Tu peux garder un secret?

Bonjour from Paris! A huge gap has occurred in our blogging efforts and it is entirely my fault! We have just ended a rather long stretch of either visitors or travel and I have failed to keep up the blog! Thankfully, Kevin and Mark jumped in and blogged for me but they missed a very important visit. A day or so after returning from our travels in England and Ireland we received a much anticipated visit from Kathleen’s very best friends, the Gordons. Some of us knew about and anticipated this visit much longer than others as it was kept a secret from the girls until after Becca and Rachel’s B’not mitzvah.

When you visit Paris in the spring you must have two plans for each day…what to do if it is sunny and what to do if it is rainy. During the Gordon’s visit we had a wonderful week and a half of beautiful Paris weather (with only an occasional rain shower at night and on the last day)! There was no need for a plan B, although we did choose on many occasions to move at a leisurely pace….some of us were on vacation! The gardens were in full bloom as the pictures in Kevin’s slide show demonstrate.

Our train ride out to Giverny was beautiful! First, a train ride through the lovely green countryside. Next, a bicycle ride along an old train bed (some of us were going so fast that they did not even notice the quaint country cottages and beautiful flower beds!). Last, we were rewarded by a gorgeously maintained and well planted garden that inspired Monet towards many of his masterpieces! Some of us were even caught trying to imitate the artist near the serene lily pond.

Other highlights of their visit were: the Eiffel Tower, Versailles, crepes, the Luxembourg garden, crepes, playing on a big chess board, not going to Euro Disney!, cafes, crepes, pastries, sleepovers, the Louvre Museum, the Jardin des Plantes, the Zoo, the bones, crepes, having the girls meet Kathleen’s Paris school friends, pastries, bread, getting portraits done by the great grandson of Leonardo de Vinci (maybe??????!!!!... he really caught an interesting expression on the girls faces!....maybe they will be famous some day!), sleepovers, train rides, Harold not checking his email (I was very impressed!), crepes, pastries, and bread! The crepes, pastries, and bread were a huge success! There were many other typical Paris sights thrown in as well!

Some of the fun (and not so fun) mishaps were: those lovely pastries which ended up upside down in the metro station (they remained in their bag and still tasted delicious!), the Catecombs being closed the first time (the crepes we had instead were delicious and the Luxemborg gardens were fun), Becca doing a face plant in said gardens (she was fine although her pride was a little bruised), being unable to visit Marie Antoinette’s little hamlet because we arrived too late (maybe it was the ice cream cones we stopped for on our way there?), the elderly gentleman, whom Marcia and I thought was just being strange but who ended up having a seizure on the Champs Elysee (thanks Harold for being so calm and collected…you should work with children…oh you already do!), Rachel testing her parents handling of an allergic reaction (thankfully, Rachel is fine and they had everything necessary to handle the situation including a very nice French pharmacy employee who pointed the way to the nearest hospital and made sure they were alright), Becca wading through water in her shoes, everyone getting drenched trying to find shelter in a down pour at the Zoo, saying good-bye until August.

Thanks Becca, Rachel, Marcia, and Harold for coming to Paris!