Our trip to Paris

The anniversary card said, "If I can't sweep you off your feet and take you to Paris, France, how would Paris, Texas do instead?" My wonderful romantic husband set it all up. He found the Bed & Breakfast, and he had his Mom and sister set up for taking the boys one night each.  I needed to get away SO much that I felt like I was going to the other Paris.  Plus I didn't care where we were going.  I was just really happy to be able to spend some time with him.

We left Saturday morning of Memorial Day weekend.  Our first stop after dropping off the boys:   Starbucks!

It wasn't a long drive.  THIS was the house.  Isn't it lovely?  I had some mediocre expectations based on past Bed and Breakfast experiences.  They were blown away.  Old Magnolia House is run by two sisters.  Debbie cooks breaksfast and makes wonderful baked goods to snack on anytime you want.   Sherri takes care of guests, decorated the inside and maintains the gardens outside.

This was the staircase leading up to the bedrooms.  There are three bedrooms, each one with its own bathroom.  We could never hear any of our neighbors.  The house was built in 1871, and was the only house from that era not destroyed in the big fire that Paris had in 1916. When Debbie and Sherri decided to buy it and renovate it to a B&B, it had been vacant for over 10 years.

Here is one of two stained glass window panels that just took my breath away.  This one was in the parlor over one of the front windows.  I have seen Victorian way overdone.  But this house was so understated.  Every corner of every room is arranged just perfectly.  Sherri mixed old paintings with actual old photographs, which resulted in making the house seem authentic.

Here is our dining room.  See the fireplace in the corner?  Nice.  This was the room where we came for our two fantastic and unique "Southern gourmet" breakfasts.  The first morning we started with a homemade cinnamon roll and one piece of perfectly cooked bacon.  The main course was scrambled egg cooked in a pepper half with melted cheese on top, with an avocado and tomato relish and more bacon.  The second morning our opener was custard with sauteed cherries, blueberries and raspberries on top.  The main dish was homemade croutons with fried eggs on top, a potato pancake and more fruit with cream.  I was stuffed like a tick when I walked out of that room each morning, but very, very happy.

The 2nd stained glass panel, which is over a side window in the dining room.  The pictures don't do them justice.

Here's a view looking down one side of the house.

I loved this and want to find one like it.  It's a tower herb garden.

There are two tourist attractions in Paris.  The first is this statue adorning an eccentric Paris resident's grave.  Some say it is Jesus, but it looks more like a female to me.  Whoever it is, he or she is wearing cowboy boots.  The Evergreen cemetery in Paris is the biggest one I've ever seen.  It holds 40,000 people and that number will grow for at least 15 more years.  It took us awhile to find this, even though we'd been given some shady directions.  I could have spent all morning just wandering around looking at gravestones and listening to the birds sing.

We spent our second morning browsing books and CD's at Hastings.   Ahhhhh.  Time.  A precious resource we don't have much of back home.

It was a little strange to see this beautiful Italian fountain in the middle of the Paris town square.  There are antique shops and restaurants around it, but nothing but boarded up windows and dilapidated buildings in the next blocks.  Really sad.

We didn't think about the fact that everything in small towns closes up for Sundays and holidays.  It was a little tricky to find open restaurants.  But we succeeded in finding a Mexican restaurant called "TaMolly's"  Food was not that great, but at least we didn't have to eat dinner at the DQ.  

Here's the second tourist attraction in Paris.  Pretty self-explanatory.

Since it was Memorial Day weekend, it was nice to stumble upon this in-progress monument to service members, past and present, alive and deceased.  It was really pretty and nice and quiet next to an open field.  But I'm not sure it I would have placed it so close to the Eiffel Tower monstrosity.

Here we are saying goodbye to our relaxing weekend, and to two of the best breakfasts I've ever eaten.  Thanks honey.  I couldn't have had a better time in France.

Spring break

We didn't do anything special for Spring Break this year. I had wanted to make a list of neat places to take the boys like I did last year, but I had to work Tuesday and Wednesday so I gave up on that idea. But we managed to have a pretty fun week anyway.

Macy came to hang out with us for a whole day on Thursday. It was really good to get to spend time with her. We have fallen behind on our niece/nephew weekend stays. We played outside and she got to try out my new obstacle course idea (that I saw on Pinterest, thank you very much). Gabriel likes to run it once and then quits. But Macy was a trooper and even had me video her.

