The sweetest picture I've ever seen

Curious what was keeping them so enthralled?

Dangerous Journey 

(illustrated Pilgrim's Progress for children)

Happy New Year!

Waiting for the new year is not easy....

Simon, Jackson and myself made it, but not by much!!

Have a very Happy New Year!!!

Two, Four, Six, Eight...

...who do we appreciate?

My 2, 4, 6, and 8 year olds!!

For the next month I hit that "sweet spot" of having everyone at a nice even age.

How fun!

This was fun!

 What a fun time we had last night!

Jackson did a costume repeat of three years ago, Haviland was an angel, Bennett was The Flash and Whitaker was Yoda.

Thanks Nana for making 2 out of the 4 costumes!! They were a hit!

My sweet neighbor let me borrow this Yoda costume for Whitaker.

A special appearance by our dear friends Mario, Ninja Warrior and Storm Trooper.

And yes, we are selling most of our candy back to the dentist tomorrow. They gathered in a total of EIGHT POUNDS of it last night (and that's after we all enjoyed 5 pieces each!).

Paris - Part Seven

Today we went to Epernay in the Champagne region and took a tour of the Moet-Chandon cellars.

It is a beautiful part of the country!

This cellar was amazingly huge.
It holds roughly 3 million bottles of champagne!

Lest you think our food was always perfect, today for lunch Simon ordered Andouillette
which ended up being... tripe.
Poor guy!

Tomorrow?

Back to the good ol' USA. We miss the kids so much and look forward to some big hugs.

Thank you to everyone who helped us make this trip possible!!! It was the adventure of a lifetime!

Ali, I heard about Alex's house fire and I'm so very sorry!!!

Paris - Part Six

Aaaagh! Only one more day left in Paris!

Oh Mom, Doc Martin was on. It's as good as ever!

Auntie Kelli & Uncle Simon with our Daniel

This morning Simon and I headed back into the city to the Pont Des Art to hang our Lover's Lock.

We'll keep the key and hopefully one day the children can return to find it.

Back at the Louvre.
We watched a model shoot here before making a very special stop...

Haviland China and Limoges!

One of eight massive paintings by Monet in the Musee de l'Orangerie.
We also were able to view art by Renior, Cezanne, and Picasso.

Taking a rest at the Jardin des Tuilleries

I've made friends with a dear chef

Well, no poodles for Haviland but we did find a Piaggio scooter for Bennett!

And of course, no post is complete without a picture of the food we ate!

Who knew ice cream could be yummy and beautiful???

Parisians with their baguettes

And finally, I had to take a picture of the McDonald's.

If only our McCafes were this nice!!

Tomorrow?

We will take a tour of the French countryside...

 and begin to pack. :(