yes, we said that all day.

After seeing Chambord at sunset (or less romantically in the dark),

we headed off to the airport in Paris for the end of our trip. And that led to the aforementioned driving experience which we will no longer speak of. We've had a great trip and look forward to seeing you all soon!

Au Revoir France!

Get Mideavel On You

From WWII history to the Middle Ages! Today we headed off to Mont-St-Michel. It's an abbey that dates to the Middle Ages that is situated on a gigantic rock that it sometimes an island and sometimes not. If you park in certain places, the sea will actually wash away your car!

In the Middle Ages, worshipers made pilgrimages to the church to worship The Archangel Michael. We felt a little like them as we drove up and saw it majestically rising out of the sea. You climb up through a tiny winding village with shops and restaurants and multiple alley ways and winding staircases. After the shops, you climb up to the abbey. It's WAY up there...

The Abbey is another place that seemed to have ghosts. It was actually built in the Middle Ages, and as you take the tour, you can feel the Benedictine monks walking through the ancient pathways with candles. Benedictine monks take vows of silence, and since we again had the place to ourselves, you could feel how it must've been. It is amazing to think that ancient stone masons had mastered their craft so well that they could build something this big and still have it standing there for us to see today.

After the Mont, we got back in the car for the last long leg of driving. I have taught the Vaceks the term, "car butt", and have confirmed that even in France, we're not good at driving vacations. After a few rousing games of "guess if the next village will have a pharmacy" (I thought you would be proud of that one dad) we finally made it to Le Mans, home of the grand Prix. Le Mans has a mini Notre Dame, St. Juliens, that was gorgeous. It's also a walled city!

After wandering around aimlessly for a while, we finally just settled on another sandwich from the bakery and ate in the car. We are SERIOUSLY missing Chuy's and Chinese food right now. We've all met our limit of bread and cheese or "Cheesy Bread" as we're referring to it now.

We made it to the Loire Valley and Chateau de la Barre. We are happy to report that our next hosts, the Count and Countess Van'aasay are lovely and plan on staying here the entire night! 

Tomorrow we're off to view more chateaus, wineries, and quaint villages.

Driving and DDay

Wow, what an interesting day and night!

We left Paris early to start our trip to the beaches of Normandy. Now, driving in Paris is an experience unto itself... Here we are, a bunch of Texas yahoos driving a Ford minivan down the Champs Elysees... It's seven lanes of traffic with absolutely no lines marked on the road. Motorcycles are driving in and out, people just go wherever they want to, when they want to and there are like five tiny signs that tell you where to go...

AH! After a small coronary, we finally managed to make it out of town. We headed to Arromanches, or Gold Beach, where the British landed and made a false port in order to bring in supplies and harbor their troops. Armed with directions from mapquest (and we all know how accurate they are) we navigated our way through tiny tiny French villages, numerous cows, and tiny yellow street signs to actually find the place. Since we didn't have any kind of map, we just used our killer driving instincts to make it alive, which is a good thing because none of the cows spoke English.

After viewing the remnants of the port, we got our map (a.k.a. paper place mat from the restaurant) and headed to the American cemetery. Now armed with our mapquest directions and placemat the trip was much easier. The American cemetery is beautiful. It's so powerful to stand along all the crosses and read the names and places they were from. It makes you so proud to be American and know that these men gave their lives for our Freedom. We took the walk down the steep cliff to Omaha beach. Standing there will be something we'll all remember forever. You could imagine the beach strewn with men and equipment, the water full of ships, and the air humming with bullets... Amazing!

We then made a quick stop in St-Mere-Eglise. The town was the first liberated by the 82nd airborne after being dropped in the area in the wee hours of D-Day. A paratrooper got stuck on the chapel roof only to be saved from certain death by one of his comrades. There is a monument here to him today.

