Just One Story

It's late and I walked 29,392 steps today--new record, so I am very tired. I will post more tomorrow, but I have one hilarious story for today. This morning, we went to this huge, outdoor flea market. It had hundreds of booths. Andy and I stopped at one to look at some dresses for the girls, so Lindy and Warren went ahead. When we met up with them, Warren was just being handed a carrying case of some sort from a woman. Turns out, Warren had been fascinated by the booth that sold Egyptian--for lack of a better word--bongs. Warren had passed all these other ones and stopped there. He asked what they were for and had quite the conversation with the lady and really wanted one. Lindy, of course, had no intention of buying him one, but he persisted. The lady, said, "Just for decoration!" Lindy and Warren started walking away and the lady called them back and said, "Wait--I'll give him one." She really gave Warren this pipe-thing. Warren was so thrilled. As soon as we got home, he assembled it all by himself and said, "That was nice of the lady to give me this pipe I don't have to breathe through." Here he is, freshly bathed and standing proudly next to his gift.

Into the Woods

Yesterday, Lindy--Andy's mom--arrived. Yeah! Hence, the new sleeping arrangements here! I fell asleep singing to the kids, so there is the reason for no post yesterday. But Lindy and I took the kids to Sacre-Coeur at 6 pm to hear Evening Song with the nuns and the priest. It was enchanting.Today, we set out for the Bois de Vincennes--the Woods of Vincennes. They are just around Paris' SE border, and used to be the king's hunting grounds until Napoleon gave them to the city of Paris. Once we got off the Metro, we saw this cool fountain/play area and stopped off for awhile. It reminded me a bit of the Mesa Arts Center's gardens.
The toys were so innovative. We enjoyed trying them all out.

This is the City Hall of Vincennes. Pretty amazing. It was right by the play area.
Back to the play area/fountain...

After we bought some lunch and ate it near the park entrance--the bread here is SO good--we walked around Parc Floral, a park within the Woods. I let the kids feed some of the old bread I'd brought along to the geese. Check out how happy that made Warren.
Warren doesn't seem capable of just standing naturally in a picture anymore. Oh well, why be natural when you can be a samurai warrior?
Avery strides confidently along the garden path.
Lindy and I were awed by the color in this little nook of the woods.
The Parc Floral didn't get it's name for no reason. Check out these tulips. There were beds of them all over. The kids really enjoyed running around in all the color.

There is a huge children's park within Parc Floral. This is, without a doubt, the coolest kids park I've ever been to. Look at this slide! That's me about halfway up and Abigail in the pink jacket at the bottom. All the toys were amazing, and there were so many. We will definitely be back. I was having such a fun time playing with the kids that I didn't take many pictures, but there are 2 cute videos at the end, both from this park, if you want to watch them. Truly, when was the last time I ran just for the joy of it? Um, never. This park had me running all over and racing Warren. My cheeks hurt from smiling.

At the entrance to the Woods is this chateau. We walked around the Chateau de Vincennes, a great castle, complete with moat, drawbridge, towers, archers holes to shoot through...It was closed for tours (French Labor Day) but just walking around was impressive.

This gives you a bit of an idea of what it looks like.

Abigail and Avery on the fence in front of the moat, with a really great church in the background. The next photo is this view without the girls--or the bars--in it.

Check out that moat! It was so impressive to see. I can't fathom the manpower it took to dig the ditch with the tools that were available.
We walked on the wide boulevards carved out through the woods for about an hour after this. I didn't take pictures, but just imagine Fairytale woods and you've got it. The only thing missing were the dwarves and gnomes.
Yesterdays step total: 11,750
Total steps today: 26,337 (about 9.1 miles)
French word: pelouse: lawn (as in, Get off the lawn!)

