Tea at Kim's house (December 23rd)

Kim and Roxane
Here is Kim and her friend Sophie, and Kim's dog Roxane. (French women are beautiful!)
On Monday Kim invited us to her house for tea with her friend Sophie. Kim had a beautiful assortment of cookies, bread and cheeses along with coffee and tea. She was a very gracious hostess and we had a wonderful time! (Sophie, Kim, Rachel and Lindsay)

The Marais, Paris (Dec. 22nd)

Over the last several months I have been a regular visitor to the Paris forum on Trip Advisor, and during that time I read many times about a falafel stand in the Jewish quarter of the Marais called L'As du Fallafel. I chatted with Kim prior to our arrival in Paris, and we decided to go for falafel for dinner, since Kim works in the Marais not far from L'As du Fallafel. The posters on Trip Advisor were correct - the falafel were terrific (we are planning a return trip!). Here is a picture with Kim and Eliot (Kim's boyfriend) outside of the restaurant. You can either go to the window and take your falafel away to eat it, or you can sit inside and eat. The sign on the door says L'As du Fallafel is "Lenny Kravitz's favorite falafel place"!

More Paris...

After walking around Saint Germain des Pres we headed over to the Marais to meet Kim for dinner. Kim was working at a small jewelry store, but she didn't get off work until 7:30 p.m. (most stores in Paris are closed on Sunday, but since it is Christmastime they are open) so we spent a couple of hours walking around

Here are some weary travelers at the Hotel de Ville (which is not a hotel, but the town hall!). It is a very ornate building, with twinkling lights, and during Christmastime a skating rink is in front of it.

Across from the Hotel de Ville is a department store call BHV (which stands for Bazar de Hotel de Ville).

This was a wonderful jazz quintet playing music outside the metro station by the Christmas market on Blvd. Saint Germain. There are Christmas markets in several areas around Paris, but they don't have Christmas things for sale. We can't figure that one out!

Greetings from Paris!

Eglise Saint Germain des Pres
Looking down Blvd. Saint Germain


Here is the street our apartment is on - rue Bernard Palissy.


We left home on Saturday with plenty of time to catch our 5:30 p.m. flight to Detroit and a connecting flight to Paris at 9:25 p.m. (Eastern time). We got through check-in without a hitch, and decided since we had a couple of hours before our flight was due to leave that we would go and get something to eat. We checked the departure board before heading off to a restaurant, and saw that our flight had been canceled - it had been snowing all day in Minnesota on Saturday. I noticed that there was a flight to Detroit that was scheduled to leave at 5:10 p.m. so we decided to head to the gate of that flight and see if we could get on it instead. When we got to the gate there were people waiting to get on the 3:15 p.m. flight that had not left yet (It was 3:30). There was a long stand-by list, but we went to the desk and explained that we HAD to get to Detroit or we would miss our plane to Paris, and the very kind woman worked diligently to get us on that flight. Anyway, we did get on, but our luggage didn't, so we arrived in Paris on Sunday morning with no luggage. We finally got 5 of our 6 bags last night at about 11:45 p.m., and today we have to work on finding out where the 6th one is! We got to our apartment at around 1 p.m. on Sunday, and after putting our things in our apartment and going to the Monoprix (sort of like a SuperTarget but on a smaller scale) to get some groceries, we set out to explore Paris. We were meeting Kim (the gal who stayed with us last spring) after she was finished working at 7 p.m. so we had lots of time to explore.

Our pre-Christmas Christmas

Here's Tim wearing the beanie that Lindsay bought for him. He's thrilled with the movies he got from Mom! I got the new book from Martha Stewart, and I love it! Thanks everyone!


Lindsay loved her personalized teacher bag from Aunt Lisa!
And a Dooney and Bourke wristlet from Aunt Lesley - these get to go to Paris with us!
Lindsay is thrilled to have the game of Life Twists and Turns from Grandma!

Rachel LOVED all of the books she got! She is so excited to have a collection of some of the classics. Here she is with one she got from Aunt Lisa!
And a Dooney and Bourke change purse from Aunt Lesley!

Today we opened our gifts from the Naperville family members. Here's Rachel opening her gifts from Grandma.

BRRRRR!

This is what the ambient air temperature was this morning when I took Rachel to school! Now that's cold!

Christmas Decorations

Tim bought me this nativity the year before last, but I believe Mom gave me the wise men - it looks great in our living room! "They followed a star and found the Light of the World!"
Dad and Jamie gave this Advent calendar to us years ago, and it goes up every year without fail! The kids used to alternate days, and then every other year they took turns putting the baby Jesus in the manger.
This is our Dickens village. Tim bought me some of the pieces, and Mom bought me some, and I'm pretty sure Lesley and maybe Lisa gave me a piece of it as well. It's so pretty at night - with the exception of the Tower Bridge everything lights up. Maybe I will add a nighttime picture later!

During our 25 years of marriage Tim and I have collected a LOT of Christmas decorations, and we love them all. I usually try to put out as many as I can all over the house, but this year since we won't be here for Christmas, I decided to just put out my favorites. I was looking at them today and realized that most of my favorites have been gifts, and some of the pieces have been given by you! Well, the stockings I bought, but the girls made the stockings for Toby and Chelsea when they were little, so I took a picture of that too!