THEN, we headed in the dark and rain to our chateau for the night. There was no moon, no stars and no light. We finally get here only to discover that the Count and Countess were away for the night. So we were met by a man who speaks limited English. He greeted us and then promptly left us alone in this gigantic creaking house with three lights. AHHHHHHHHHHHH! Now I get scared in my own house at night. This was WAY Creepy! There are tons of pictures of dead family members watching you. Luckily Bob brought a flashlight so we spent the night snooping around and getting creeped out. No ghosts got us though!

Off to Mont-St-Michel! We'll blog later!

Par Le Voux Busy

I would like to open this blog with my happy place...

This is our corner bakery. We've now been here three times (twice yesterday). Lynn likes the strawberry tart and I love the chocolate croissants with cafe au lait... YUM! I also ate one of the meringue things in the window. Yes, it was hard, but still chocolate and therefore good.

It seems we were not able to share our adventures with all of you yesterday. We had a little too much fun last night on Mom and Dad's anniversary to find a suitable internet cafe before closing. WAY TOO MUCH FUN!!!

Our Tuesday began with a trip to Versailles. Louis XIV moved the French government and his home to a small village near France (Versailles). It has a faded opulence, but is still majestic. The Hall of Mirrors, where the Treaty of Versailles was signed ending WWI, is the highlight of his palace.

There are never ending gardens that blanket the countryside. In the summer, they are probably green and gorgeous with fountains blasting. In the winter, they can be cold and damp but still a sight to be seen. We got greedy and started bragging about the weather so of course it was damp and rainy yesterday. So freezing and damp we said we're eating at the first restaurant we see in Versailles. We went in and of course... it was TEX MEX! Now that seems to mean something completely unique to the French. According to the menu, Tex Mex is made up of guacamole, cole slaw and onion rings... RIGHT... Let's just say it was no Chuy's.

After the train ride back, we headed over to see Notre Dame. The cathedral is GORGEOUS! It's moved to number two on the Kristen and Blake official cathedral ranking. AND of course, we climbed! We got up close and personal with all of the gargoyles that line the building and actually had the entire top to ourselves for a viewing of the city. We even got to go all Quasimodo and climb up into the bell tower to see the bell. There is a poor guy who has to sit up in the bell tower by himself all day.

After our climb, we rushed back to the apartment to get ready for the nights big event. We headed down to the Seine for a moonlight dinner cruise! We put on our heels and then basically had a little race across Paris. This I DO NOT recommend. We made it just in time for disembarking and had a wonderful time.

I want everyone to know that I did it. I ATE SNAILS!!!

The first few were okay, and then I got one that tasted a little like I had licked the floor (in food snob terms... earthy). That was it, no more snails. We had a view of all the sights at night. There is something magical about the Eiffel Tower when it twinkles at night. You understand why it captures everyone's heart. The only problem is that we couldn't stop Lynn and Bob from drinking bottles of champagne. Kidding! Crazy kids!!! We shepherded the lovebirds home on the Metro, had another bottle of champagne and called it a night.

Today has been our day to experience Paris culture. After breakfast (See Happy Place) we took a stroll through the Luxembourg Gardens connecting with the sculptures in a very special way,

and we've spent the afternoon walking through the little shops in the Latin Quarter. We're headed to ride the ferris wheel at the end of the Champs Elysses tonight and then pack up for Normandy. Au Revoir Paris...We've had a wonderful time!

Mona, Jesus and Louis V.

Rest. Rest is all we needed. After getting a great nights sleep, we took down a nutritious Petite Dejayneur, which is basically bread in five formats (baguette, croissant, etc.), coffee and orange juice, and ventured to the Louvre. The Louvre is enormous, so we opted for a guided tour this time. Our tour guide was great and we got to see all the highlights including the Venus de Milo, French crown jewels, Winged Victory, and of course.... drumroll please......MONA! The picture is tiny and behind eight layers of glass so it was hard to get a good look, but awesome to see none the less. Our guide gave us lots of information on the history of many of the paintings and we enjoyed learning more in detail about some of the pieces.

After our tour of the Louvre we decided to see what Lynn and Bob are made of. We took them up their first Dome climbing experience with Blake at the Sacre Coeur. The church is a beautiful white building perched on a hill overlooking the city. The locals claimed it was too gaudy when it was built and that it looked like a wedding cake. These French sure are picky!