Cousins!

This is what happens when you spend the night with your Tia the night before, then spend all day with your cousin playing. Late afternoon nap. Of course he had trouble going to sleep that night even though we kept him up a little later.

Friday afternoon I took the boys to our friend Harper's party at Little Gym In hellish Spring Break/Friday afternoon/Parks Mall traffic no less. We were only a few minutes late, and the boys had a blast. This is Gabriel with Bennett. Bennett, Harper and Gabriel are friends through our neighborhood Moms group. We've been doing something once a month for about 2-1/2 years and they are starting to become better and better friends, which I love. I also really like their moms!

And of course, since the weather was beautiful, we played outside. A bunch. In fact, we didn't want to go inside for some of those days. This little guy is getting almost too big for the baby swing, which makes me sad.

In my next post I'll talk more about my yard project, which is where we found the old soaker hose that Gabriel decided to turn into a big pretend snake.

We had a play date with our new neighborhood friend Nicholas. Nicholas and Gabriel are complete opposites. Whereas Gabriel is bookish and artsy, Nicholas loves sports and was the fastest runner on our soccer team last fall. I was wondering if Gabriel could even keep up with him at the park, but he did great. But he was one tired boy that night. Sunday we took the boys to get new shoes for (hopefully) the next year, then dinner and more playing in the backyard. I used to complain about the early time change, but right now I'm thinking it was a fantastic idea!

Christmastime is here!

Our annual Christmas trip to Froggy's was the weekend before last. The boys were overwhelmed and didn't know where to look first when we walked in.

We let them buy one toy each, and usually buy at least one more family Christmas gift.

Joel fell in love with this bouncy horse, but it was just too expensive. Gabriel couldn't make up his mind. After spending over an hour in the store, we ended up with a car for Joel and a school bus for Gabriel. Sigh. It doesn't really matter what you end up with, though, it's more about getting to play with and look at every toy you could possibly think of.

The four of us outside of Harry's Hot Dog. We didn't eat there, but a nice woman offered to take our picture. Why she didn't get the whole hot dog in the picture is beyond me. But oh well.

We went to Chuy's for dinner after Froggy's. Yum!

After driving back to FW we drove all around our neighborhood looking at lights. It was a super fun day!

Then last week we took a trip to downtown Fort Worth to see the big Christmas tree. The wind had picked up just before we left the house, and those streets downtown were like standing in wind tunnels! Too cold.

We decided to eat downtown too. We picked out a burger joint called Jake's. It ended up being more like a Hooter's but the food was really good. No really, it was! I just felt sorry for the scantily clad girl working the front door every time that cold air gusted in!

The picture really doesn't do it justice. It was beautiful! Fun times.

Annie Lennox - God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen

I absolutely love this. It's Pagan tradition meets Christian belief. The music, that drum, the mystery, and her voice make this something I want to hear again and again at Christmas time.

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Halloween

It's hard to tell what this is, but it's the house in our neighborhood that goes even crazier than us when decorating for Halloween. They had three Frankensteins, mummies, gravestones and all sorts of scary.

We decided that Gabriel should have two costumes this year. His school frowns upon scary costumes because of the smaller kids, and I just wasn't sure about his Frankenstein. So we dug into the dress up box, borrowed from Mommy's closet and bought a couple of things for this clown outfit. Oh, and used lots of hair gel!

In the parking lot after Boo at the (FW) Zoo with our neighborhood Moms group. Which we will never be going to again. What a gigantic rip off. Lines to get in, even for members, and then paying an extra $3 apiece to get into the Boo area. Only to stand in more lines to do ANYTHING. All games, candy handouts, crafts, etc... Line after line after line. We stood in one for Gabriel to play a game and Mommy made an Executive Decision to head out of there and back to the animals. And started having much more fun!

I did Gabriel's, oops I mean Frankenstein's, face. I'm pretty proud of it since I have no face-painting experience other than Halloweens of yore. Joel tolerated his costume only because it was Elmo. It was really too warm to keep that thing on for very long.

This picture cracks me up since you can't see Joel and it really looks like Elmo is glancing into Frankie's candy sack.

