Olivia the Caterina (when cat becomes ballerina).
Henry the Ghostbuster guy (complete when an inflatable proton pack and an eyeliner mustache).
After going door to door begging for candy for an hour and a half this is what they came home with…
Olivia and her loot. My oh my, what to eat first?!
Henry and his spoils. Dad took them around so Henry gave him first pick.
Happy Halloween!
After a day of playing, we wrap it up with a beautiful sunset. It’s like heaven on earth.
and yes, that's my kids still playing in the water :)
She asked and asked and asked… and asked to go ride horses with Grandpa. The problem is that that she is terribly allergic to horses but I decided to let her go on a ride and then deal with the consequences. I’m not completely cold hearted, she went fully dosed with allergy medicine and Grandma gave as much as possible again after the ride, and the next day. But still, this is how she looked (and it didn’t feel any better than it looks)…
You would think that she would give up on horses but she decided it was worth the consequence (she was hurting but she was so happy) and she already begging Grandpa to take her riding again. Mother knows best... but she can only do so much!
Getting ready to bat.
Making sure he didn't hit a foul.
Running to first base.
Safe on first base.
Catcher.
1st base.
Pitcher (they have pitching machines in Minor B leagues but still have a player cover the position.) Notice the football helmet pitchers get to wear... Safety First :)
In the end, he loved it. He learned a lot, like not being afraid of the ball (we’re still working on that a bit). He made new friends and he had lots of fun. I'm so proud of my Henry.
The second tooth did take its own sweet time to fall out. After a month or so, it eventually did, with a little help from dad as the darn tooth was barely hanging on. I’m not sure Henry remembers to push on the permanent teeth with his tongue but they seem to know what they’re supposed to do and are slowly moving into place. Phew!
This is a picture Caroline took, when Tyler and I went France and Olivia and Henry stayed with Grandma and Grandpa. Henry's was doing homework and Nancy patiently watched over her little buddy. Can't you feel the love?
Yes, my first reaction was “what the…?” Tyler called his mother, who told him not to worry about it, that the baby teeth would eventually fall out. Well, I did worry and I searched the internet, because isn’t it what we all do in this day and age? After finding quite a few posts and still not entirely reassured, Henry’s baby teeth weren’t even loose, I called the dentist, who said… exactly the same thing; to have Henry wiggle the baby teeth and push with his tongue on the big ones and that the baby ones would fall out on their own. Well, He did wiggle them and finally last night one did fall out. 
And the second one won’t be far behind. Now he needs to push on the adult teeth with his tongue to make sure that come where they should be.
After being frozen and completely covered in snow, I thought they would come in but no they made snowmen, large and small.
They continued with a few hours of dressing up and being silly, coming up with hilarious scenarios. It was the perfect entertainment for me while ironing.
They finished their perfect day with a nice hot bath each (I’ll spare you the pictures). It was perfect for them because of all the fun they had and perfect for me because they didn’t argue once. They were best friends all day long.
Henry’s priorities were different. He got decked out in his snow gear and went outside to play.
How is it that he can’t clean his room but that he has no problem clearing the snow off the entire play set?
Lobster and pear salad. My favorite dish this trip.
Scallop souffle with a champagne sauce. Tyler's favorite dish this trip.
John Dory (a fish) filet with topinambur ravioli and sauce. Topinambur is the tuber of the sunflower used as a root vegetable.
Chicken breast with a turnip gratin and a truffle sauce.
Goat cheese salad. Simple. Beautiful. Delicious.
Duck confit.
Cheese platter. Now this I truly miss.
Coconut Bavarois with roasted pineapple and homemade Madagascar vanilla ice-cream.
After a meal, the french usually enjoy a cup of coffee or herbal tea which is often accompanied by some mignardises (tiny, bite-sized desserts).
I couldn't explain it better than these photos but as I said.... French food..... hmmmm.... heaven!
