Sunday, January 6, 2019
Halloween 2018
For Halloween this year, we only had Hudson and Maira who wanted to dress up. Well, Jess took them out trick-or-treating so he decided to dress up as a pirate to accompany them.
Hudson wanted to be Jason, the main character from the Rick Riordan series Heroes of Olympus. Jason is a blond kid who goes to a Roman demi-god summer camp and has a magical gold sword so Hudson's costume consisted of a purple camp shirt, a camp tattoo and a gold sword. It was a fun surprise to open the door for trick-or-treaters and find that two neighbour girls dressed up as characters from the same series so I made Hudson pose for a picture with them:
Maira decided to dress up as Little Red Riding Hood which was super exciting for me since it meant we could re-use the costume I made for Shae to wear when she was younger.
Back to School (for FIVE of us!)
I decided to go back to school again in September to work towards my Master of Library and Information Studies degree at the University of Alberta. Shae is living at home again and started her first year in the design program at MacEwan University. So that meant that 5/6 of us started school in September! Hudson in grade 4, Maira in grade 6, Connor in grade 9 and Shae and me at university.
Thursday, January 3, 2019
Paris 2018
Jess was invited to present a workshop at a conference in Paris in November and as the dates lined up perfectly with my school reading week, and thanks to Shae's willingness to watch the kids and the puppy, I was able to go to Paris with him! It was the first time in Paris for both of us and we only had three days together so we crammed as much in as we could.
We stayed in an Airbnb flat on the seventh floor of an old stone townhouse in a neighbourhood quite close to the Eiffel tower. It had no elevator though so it was a tough climb at the end of a day full of walking!
Jess took this photo looking up from the bottom of the staircase.
On our first day, we were pretty tired from the overnight cross-Atlantic flight so we just explored the Eiffel tower neighbourhood for a while. It was a chilly, foggy day but our timing was actually pretty good: we arrived a week after a bunch of world leaders had gathered in Paris to mark the 100-year anniversary of the end of WWI, and we left just before the city erupted in "yellow vest" protests.
The next day, we decided to visit the Musee de l'Orangerie, a small art gallery near the Louvre since we didn't feel like we had time to go inside the Louvre but still wanted to see French art.
The Musee de l'Orangerie is also next to the Place de la Concorde, which is the place depicted in a large painting hanging in our living room. It is the place where many important historical events have happened, including the execution of Marie Antoinette. We wanted to try and take a picture of ourselves standing in the same place the painter would have stood when he/she made the painting. Apparently a lot has changed in the decades since it was painted though because we would have had to stand in the middle of several lanes of traffic to get the same perspective. These photos are the closest we could get. I hadn't realized that you can see a perfect view of the Champs Elysee and the Arc de Triomphe from the Place de la Concorde so that was cool to experience a full view of the place.
We walked by the Louvre (it's so huge!) and then walked along the Seine to the Notre Dame cathedral on the Ile de Paris.
We arrived too late to climb up to the top but we did get to go inside.
We had one more stop before our day was done: there is a yarn shop I knew of that is famous for its beautiful hand-dyed yarn so we took the subway to La Bien Aimee so I could pick out some yarn to bring home with me.
On our last day there together, we finally got a sunny day. We started out by heading to Notre Dame so we could climb to the top of one of the towers.
First, the dreaded seven flights of stairs:
With the stairs at our flat and the stairs at Notre Dame, we definitely had our fill of stairs that day! After the cathedral, we headed to the Catacombs but arrived too late. So instead, we wandered around the Cimitiere de Montparnasse, the burial place of many French artists including Guy de Maupassant, Baudeliere, Sartre, and Simone de Beauvoire.
After that, we went to a park (Jardin du Luxumbourg) where I would have loved to sit (and rest my feet!) for hours but strangely, it closes at 5 pm so we had to leave shortly after we arrived. Though we did happen across the miniature model used in the construction of the Statue of Liberty so that was cool to see.
This isn't the apartment building we stayed in but it looks nearly identical. We saw many similar building all across the city.
We passed by the ruins of ancient Roman baths on our way back to the Ile de Paris for supper.
After eating at a charming restaurant near Notre Dame, we capped off our trip with a nighttime boat cruise on the Seine. The boat took us from the Ile de Paris over to the Eiffel Tower and back. All of the buildings along the river are lit up so the city really lives up to its nickname as the City of Lights. We had no idea that the tour was timed to take us past the Eiffel Tower at the exact moment the lights get turned on to "sparkle mode". It was a fun surprise.
Back at our "home" metro station at the end of a long day:
He had a bit of spare time and went to the Catacombs and back to the Eiffel Tower for more photos.
We stayed in an Airbnb flat on the seventh floor of an old stone townhouse in a neighbourhood quite close to the Eiffel tower. It had no elevator though so it was a tough climb at the end of a day full of walking!
Jess took this photo looking up from the bottom of the staircase.
On our first day, we were pretty tired from the overnight cross-Atlantic flight so we just explored the Eiffel tower neighbourhood for a while. It was a chilly, foggy day but our timing was actually pretty good: we arrived a week after a bunch of world leaders had gathered in Paris to mark the 100-year anniversary of the end of WWI, and we left just before the city erupted in "yellow vest" protests.
The next day, we decided to visit the Musee de l'Orangerie, a small art gallery near the Louvre since we didn't feel like we had time to go inside the Louvre but still wanted to see French art.
The Musee de l'Orangerie is also next to the Place de la Concorde, which is the place depicted in a large painting hanging in our living room. It is the place where many important historical events have happened, including the execution of Marie Antoinette. We wanted to try and take a picture of ourselves standing in the same place the painter would have stood when he/she made the painting. Apparently a lot has changed in the decades since it was painted though because we would have had to stand in the middle of several lanes of traffic to get the same perspective. These photos are the closest we could get. I hadn't realized that you can see a perfect view of the Champs Elysee and the Arc de Triomphe from the Place de la Concorde so that was cool to experience a full view of the place.
We walked by the Louvre (it's so huge!) and then walked along the Seine to the Notre Dame cathedral on the Ile de Paris.
We arrived too late to climb up to the top but we did get to go inside.
We had one more stop before our day was done: there is a yarn shop I knew of that is famous for its beautiful hand-dyed yarn so we took the subway to La Bien Aimee so I could pick out some yarn to bring home with me.
On our last day there together, we finally got a sunny day. We started out by heading to Notre Dame so we could climb to the top of one of the towers.
First, the dreaded seven flights of stairs:
With the stairs at our flat and the stairs at Notre Dame, we definitely had our fill of stairs that day! After the cathedral, we headed to the Catacombs but arrived too late. So instead, we wandered around the Cimitiere de Montparnasse, the burial place of many French artists including Guy de Maupassant, Baudeliere, Sartre, and Simone de Beauvoire.
After that, we went to a park (Jardin du Luxumbourg) where I would have loved to sit (and rest my feet!) for hours but strangely, it closes at 5 pm so we had to leave shortly after we arrived. Though we did happen across the miniature model used in the construction of the Statue of Liberty so that was cool to see.
This isn't the apartment building we stayed in but it looks nearly identical. We saw many similar building all across the city.
We passed by the ruins of ancient Roman baths on our way back to the Ile de Paris for supper.
Back at our "home" metro station at the end of a long day:
I headed home the next morning and Jess stayed for a few more days to do his workshop before coming home too.
He had a bit of spare time and went to the Catacombs and back to the Eiffel Tower for more photos.
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