After taking a quick turn through the chapel, we headed up to the top of the dome. Bob and Lynn were champs and climbed right along. We basically had the entire dome to ourselves and spent some quality time taking pictures and gazing 35 miles in all directions around Paris.... The weather has been absolutely GORGEOUS. Today we just needed our jackets and a light sweater under. Also, there is NO ONE here. We don't have to wait in lines or crowds. It's awesome!

After our aerobic exercise, we decided we needed some retail therapy, so we headed over to the Champs Elysees...

After a turn down the road and a stop of the Arch Di Triumph...

We found that one little place we'd been searching for, and yes... two Louis Vuitton purses just jumped in our hands and wouldn't let go. We SERIOUSLY tried to get them out, but they were stuck. So we finally just felt sorry for them, and decided to let them come home with us.....

And somewhere Tabitha cried and Blake had visions of a Playstation 3 dancing in his head...

Now after a crepe dinner we're headed back to the apartment to get ready for a day at Versaille, and a special French version of Bob and Lynn' s anniversary!

Bonjour!

We made it!

Disclaimer: The French keyboard is WAY Wacky; All the punctuation is backwards and the a and q keys are switched; So get ready for some wild reading... well not anymore with anal Blake's editing styles...

So the flu couldn't keep us down. We are all hopped up on cold medicine and ready for action! After a pretty uneventful flight, and an almost lost bag; we hopped in our driver, Jacques', car and he drove us to our cute apartment. We are staying very close to the Louvre in a cute two story bungalow. The upstairs loft has a bedroom and a bathroom that you have to hunker down to get in. It is very nice and HUGE for Paris standards, so we are really happy with it!

The weather today was awesome so once we found our apartment and got checked in. We had to head out to the first and only place to go in Paris... The Eiffel Tower! Hooray! Also known as Blake's latest obsession. One day, 500 pictures, done. We'll just give you one or two... you're welcome... We did find Lynn trying to squash the Tower, for shame, it's only the first day!

We are happy to report that you can pee at the very top of the Eiffel Tower. We didn't try it, just wanted you to know. Not quite sure about the whole plumbing and gravity thing there, but oh well, the French have no concept of lines, so the tower experience was a lot of shoving and pushing into elevators. The view was fantastic though.

After we had our Tower time, and Blake took 35 more pictures, we headed over to another landmark... the Hotel de la Invalides, or as I call it... Dead Napoleon! SO everyone knows that he had little man syndrome, but seriously, his tomb was big enough for a giant....there was some definite overcompensation going on!

After dead Napoleon we all hit a wall and were pooping out fairly quickly... lots of cold meds will do that to you... We headed off to find a cafe for a quick bite. Quickly learned that we should've spent a little more time learning meat words in French... 80 euro later we ended up with two chicken skewers and two cheesy breads with ham... Oh well, there's always tomorrow for croissants, and oh yes I WILL eat as much bread as I can put in my mouth (and at least one raspberry tart a day for Ann).

This motley crue is off to bed... tomorrow it's the Mona Lisa, Notre Dame and who knows what else! Love to all, more tomorrow!

Christmas Day 2007

Twas the Abs 1st Christmas and all through the house,

we couldn't find the floor for all the presents about.

The stockings were hung by the Chimney with care,

but Tina was done with the entire affair.

Bob got a big box (filled with a golf bag),

a scarf for Lynn,

Megan got Coasters,

and Susan spread Cheer from beginning to end.

The family all says,

as Russian Santa's fill the night,

Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!

Christmas Eve 2007

The night began as Christmas Eve always should,

with an Olive Garden and grilled jalapeno feast!
Only then did the craziness begin!

There were presents,

and MORE PRESENTS,

and EVEN MORE PRESENTS!

The whole family got in on the action!

So many gifts Tim vowed a reduction for retirement's sake in 2008!

But he too got in on the act!

The 1st Sansom-Vacek-Townsend Combined Christmas!