I was looking for a picture of a departure board with a cancelled flight on it. A picture like what we saw in Salt Lake but I couldn’t take a picture of because my camera was in my suitcase and Delta wouldn’t get our luggage for us. But I’m getting ahead of myself here. Let’s start at the beginning.
Flight #1: Reno-SLC. We got there on time. We’d checked in online the day before and were under the impression that we would only have to drop off the suitcases at the counter, but no, we had to redo it all. Security wasn’t bad so we got to our gate and started to wait. When our flight time came and went, we were informed that our airplane was still in Salt Lake. Mechanical problems they said, we would have to wait. We were supposed to have a 5 ½ hours layover in Salt Lake so we didn’t stress out, but still, no one likes to wait for an airplane more than they thought they had too. We end up leaving Reno 3 hours late.
Flight #2: SLC-Paris. Yes, it does sound nice not to have to stop anywhere and go straight from Salt Lake to Paris but it is a long flight, 10 ½ hours. They let us on the plane after another 2 ½ hour mechanical delay. When the problems, whatever they were, are fixed, the plane has to be de-iced. It takes 2 more hours. I’m starting to think that we are stuck in an evil de-icing cycle; is it taking so long because by the time they finish de-icing the plane, the part they started with has iced over again? Plus, we’re still stuck on the plane and the 10 ½ hours haven’t even started yet! We finally leave and the plane is half empty. Tyler and I have a row of three for the two of us. Nice. After we take off, I go to the restroom and realize the two rows in front of the restrooms are empty. I ask if I can lay down on one of them. They say yes. Awesome. I’m exhausted. I sleep for the next 10 hours. I would have slept more but Tyler wakes me up to tell me we’re almost there. I have to admit that it was a nice flight, being able to lie down and sleep all the way, but this is a negative post and I will spare none of the negative. We were late leaving and we are late getting to Paris, which means that by the time we reach my parents’ house, everybody is waiting for us and it’s time to sit down for New Year’s dinner. There’s no time to shower or even change and I feel disgusting, but at least, we’re there.
Flight #3: Paris-SLC. This flight did leave on time. We were excited because the flight was supposed to be as full as the one going to Paris. Tyler and I were supposed to have an empty seat by us and we were very surprised to see not only the seat next to us but every single seat in the plane filled. We find out that there is a big storm in Atlanta and that Delta decided to put all the passengers on the flight to Atlanta whose final destination wasn’t Atlanta on our flight. Yep, our plane was bursting at the seams. The guy sitting next to Tyler was supposed to fly from Paris to Atlanta and then on to New Orleans but he landed in the seat next to us, aimed his cannon in our direction and proceeded to pass nasty gas the entire way. Luckily, we didn’t have any crying babies but we did have a guy trying to cough out his lungs. The guys coughed so loud and so often he would have made a TB patient proud. The flight was on time but the 13 hours on board were horrendous. I know I said it takes 10 ½ hours to go to Paris but it takes longer to go to the US. I was told it’s because of a combination of the routes that have to be taken and the air currents, I think it’s because people really want to go to France so they hurry as much as they can.
