I love GRAPES!

Lil max L.O.V.E.S. grapes. Seriously.

And he'll do ANYTHING for them.

Just watch:



(...sorry it is so long, I left it unedited in all its glory because I just couldn't bear to cut anything from it!)

Bird Bird Bird. Bird is the word...

The cranes are now almost 3/4 the size of their parents... and they've been flapping their wings a lot lately, preparing for flight!

NEW: Dad found this Killdeer nest in the mulch -- they had been sitting on the eggs for a couple of weeks...

Yesterday they hatched! Note the fourth egg is now gone...the other 3 are pretty darn cute!

ETA -- the fourth bird just showed up!

Paris Day 5, Sacre Coeur and the Tower at Night

After picking Keith up from the hotel, we decided to head out to the Sacré-Cœur Basilica. It is located at the summit of the highest point in the city.

To get there, we road the Metro from one end to the other -- we were staying on the exact opposite side of the city from the Basilica.

By far, this was my FAVORITE part of Paris. Even with the steep climb and all the stairs. When we go back to Paris the next time, this will definitely be a place I will want to revisit. It was that beautiful.


View of the Basilica from halfway up the ascent.


View of the city from the top.


The basilica is a common place to gather, picnic and listen to music.





I took a walk through the Basilica, but no pictures were allowed inside -- I cannot put into words how beautiful it was. I lit a candle for our little family while I was inside.

Afterwards, we walked to have dinner at a nearby restaurant of a friend. We weren't disappointed by the dinner - it was outstanding! WE had quite a bit of wine to go with it....



Afterwards, we headed towards the tower to see it lit up in all its glory.






Drinking more wine that we bought from sellers who walk around asking way too much for a bad bottle of wine... :)



But it gets BETTER!

Every hour, on the hour, the tower goes from just being lit up, to 'twinkling'!!





We got a video of the 'twinkling', but it is over 5 mins long, and I don't have the energy to edit it...so these timelapse photos will have to do....

Paris Day 5, Arc de Triumph

After seeing the Louvre, we continued walking up the Champs d'Elyses and towards the Arc d'Triumph.



We saw this crazy person imitating King Tut along the Champs d'Elyses...asking for donations to just stand there in their gold outfit. This one guy kept standing 2 inches from the mask staring into it. I don't know -- this doesn't seem like a very lucrative job...



Grand Palais -- with Andy Warhol art exhibit!



The Arc de Triumph...and the roundabout from hell -- seriously!



Close!







More shots of the Arc. It is right in the center of the roundabout -- a 4 LANE ROUNDABOUT!



We passed by the Tower again on our way back to the Metro -- we had to go back to the hotel to pick up Keith -- poor guy had to work while we had all the fun!

Paris Day 5, Musee d'Louvre

On day 5, the boys were finally done working, so we had LOTS of pictures...hence the mulit-part post for Day 5 -- I narrowed the photos down for the day, but there are still a LOT!

Poor Max was still a little tired from all the working and late dinners...



We decided to hit the Musee d'Louvre. We debated going inside -- to see the Mona Lisa and some of the other famous pieces, but once we saw just how much we could see on the outside (and saw how long the 'queue' to get in was), we opted for a leisurely stroll around the outside of this ornate old mansion, turned museum, and the adjacent sculpture gardens. We weren't disappointed...and while some day, I would like to see the Mona Lisa, I am 100% ok with not seeing it this trip -- there WILL be others! :)


Off the metro


Navigating a la 'dork book'


Views along the river...


Street View


Musee d'Louvre entrance


For scale


Courtyard # 1


Posing in front of the fountain


Courtyard # 2 -- home to the pyramids


Max and the pyramids


Inside the Louvre


This is just the 'sculpture' section of the museum...it was broken into different art 'types'


View of the pyramids from inside...


Entrance to the sculpture gardens...


Buildings along the gardens...


Not sure what she's doing...


View of the gardens from the main path


Poor guy...he forgot his wife's birthday....


One of the two pools in the garden -- pull up a chair and relax!

Up next -- the Arc de Truimph!

Sock Monkey Love

Because I know some of you read just to get your lil Max fix, I have decided to interrupt the Paris chapters with this small story.

Max was gifted this beautiful sock monkey by my mommy friend, Emily. For months, it sat on top of his dresser, watching over him while he slept.

For months, Max wanted little to do with any stuffed animal other than his 'pup pup', a small golden retriever stuffed animal that he kept in his crib with him.

On Thursday, he randomly started pointing urgently towards the monkey saying "nnkey nnkey". So, big Max took the monkey down, and lil Max started huggin on it something fierce -- like the sock monkey was his long lost friend or something.

Weird.

And since then, he's insisted that we take it with us everywhere.

I think he's in love.


Hello, monkey.


I love you.


You taste good.


I like to snuggle with you and dada.


You make me smile!


You are my new best friend.

PS: Sorry some of the pictures are blurry. Somebody doesn't understand the fine art of standing still to have their picture taken yet...

Paris Day 4

Day 4 -- the last days the boys have to work, so the last day that Jayna and I will venture out on our own!! I skyped with Carina from the hotel room, and we decided today to add a trip to Arpajon, the small town where the boys were working to the agenda (Carina coincidentally had a hidden agenda for the visit).

We decided to meet up by the Hotel d'Invalides and the Musee Rodin -- the ONE musuem I REALLY wanted to see -- it had come highly recommended by a few coworkers.

All was going fine, until we got off the RER B-line to hop onto the C-line. I had never seen lines like this before! Something was obviously going wrong. We waited for about 10 mins before we decided that something was , in fact, going wrong -- and then we left and decided to walk -- it was only two stops away, after all...

So, at first we thought this was the Hotel d'Invalides:



NOPE! :) But we were on the path to see some other Paris landmarks. Here is some of the view along the way:











The Musee d'Orsay -- which, in retrospect, I would have liked to go inside -- but that just gives me a reason (like I needed one anyways) to come back and visit. Here are a few shots of the outside:







Finally, after I made a wrong turn which probably added an add'l 1-1.5 miles to our jaunt, we reach the Hotel d'Invalides. And it starts to rain.











So we duck into a cafe -- poor us, right? Have a cup of coffee and decide to forego the Rodin (part of the appeal is the outdoor gardens, which we didn't want to do in the rain) and head straight to Arpajon.

The train ride was fantastic -- seeing all the houses along the way and 'almost' getting into the countryside.







We got off the train, and had NO IDEA where we were headed! All we knew was that where the guys were working was about 2 miles from the train station. We decided that this was too little information to find them, so we just wandered around Arpajon. There wasn't much to see, or to wander. It was still raining, and we were starting to get cold, and tired, and a bit hungry.

So, after walking around a bit more, having a cup of cafe au lait to warm up, we jumped back on the train, bid adieu to Carina, and went back to the hotel to warm up, rest up, and get ready for another dinner on the town.

Thank you, Arpajon.



Dinner was delicious again, at a small restaurant just across the street from our hotel. Restaurant Beajolais (or, as I like to pronounce it, Beau Jal Is...just to make my mom mad...). I had a smoked salmon appetizer, a DELICIOUS scallops and pasta dinner, and creme brule for dessert -- it was SCRUMPTIOUS!!!