Paris, the Vacation Part

If going to Paris (PARIS!) isn't enough of a reason to re-resurrect the blog, I don't know what is.

Shannon and I went to France for 10-ish days last month, and I here I am to report on it. (The number of days is a little fuzzy. Is it how long I was away from home? How long I was in France? Do I have to adjust for time zones?) You don't want a long list of everywhere you went along with the number of steps I took each day. You just want some pictures. So here are my ten favorite pictures, in rough chronological order, from the trip with a brief blurb.

The walls of Sainte Chapelle are, essentially made of entirely of glass. Hypothetically there are a whole bunch of bible stories in there, but you'd have to be 50 feet tall and much better at remembering all the stories in Chronicles. This is your first, and last, reminder that I'm not a photographer and took all of these with my phone, and the sun is where ever it is in all the photos.

A baguette in the park, and a couple of French kids. From the start, I insisted that I wasn't going to make many demands on the trip, but that I wanted to eat baguettes in the park.

The obligatory Notre Dame selfie, for proof that I was actually there, or at least that my photoshop skills have improved. (They haven't.) Since the fire, this is as close as you can get to the Notre Dame, which looks pretty good from this angle.

Not quite so good from this angle.

The Memorial of the Martyrs of the Deportation is across the street from Notre Dame and is for those who were shipped off to Nazi death camps. The memorial is all underground, which makes for poor photography. I thought it was a very well done memorial. Above the exit it says, "Forgive, do not forget ...."

I ate lunch on the street in Paris. It turns out that when you actually do this, the tables are (I am not kidding) about 2 inches from each other, the tables are tiny, your neighbors are possibly smoking, and the foot traffic is about six inches away. It's not really charming or relaxing. But it was tasty.

Omaha beach. We had a great tour from Thomas who did an excellent job of making the tour about people, and not about nations.

When Blockburgers go on vacation, they always go to cemeteries. This one also at Omaha beach.

In France, everything must use spiral staircases. It's a law or something. These ones happen to be inside the Arc de Triomphe.

Sometimes when you're at the Palais de Chaillot checking out the Eiffel Tower a parade of baton twirlers comes by with their little 5 piece band in tow. You know, because those things just happen.

Who made this stupid 10 picture rule? The first place we stayed was just down the steps from Sacré-Cœur, and this was on the sidewalk just outside our door. (It's Sacré-Cœur, if you couldn't put that together.)

We went to Musee D'Orsay and saw art. Some Manet, some Monet, some Van Gogh, but I'm including this Renoir here because it's Shannon's favorite and is the one hanging in our bedroom.

Sometimes when all of your vacation plans have completely fallen apart, you find yourself at the train station in Amboise, France at 10pm buying baguettes from the baguette vending machine. You put in your Euro and the baguette comes "banging down the chute". (Shannon's words.)

We went to several castles. This is Chambord, the biggest (of the ones we went to). It's so large that by the time you're close enough to feel like you can see it properly, you're too close to take a picture of it. If you were to zoom in enough on the photo you could see people on the balcony on the third level. The main rooms must have at least 30 foot ceilings. Wikipedia puts the total height at 184 feet with 440 rooms and 282 fireplaces. In the center of the chateau there is a helical staircase.

Paris temple, night. We made it here 5 minutes before the visitors center was supposed to close, and stayed much longer that I thought we would on a day that turned out to be probably be the longest, most tiring day any of us have had in a long time. But I'm glad we got to see the temple.

Mackinac Island Getaway

In 13 years of marriage, Shannon and I have spent, I think, 4 nights together away from our girls, and never more than one in a row. So, for a three-weeks-after-our-anniverary gift to ourselves, we went away on our own for three whole nights. (Shannon's parents were nice enough to stay at our house with the girls.) We decided to take our romantic getaway to Mackinac Island, which is a small island between the upper and lower peninsulas of Michigan. (Lesson time: Mackinac Island is near Mackinaw City and yes, that's how you spell each of them. They are both, however, pronounced the same - "Mackinaw".)