Unexpected Surprises

Today started off with more rain, so we took it easy at home and figured that would be our day. I put the girls down a little earlier for their naps since we were home, and then when they woke up around 3:30, the kids wanted to go on a walk. It wasn't raining at the moment, so we set off down Rue Damremont, a street I like a lot since it has neat shops and goes uninterrupted for a long time. We turned off on a little side street and I saw these flowers growing above the doorway. They are not in a planter, they are just growing in the dirt trapped by the pigeon pokes. Life will find a way!
Life will find a way: check out this bicycle in the 3rd floor window. Warren thought that was a great idea to make sure your bike didn't get stolen.
Once back on Damremont, we then turned onto Abbesses--I asked Warren, "Straight or left?" and he voted left. What a great choice! Abbesses is a great street with all sorts of shops and sights. I will definitely go there often. We found this shop that had this fabulously colored pasta in the window. Everything you see on the left is pasta; check out the blue and white bow ties in that jar; if you can, look just to the right of those bowties, and note the colored stripes. That is long pasta noodles that have a rainbow of colors running the entire length. I plan to go back and buy some, just for fun.
We kept walking and then Boom! There was this church. It was built in 1908, I think, which makes it really new by Paris' standards.
As we passed the open doors to the church, I glanced in and there was this huge window, all lit up by the afternoon sun. The picture is nowhere near as good as the real thing, but still, you get and idea.
Across the street from the church was another carousel--this one kind of a miniature, airbrushed, state-fair looking spectacle. But it really was very fun for the kids to ride. Better than all the classic-looking ones we've been on. This is the kids anticipating the ride after I said yes.
After the ride, we walked just beyond the carousel and there was the entrance to a park. Yeah! We went in and saw 2 toys. Not so great, you would think, but we spent almost an hour playing on them.
They have the best spring teeter-totters here.
The kids played that they were King Midas on the castle and delighted in turning my scarf and my cell phone into gold, then undoing it when I would complain that I was choking or couldn't call Andy. Thanks Annie for exposing them to Muppet Fairy Tales!
What a lousy shot, you say--you can't even see the kids! Well, that's because keeping with the whole surprise theme for the afternoon, it started to rain again while we played at the park. Luckily, we always have our umbrella along and the girls have great ones built in. Also, note Warren just gnawing away at the baguette we'd bought earlier on our walk. He ate almost the whole thing.

Since the park was right next to the Metro stop just prior to our usual one, we called Andy and told him to get off one early and meet us. He did and so we showed him all our favorite places we discovered as we walked home in the drizzling rain together. Here, Andy buys cheese at a fromagerie--our first time buying from one. Usually we just get it at the supermarket. It was called bretard. It was good on bread, better on crackers, and best along with grape juice. (Grape juice is amazing here!)

I told the kids we'd buy flowers on the way home, so we stopped back off at this florist and bought the red and white daisies. To walk into the shop was heaven--it smelled divine!

When we got home, Abigail's hair--which is curly anyway--was fabulously curly from all the moisture in the air. It's hard to tell that from the picture, but I thought it was cute anyway.
Total steps today: 8713
Tomorrow Grandma Lindy gets here and the kids are so excited--me too! Oh, just for funnies: at the park, I noticed what my kids were wearing. Abigail wore her shirt inside out underneath her dirty jacket, and had her blue crocs on her feet, since I'm sure they do such a great job of keeping her feet warm. Avery's tights had huge black dirt streaks all up her legs from playing outside this morning, not to mention her filthy jacket. Warren, as usual, had his jeans on backwards. We looked pretty classy. I think I was the only non-nanny at the park, because none of the other women looked remotely like the children they were with.

Even in Paris...

