Chad and I finally made it to Paris! It’s one of my favorite cities on earth. What is better is we spent the time with Chad’s parents. We drove about half way to Paris and stopped in Dijon. BTW, everyone has already asked us why we drove to Paris. Yes, we know that there is a high-speed train to Paris, and yes we know that it is usually cheaper, and yes we know that traffic is abominable in Paris. We really know that traffic is abominable in Paris. But a rental car just turns out to be more economical when you have four people travelling together. No, it really is. 🙂 What a pretty little place. There was a great church that had tons of gargoyles on it. We drove some more and stopped briefly in a little town called Nitry. There is some dispute over what the town was called for real. But when I checked a map I found out my mom won, and I lost. It was super old and looked like medieval life could still carry out the same as hundreds of years ago. And a random guy stopped us on the street to see if we were lost and then he showed us around his chateau. We finally got to Paris that evening.
I do not think I would ever drive into Paris again. It was crazy and frustrating and we were glad when the car was parked and we didn’t have to worry about it again for awhile. The next two days we got in the sites we wanted to enjoy the most. We went to the top of the Eiffel tower. We toured the Musee d’Orsay. Elisa was really nice to go see the museums that I wanted to go to. We went to the Notre Dame. We actually saw a Notre Dame in Dijon, Paris and Strasbourg. We took a little night cruise on the Seine river and ate a fabulous French meal. We saw Sacre Coeur, snacked on crepes, attempted to see the Opera house and Catacombs and saw the Louvre. Everything was pretty great besides the rain, some rude waiters, the rain, some closed sites and the rain. Poor Chad was walking in wet shoes for 3 days! The French were not very impressed with our attempts to speak French.
On our way out of town we stayed along the drive home and then stopped in Strasbourg the next day. What a fun place! I love it like I love Salzburg. It had such a bustling and quaint atmosphere. We had a lot of fun.
Normally Chad and I keep up on our blog pretty well. But we have gotten out of our routine of Sunday blog writing and replaced it with napping, traveling, having friends over for dinner and (our personal favorite) actively doing nothing. If Elisa weren’t around I wouldn’t have written once. Meanwhile as life has continued with out our weekly updates we have done some more nothing and a lot more somethings.
I have been studying and managed to send off for my second midterm in my finance class. BYU is so slow at getting back to Elisa though. I have also been slaving away at getting preparations done for Christmas. Chad and I are almost done with our holiday projects now we just have to figure out what to do for each other. I have also been anxiously checking my emails for news from my brother, Daniel. He extended his Europe trip and has been all over the place. He has great stories and since he is traveling in some crazy areas it’s nice to know he is okay.
We are excited to have Chad’s parents visit us for a couple weeks and will definitely report on our adventures with them as soon as time permits!
Elisa turned 25 this week! She’s no longer my little girl. 🙂
After being sick for the whole week I finally got better in time to enjoy my birthday on Sunday. Leaving the house early in the freezing temperatures for the first time in 4 days wasn’t the best way to start the day but I was so happy to be feeling better that it didn’t phase me for long. A lot of people at church had read it was my birthday in the ward newsletter and wished me well. I also received some very nice cards that I had do my best to translate from German.
I was pretty sure Chad had not left me any surprises for my birthday which sort of bummed me out but I was wrong. He snuck around the apartment that afternoon and set up a scavenger hunt right under my nose. He got me some new gloves and made it so fun to find them. He made it challenging–tricky clues and fun strings I had to follow. I like being a kid. Elisa is hard to surprise, so I was living in constant fear that she would catch me. And the house is small, so there aren’t very many places where something can be hidden where she wouldn’t just accidentally find it too early.
Throughout the day I got to talk to family and open cards and gifts from them. We also had a few friends over for Hawaiian Haystacks and ginger snaps. Mmmm, ginger snaps. And the Baumanns brought over Sprüngli Luxembourgs, which we’ve been savoring all week. I have a lot of really supportive people in my life that make me so comfortable to be me. Even with the dumb things I can do sometimes it is great to be surrounded by people who look past those things and love me for me. Thanks to the Baumanns, Schwendeners and Mascaros for celebrating with us. And thanks Milo and Nik and Rahel for singing that version of Happy Birthday.
Chad was so sad that we didn’t have a proper cake with candles. My family knows I am not a big cake fan. I humored Chad by making a wish and blowing out our decorative candle. He seemed pleased enough. I just hope I can make him as happy as he makes me.