Part of the allure of Mackinac Island is that there are no cars on the island. So if the whole point of the trip is to have a relaxing weekend with your spouse, no driving sounds pretty good. In our quest for a quiet, car-free weekend, we strapped our bikes on the back of the car and drove 7 hours to get there. Late May is really the earliest you want to try and vacation in northern Michigan. The daffodils were out up there, and the tulips were just starting, but we mostly avoided the rain and had temperatures in the 50s. The advantage to going in late May though, is that the hotels are about 15% cheaper before the main tourist season starts, and the island is much emptier.

We spent 2 nights on the island at the Cottage Inn, which is an 8 or 9 room B&B. Because I'm nuts, I got up the first morning and went for a run around the island. Literally, I ran around the whole thing, because I guess I wanted to be able to say that I had. (It's 8 miles around.) I went back to the B&B, had breakfast with Shannon and then we rode around the island together. There's a state highway that goes around the island, but because there's no cars you only have to contend with walkers, bikers and horses and horse-drawn carts. (The horses mostly stick to town.) Here are some sights:

 

Arch Rock. This is a sea arch from when the Great Lakes were deeper. This shot is from the road looking up at it. Once you climb the 6 kajillion stairs to the top . . . 

This is from the top of the arch, essentially. You can see the road around the island through the trees.

 Panoramic shot from the arch looking out across Lake Huron

Shannon at the beach. You can see the Mackinac Bridge in the distance, which connects the two Michigan land masses. While I did run and bike the island, we didn't do more than stick a finger in the water - it was extremely cold.

 Shannon at British Landing. The British landed here at night and sneaked up on the American fort on the island before they had even realized that the War of 1812 had started.

 Here's the view from the fort looking down on town. This is the main tourist part of the island. We stayed in the yellow house just to the left of the church steeple. The island is basically just tourists and people there to sell fudge and t-shirts to the tourists. I asked one college aged girl working at the fudge store what they all do on the island for the whole summer. Her response was, "I'll be honest with you. We work a lot of hours, and then we drink."

 From the fort looking over the town and harbor.

Having been around the island on day one, we used the second day to explore the interior of the island and head down dirt roads and trails to exciting sounding places like "Skull Cave" and "Crack-in-the-Island".

 Shannon was super impressed by Skull Cave.

This is Sugar Loaf rock.

This is Shannon standing inside Sugar Loaf rock.

 The sign said that there are many cracks in the island. This is the largest one. I can't imagine how we missed all those other ones.

 

Downtown Mackinac. I even saw a horse drawn street sweeping machine.

The Grand Hotel. We're far too poor to get any closer to the place than this, but it is beautiful.

After two days on the island our rear ends were tired of our bikes. We went back to the mainland and spent a night in Mackinaw City and then drove back home through the Upper Peninsula and Wisconsin. (It wasn't all that exciting.)

Disney Photos

I don't take many pictures, but here are a few from our trip to Disneyland. Shannon and my parents took pictures too, but, well, I guess you'll have to wait for them to post them on their own blogs or something. The picture quality isn't always great and I'm too lazy to even think about editing them even a tiny bit, so, on that note, here are some pictures:

The view from our hotel room looking into California Adventure. The weather was lovely.

 Ella carried this leaf around all day. Not sure what kind it is, but it came from this tree.

Julia, being sensible, knew I wasn't going to buy her this lollipop for like $114, so she just got her picture with it instead.

 Tigger and Eeyore. I hopped out of line before we got to Pooh. Despite not talking, Eeyore was definitely a sweetie.

 Thankfully, Disney has one line you can wait in to see multiple princesses, so for our 30 minutes of waiting, we got to see Snow White, and this new princess they've recently invented (fine, I googled her for you, she's Elena) but really, we were there to see . . .

Cinderella. Ella made it clear that meeting Cinderella was a requirement for the trip. Not even her (Ella) tiny little bladder would be allowed to get in the way as we waited in line.

I was not convinced that meeting Tinkerbell was a priority. But 25 minutes later, here we were. (Fun fact: Tinkerbell speaks French (at least this Tinkerbell does).)

Ella in Toon Town

Julia is a much more aggressive driver, evidently.

All of us (plus plastic Goofy) in the hotel lobby, wearing our new Disneyland t-shirts.