Can you tell my mother-in-law never really grew up?

Gabriel loves Halloweens so much that even after it's over he tries to tell us stories about haunted houses or pretend visits to the Scary Guy store for weeks afterwards.

Old holiday memories and making new ones

Gabriel has been infatuated with Christmas lights this year. He gets so excited driving through the neighborhood after dark. We've driven the neighborhood twice, and then we went with Cade and Macy to Diamond Loch. I thought Gabriel's head was going to explode he was so excited.

It made me remember sitting in the back seat when we would drive back and forth from my grandparents or wherever during the Christmas season, and my goal was to look down every street, in both directions, and make sure I saw every single house that had lights. Once we had done this a couple of times, I would rate the decorating jobs based on color choice and how neatly the job was done. My absolute favorite was all blue lights. Not the weird part-blue, part-white fluorescent looking lights they make now. But a deep blue that would make me feel peaceful and calm.

Of course, back then no one had anything inflatable in their yards. I don't like the blow-up things, but Gabriel loves them. I vowed we would never have them in our yard, but who knows how much those big brown eyes will sway me one day. I think our yard looks really pretty this year. All we added was some sparkly things and lights to our little tree. They shine in the sun during the day and look really pretty with the lights at night. One day we WILL win or place in the neighborhood decorating contest. I already have some ideas for next year.

Another tradition from the past that we are now continuing is an advent calendar. I absolutely loved my advent calendar growing up. It was made out of white felt, and the tree that you hung the ornaments on was pink felt. There were 25 little pockets with different baubles attached to straight pins (!). You pinned a new ornament to the tree every day up until the 25th. I guess they weren't as concerned about safety issues as we are today. I think my brother and I may have stuck ourselves (or each other) with those pins a couple of times, but nothing serious.

My mom bought Gabriel an advent calendar this year. It's Fisher Price, and really cute. Every day he pulls out another character for the nativity scene and velcros it wherever he wants to put it. The only one I made him put in a certain place was the baby Jesus, in the center yesterday. He's really been excited every day to move his little footstool under it and see what's in that day's pocket. I'm all for anything that reminds him that this holiday is about much more than Santa and getting stuff, stuff, and more stuff.

Next post, pictures of the stuff, stuff and more stuff.

New traditions

We have decided that if we don't go to Pennsylvania for Thanksgiving (which we won't be able to afford for many years, probably), then we're going to the zoo on Thanksgiving. From now on. We have tried hitting my family one year, then Jav's the next, and we invariably end up feeling like we're hurting someone's feelings no matter what. So when I found out the zoo was open from 12 - 5 on Thanksgiving Day, this idea popped into my head. We will go to the zoo no matter what the weather. If it's nice we'll stay outside. If it's cold we'll go to the awesome new snake/fish/lizard, etc.. building (I think they call it the Living Museum or something like that). And then we'll eat a huge meal at Grandy's. No cooking or dishes. No fuss. Just fun.

We couldn't go on Thanksgiving day this year since Jav and I were under the weather, but we ended up going on Sunday once we were all feeling better. It was a beautiful day. There was a cold wind blowing walking in from the parking lot, but once we got inside zoo grounds it was nice. We didn't go until 2, which is the latest in the day I've ever been there. We had a blast! There were lots of active animals (maybe looking for their dinners?), and there were hardly any people. The highlight this trip were the cats. The white tigers actually started wrestling while we were watching. The cheetah was playful and pouncing in and out of the bushes. And the lions just seemed to be staring back at the crowd staring at them. They were so majestic and breathtaking! I think our membership purchase was one the the best buys we've ever made when I realize that it paid for itself in two trips to the zoo, and when I think about how much happiness it has given to all of us!

Halloween!

On one of our many trips to the scary guy store during October.

BOO!

The very scary and laughing big bat and the pudgy cute little bat.

First trick or treat stop: Uncle Dave's.

And then off to Mamaw and Poppy's.

And finally to Tita and Tito's

Next we ate dinner and then headed out to the neighbors'. Then Jav took Gabriel to the neighborhood haunted house. Which last year paid attention to whether or not the kid walking through was smallish. But not this year. Jav said it was loud and screamy and not just scary but a little violent. Not good. We will not be taking him back there next year.