Even in Paris, the toilet must be cleaned. I will not include pictures of that or the other housework and laundry I did today. Instead I offer pictures of what we did today because I needed a day to pick up around here. We went to the park. It started out very cloudy and cool, but then the sun broke through for about an hour and it was glorious. Here is Warren on his favorite toy, the spider-web climber.Avery was so cute sitting there on the swing, that I took this one. I love it.
We stopped by a boulangerie on the way home to get bread, and so we took a different way home. We turned down this narrow walkway, just for fun, and it ended up being beautiful. And, it came out right next to our apartment building! It's been there all along, hidden by a bend and behind a building just next to us. The guy in green is a sanitation worker; they are all over Paris, cleaning up the streets and emptying the trash bags that are everywhere.
As long as I was getting a fresh look at my neighborhood, I crossed the street and looked up at my building. I'd never done that before. It's actually kind of cute, in a shabby-chic sort of way. Definitely never going to make it into one of Melinda'a paintings, but it has a bit of charm.

The reason I'd never noticed this charm before is because this (below) is my entrance. Yes, it is a parking garage exit. If you look up at the building again, this would be just off the left side of the building.

Once I get in my gate above, we walk through this walkway/driveway to the back of the building. If you can see W & A by the white rectangle, that is the little gate to our apartment.

Here is the view of our ground-level apartment from the little white gate. If you walk past the blue shutters and turn left, that is our yard area, a real rarity here. The kids love it. Just across from the door--to the left--there is a "meadow" as my kids call it. It was drizzling rain by the time I took these, so I'll save outdoor pictures for another day.
Total steps today: only 6,923
French words: a emporter: to take out (as in, food to go, or food to take with you); tirer: verb, to pull (used on doors, tirez); ajouter: verb, to add (in recipes, ajoutez)
Oh, at the grocery store--yes, I have to grocery shop here in Paris, gotta have paper towels, tape and you can't eat out every meal, or even most of them--a French women asked me where the toilet paper was and I showed her. It was nice to be helpful.

A Day of Rest

It's a calm afternoon for me; everyone else is sleeping. Last week we stayed around Paris and then went to dinner at the Shirtliff's. This week I originally thought that we would look around some more, but I started feeling like even though we weren't spending money, the Sabbath was not really a day of rest for us that way. I felt inspired that the Lord would be able to bless us to have strength and be prepared for the rest of the week if we truly rested on this day. So we came home after church, had lunch and now everyone is napping. Later we'll have dinner--I'm trying out croque monsieur sandwiches--and ice cream--I thought that would be a good tradition here in France to make it like home a bit--and then call my family. It will be nice to have this day together, even in our small little home.
A few nights ago we read a conference talk about the Book of Mormon and I felt like I should start studying it in earnest again. I've been reading conference talks, selections from the D & C and, before we left Mesa, studying Isaiah. But I'm not sure how to go about it--I don't just want to read it cover to cover again, but my indecision is keeping me from doing it and not doing it, I know, has left me susceptible to irritation and meanness. In Relief Society today we studied personal revelation and I was reminded that we must come up with questions we want revealed to us, and not just wait for life's problems to present themselves. I think that is part of being proactive and creating like I wrote about a few days ago in my journal. I include that entry here for your benefit:
Last night Andy and read Elder Ballard's talk about young mothers. I love the counsel that he gives about enjoying the moments with children. There are too many ups and downs in a day to focus on "good day/bad day". It feels like a fresh start whenever I need one if I focus on the moments. That's going to be my focus here in France. I think that is a good goal, as small as it sounds, because if I can do it here, I can do it anywhere. In Mesa, I have so much help from my mom, Warren going to school, family nights with the Jennings, the luxury of sending a child to his/her room to play...Here we are all together, all the time. I have much less housework, yardwork, church work and other social engagements that take me away from my kids. This time is the perfect confluence of factors to really have meaningful family time. I could really teach the kids some neat things if I am just aware of what I want to do. So much of my life is responding to the current set of circumstances; I would like to create more.
So, along with my own pondering about a fresh way to study the BoM, if you have any suggestions, post them here or email me. I suppose this is part of my "studying it out" in my mind step to receiving an answer to prayer.
I hope today, almost over for me and just starting for most of you, is a day of rest for you and your families.