I am OK alone

Shannon and the girls took advantage of summer vacation and cheap airplane tickets and jetted off to SLC for a week.  That leaves me home alone for 6 days, which has been interesting.  Shannon and Julia left me home alone years ago when Shannon was sick and pregnant with Ella, and that was the last time that we spent more than 2 nights apart.  Even the times where we have been apart for a day or two, I've been the one gone on a business trip, and there's at least been the novelty of being somewhere different for a day or two.  (Even if that different place happens to be Cleveland, which for some reason is where half of my business trips end up being.) So, I've learned a few things being alone for a week.

First off, I am OK alone. Despite what everyone else thinks, I am more than capable of feeding myself and getting myself up on time.  (It helps that the sun comes up at about 5:30 here in the summer.)  But, living alone isn't all fun and games.

Living alone is lonely. I know, who'd have thought? Maybe it's because I'm not particularly good at living on my own, but there's nothing to do.  I turn on music when I get home from work, and I talk to myself, just to have some noise in the house. TV isn't as fun by yourself. Dinner isn't any fun by yourself. This feeds right into my next point:

Living alone is boring. Between coming home from work and going to bed, I have about 5 hours of time, and almost nothing to fill them. I've cleaned up the house a fair bit, but it was messy to begin with. Now that it's straightened up, it should stay pretty clean, at least until I decide to have a My Little Pony party. Even when it is time to go to bed, I don't want to read - there's no need to find a way to quietly retreat from the world when you live in silence all the time.

Finally, living alone is pointless. I mean, seriously, if I lived alone, I'd have soooo much free time. What on earth could I do? I like to run, but there's a limit to how much of that I can do a day. I've played some Starcraft with Brett, but at some point even that starts to wear. I can't imagine having enough hobbies to fill my time. I don't know how single people do it. I suppose they have a bunch of single friends and they go off and do fun stuff all the time. I'm sure they find interesting and meaningful things to do with their time - hopefully they're much more productive single people than I am.

To sum up: Living alone - did not like; would not recommend.

Everyone gets home tomorrow night, and I'm sure I'll be wanting some peace and quiet around the house shortly after that. If you find me complaining, remind me that noisy and messy is far better than alone.

It's just like taking an ocean cruise, only there's no boat and you don't actually go anywhere

I first proposed to Shannon over 14 years ago.  I think it was over the phone.  Romantic, I know, but probably appropriate given that we weren't dating at the time.  I don't remember quite how the conversation ran its course, but the important bit is that when Shannon expressed a concern that she'd never get married, I saw my opportunity and proposed.  As I was still a teenager, I did the smart thing and gave myself a good long time frame, and suggested a wedding date of May 5th, 2015.  Hey, what do you know, that's today!

As part of our backup marriage plan, we picked a date that would have put us firmly into the "menace to society" category (note: that quote is apocryphal) while still not quite "old".  We would still be young enough to pop out a few kids (note: this is not an announcement of any kind!).  And, as part of a perk of having been single for that long, we should have saved up some money which means we could afford to get hitched in the Tahiti Temple.  Why Tahiti?  Um . . . it's a tropical island.  Sounds pretty fantastic to me.

In the end we decided we couldn't wait that long and moved the wedding up by 11 years, but we still figured we should honor that commitment to go to Tahiti in 2015.  Some people would have a big event for their 10th anniversary, but we would hold off for a big 11th.

We're not going to Tahiti this year.  Probably not any time in the next 11 years either.  Maybe for our 33rd anniversary?  The years have brought us through a few jobs, a few states, a few houses, and a few financial crises.  But I would rather be sitting on a 9 year old couch watching 'Friends' on Netflix with Shannon, than be in Tahiti with anyone else.  (There are good odds that this is what we'll be doing tonight.)

I don't have any better idea what the next 11 years will bring than I had for how the last 11 years have gone.  The 11 year plan called for me to be lounging on the beach this week, after all.  But while life for the last 11 years has not always been ideal, I can truthfully say that my marriage has almost always been ideal.  I can't always figure out why it works so well, but it does.  I have a fabulous marriage, and as I figure it, most of that credit goes to Shannon, because as far as I can tell, I haven't been doing anything all that impressive to make life so good.