Flight #4: SLC-Reno. We go to Salt Lake on time and go sit by the gate to wait for the last leg of our trip. We sit there for a couple of hours. Tyler is watching some Football game on the TV in our area and I have a really bad migraine. When I’m so nauseous that I can’t take it anymore I go to the restrooms. On the way there, I glance at the departure board and see that our flight is cancelled. You read right. CANCELLED. I go see Tyler and we’re pretty sure we haven’t heard any announcement about our flight being cancelled. We go to the counter and the lady tells us the plane we were supposed to take has mechanical problems. WHAT? AGAIN?!!! She then tells us that all the other flights are booked, we’ll have to fly the next morning but they’ll gladly put us up in a hotel. At this point some lady trying to be positive is really annoying and my migraine is getting worse, I keep getting sick and I have vertigo. I’m starting to get mean. Poor Tyler tries to find a way to get me home. He’s the only one trying to be helpful. We figure out that ALL the other flights are booked or gone already. ALL, meaning every airline except Southwest. They were willing to put us on any other airline but Southwest. They tell us that we can go on the Southwest flight if we want but we’ll have to pay for it ourselves. We ask if they’ll refund our SLC-Reno tickets and they tell us that our refund would be prorated from the total miles of our trip. Our refund would be $36 each. Well, a SLC-Reno ticket bought at the airport minutes before the flight is $287 (each), and we would have ended up paying $500 out of our own pocket. No, thank you very much. Even though we were willing to do anything (alright, except paying $500 more) to go home that night, even fly to Sacramento, rent a car and drive the 3 hours to our house, we were forced to wait for the next morning flight. They’re willing to get us a hotel but they can’t get our luggage. They say it’s for our own good, because Monday mornings are the busiest at the airport and we would have to get there way early to recheck our bags, but the real reason is that they were to lazy to even think about where our suitcases were right then. They don’t really care that my head is about to explode and all my medicine is in my bag because here, have this little overnight kit. The tooth brush only has 10 bristles and good luck brushing your teeth, twice, with so little toothpaste but you should still be grateful so spare us the attitude. I’m thinking it can’t get any worse. You’re thinking I’m making it up. WRONG. On both cases. Armed with our little overnight kits and our carry-ons we go outside to wait for the hotel shuttle. After a few minutes, A Delta worker comes and tells us that she’s very sorry but our hotel doesn’t have a shuttle service on the weekend. At this point I don’t even care anymore so we head over to the shuttle we were told would take us to our hotel. But we get to the shuttle counter and they tell us they (Express Shuttle) never go to our hotel since it has its own shuttle service. We tell them they don’t on the weekend, they tell us too bad and we trek back over to the Delta counter. I should say that the shuttles are on one side of the terminal and the Delta counter is on the other side, we could have been to the hotel by now except you can’t leave the airport on foot. Delta tells us our only option is to take a taxi but we’ll have to pay for it ourselves. I lose it. I’ll spare you the disturbing scene that followed, it suffices to say that Delta paid for the taxi and that we finally get to the hotel. We get to the hotel only to find out that they do have a shuttle service on the weekend. AGHHH!!!
Shortly after we got back from Paris, Henry asked me why we had to leave for 10 days. I explained about the time change and the long travel and how it didn’t make sense to go for just 3 days because most of it would be spent in the airplane. I left it at that. This, however didn’t seem to be the answer he was looking for because a couple of hours later he came back to me with “Did you leave for 10 days because it was your 10-year anniversary? When you’ll be married for 50 years will you go away for 50 days?” He’s obviously really been thinking about this. I explained that we would probably never leave for 50 days in a row but that if we did, he’d be 47 by our 50th anniversary and he wouldn’t need us or miss us by then. His answer melted my heart. “Of course I’ll miss you, I love you too much." And in the background I heard Olivia say "Yeah!" I love you too kiddos. I love you too.
Her four sons, two of their spouses, her five grandchildren (all girls), all their spouses, and 6 of her 8 great-grandchildren got together to celebrate with her. We were missing Mary (Jacques’s companion), Rosy (Gerard’s Companion), Olivia and Henry.
I learned that my dad and his brothers hadn’t been all together at once since some 32 years ago, so to have them all together made the night pretty special for my grandmother.
We also got to spend some time with my maternal grandparents who are nearing their mid-80s.
Second, we went by ourselves to celebrate our 10th anniversary. We had never left the children for more than 2 days and it was kind of hard to be far from them for 10 days (make that 11 days, but I’ll get back to that when I post about the bad.) However, it was great to be just us and to simply enjoy each other’s company. It might be corny to say but I love my husband more and more with time and I’m pretty sure he feels the same way.
In a nutshell, it was a great trip to Paris to celebrate long full lives and my marriage to my best friend and the love of my life.
