April 9 - April 11

We're home again finally. All of us glad to be here, but we very much enjoyed our trip, illness and all. So now you finally get a good update with pictures. I'm going to try to get these pictures into chronological order. Some of them you've seen before, most you haven't. Photo credit for lots of them goes to Ross Williams, and I thank him for that.

April 9, 2008
We left Edmonton at 1030am, and with a couple of stops in between, flew to Paris. We arrived there on April 10.
First picture: Katie waiting for the plane in Edmonton. She had no idea what she was in for, poor kid. By the time we got home last night, she was really done with planes. She still wants to wear this horse every time she sees it.

April 10
Arrived in Paris, made our way to the apartment and crawled into bed.
While we were in Paris, we decided to rent an apartment instead of staying at a hotel, and we're very glad we did. We actually saved money per night, plus we had a kitchen and a good common area that we wouldn't have had if we'd been in a hotel. It is small, but very cute and just what we needed. It is in a quiet building in a quiet neighborhood, with a great view and great little shops around. Here is the view out from the front balcony, you can just see the Eiffel Tower in the distance.

Photo credit: Ross Williams.

We arrived in the morning and had time for a nap and some lunch before Lindsay and Ross arrived in the evening. As you can tell, a certain little girl is still exhausted from the 20+ hours of traveling.

Photo credit: Ross Williams.

April 11
Time for some sight-seeing. We only have 5 days and we want to make the most of them.
This little boulangerie (bakery) Was just across the road from us and about 10 feet down the sidewalk. Apparently, they win awards for their bread. We sure liked it. Katie's favorite is pain au chocolat (essentially a croissant wrapped around chocolate).

Photo credit: Ross Williams.

Here we are on the Metro. I was pleasantly surprised with the Metro system in Paris. It's easy to use, there were stops everywhere we wanted to be, and it's really pretty clean. And one thing that was very nice for me, is that most people will give you their seat if you are packing a kid around. You can see Andrew in this picture standing at the next doorway.

Photo credit: Ross Williams.

We got off the Metro and walked about 2 blocks (okay, like 5, but we took a wrong turn) and what did we stumble upon? Notre Dame Cathedral. This place is absolutely amazing. The size and detail and intricacy are unbelievable when you consider that it is 700 years old. All the little men you see behind us were decapitated during the Revolution.

Photo credit: Ross Williams.

Here we are in the gardens behind the cathedral, with all the blooming flowers and millions of pigeons. Katie was quite enthralled with the pigeons, as you can tell by the fact that she wouldn't look at the camera.

Photo credit: Ross Williams.

Here we are after a little walk, across the Seine and a few blocks away from Notre Dame. On the other side of the bridge (same side of the river, across the road) is Pont Neuf. Here, you can see Andrew putting one of Katie's shoes back on. This proved to be a big problem.

Photo credit: Ross Williams.

Then we went home for a little nap, and after the nap went back out to see that other great landmark, the Eiffel Tower. It was bigger than I expected it to be. Not sure why.

Photo credit: Ross Williams.

Photo credit: me.

At night, there is a spectacular light show on the Eiffel Tower, (the first 10 minutes of every hour) and we just happened to be there when it started. It was much more subdued in the view from our apartment. But beautiful either way.

Photo credit: Ross Williams.Across the street from the Eiffel Tower is a cute little carousel. Which also, apparently, is the fastest moving carousel in the world (I don't know that that's actually a fact.). It was fast enough that Katie was scared to stay on the horse, and was certainly the fastest one I can remember being on.
Photo credit: Ross Williams.

So we moved to a little couch thing, and she liked that much better. Maybe because then she could take one hand off to wave at Daddy every time we went past. She was also quite entertained by Uncle Ross running around the carousel trying to take her picture as we went by at breakneck speeds.

Photo credit: Ross Williams.