Shannon is fabulous.  Shannon feeds me (which would barely happen if I were left on my own) and yet still understands that my Blockburger genes also dictate that sometimes you can have cereal for dinner.  Shannon has complained a remarkably small number of times about the pile of clothes that has been on the floor on my side of the bed for about 11 years now.  Furthermore, she keeps making the bed even with 11 years of evidence that I'm not going to help.  Shannon is a fabulous mother - when I'm left to put the girls to bed the screaming usually starts from one of the three of us within 20 minutes of Shannon walking out the door.  Shannon has spent so much time around herself for the last few decades that she doesn't always realize how fabulous she is, and I fall into that trap too, sometimes.  It's not any big thing about her, but it's a million tiny little things, that when you add them all up, . . . . well let's just say she's fabulous, because this program isn't nearly long enough to list them all.

So, at the conclusion of the best 11 years of marriage I could imagine, I'm excited to start on the next 11, and there's no tropical island that I'd trade that for.

Sports Mumbo Jumbo

Because I'm a sporty sort of guy, I recently clicked on a link at espn.com titled "Sharma breaks cricket ODI world record".  It's a world record, so something interesting must have happened, right?  It also got very good position on ESPN's site, particularly for a cricket match.  But was Sharma's achievement really all that impressive?  I have no idea, because the article makes no sense.  Go ahead and give it a try for your self, if you like.  Here's one of my favorite bits:

“Shaminda Eranga had extracted a thick outside edge from Rohit in the fifth over, and though the ball carried comfortably to Thisara Perera at third man, he shelled the chance. Having been dropped on 4, Rohit would become the third India centurion this series to have been reprieved early in his innings.”

Ok, let's tear that apart.  Someone named Shaminda (probably the batsman?) did something with Rohit (the bowler?) and cricket has these things called "overs".  I guess he hit the ball to someone named Thisara who was standing at a location called "third man".  Or was he third in line for something?  Anyway, he seems to have screwed up.  Maybe he dropped the ball?  At least something was "dropped on 4".  I do know that a "ground rule double" counts for 4 runs in cricket, so maybe that's what happened.  So, Rohit became the third India centurion, which means I think he scored 100 runs, so I guess Rohit was the batsman all along, and when Shaminda "extracted" that "thick outside edge" from him, maybe this was like a foul ball that our budd Thisara dropped?  Either way, it is clear that he was greatly reprieved.

And then it hit me: So this is how Shannon feels when I start talking about sports.  I'm sure Shannon will agree that that paragraph wouldn't have been any more incomprehensible to her if it were about the triple option, dime coverage, illegal defense, pick and rolls, icing, or a wide out failing to cover the end of the line.

Luckily, I have a friend from Sri Lanka.  He explained everything to me.  Unfortunately, I still don't understand anything about cricket.  So now he knows what I feel like after explaining all these things to Shannon.  ;)

Shanny Turns 30!

With the whole 30 by 30 thing, Shannon obviously isn't too shy about announcing her 30th birthday to the world. Well, it's finally here. So, I think it's fitting to share a few photos through the years.

She's gone from this little chubber:

To a cute little kid:

And then through a few years that Shannon would only describe as "frumpy". Since it's her birthday, we'll skip past those and on to the girl I met:

And fell in love with:

And then, after I'd scared off all the other guys who followed her around in a pack . . . .

I got to marry her:

So, even at the ripe old age of 30, and as a mother of 2:

(Apparently this is the last picture we took with Shannon and both the girls in it.) Shannon is still my smokin' hot wife:

Happy Birthday Shannon!

(p.s. Shannon, if you're keeping track, and at this point, I suspect that you are, this is number 16.)

Away

Neither Shannon nor I have blogged for a while. Clearly you've all been wondering why. Well, any extended absence on our part is usually indicative of one of a few events: vacation, holidays or sickness. In this case, all three.

Vacation/Holiday: It was Christmas! And a New Year! We spent about 10 days in SLC skipping all over the valley. It can be a bit annoying as everyone lives close enough that we can see everyone, but far enough that we still spend a lot of time driving. It's about 30 minutes from her parents to my parents. But we had a good Christmas. Julia started missing home, as she only spent about 10 days in the month of December at home. But we're back now. We also got a Wii for Christmas, but then left the controllers in SLC. So, if anyone wants to look at a Wii, come on over. The controllers will be making the trip down here in another 10 days or so. It's not like we have any extra time for recreation anyway . . . .

Sickness: Yeah, Shannon is still sick. But it seems to be getting better, and it's not as bad as last time. So far she's only had 2 IVs. Here's the chart: