Christmas Eve

Last of the homemade presents done!

Happy 4th of July!

Foyer redo

Love one on one date days

With an almost 14 yo

Where in the world is nick? Er I mean, the chick-fil-a cow?

Any guesses? (it's the current give away so I can't tell until the contest is over)

Goodnight pete

Pete (6.5) still has a thing for pandas. He sleeps with the same one every night (Puggles) and the rest are content to sleep as a group at the end of his bed.

Testing.....

Blogging from my phone. Pictures from my garden!

paris....

next we left at 4:30 am to hop on a USO tour bus to take us to paris. it was nice to have someone else drive (and be concerned with parking) and a tour guide very knowledgeable and fluent in several languages to give us background and historical perspective.

we only had a short time there (and yes, olivia sketched there too) and then we were off to the burial building for napolean (as in, bonaparte). the gardens there were lovely too. it was a very overcast day, but we were thankful it wasn't colder or rainy (although we thought paris would be lovely in the rain as well).

next we drove through the city past monuments, lots of traffic circles, more monuments, truly awe-some buildings, some really cool cars (had to take pictures of them for the boys) and finally a stop at the arc d'trioumphe and the champs elysee. we *climbed* all 189+ steps to the top (seriously, look at the very top and see the people? that's a LOT of steps to the top). it was a tremendous view from up there.

Trier

trier is the oldest city in germany. old enough to have ancient roman ruins. the first place we went was to this amazing chapel... st. paulins.  the ceiling was absolutely stunning.

next we went to the porta nigra, which olivia sketched (i'll have to figure out how to scan that in, i think it's very good). in fact, so did some germans. they came over to her while she was sketching and saying, "dat's good! dat's good!"

(click on any picture to make it bigger). our friend hadley was fascinated by the street vendor (he was of asian persuasion) who did metal art. it was very neat.

next we walked towards the square and the shops, and stopped for lunch (pizza served in a sleeve, and pomme frites-we call them french fries)

next, we went to the roman baths (what's left of them) and the ampitheater (very cool...) where we were entertained by a french field trip of junior highers.

and there were other beautiful churches as well. the catholic church was massive and pristine, very opulent. the protestant church was very massive and,.. plain. they were trying to make a statement to their catholic brothers/sisters :)  we really enjoyed trier!