Oh wait, there's more!

Of the famous Paris must see sights, Notre Dame is way up there. Here behind me you can see the cathedral on it's little island. We actually went and visited it a few days later, but it looked pretty from the bridge.

Aaand Arran got in on the photo action! Well, I suppose since he took the majority of the pictures he "got in on" it a lot, but still.



Although they have yet to make an appearance in our pictures, we met Ian and Kathleen in Paris and ate lots of good food with them, among other things. While walking to dinner one evening we passed this street, which I think Ian wanted a picture of. And it's pretty, so it has been included :)


Coming back from dinner we passed a little bakery that was open and in the window we saw some canelés in the window. Ian got two so I could try one. Here I am chewing:


Looking at Arran:


And I liked it! Apparently it wasn't very good quality, but I still thought it was super tasty.


So, there are still more pictures. And we're going to Prague (yay!) today, so we'll soon have pictures from another European capital for me to take a ridiculously long time to post!

More Paris in pictures!

There are certainly more fun an exciting things to see in Paris other than the Eiffel Tower. Like an Arabic restaurant named Noura!


Noura happens to be the name of my best friend (hi, Noura!) and I got pretty darn excited to see the restaurant. And made Arran take several pictures.

Now, in terms of historical sites, we went to the Arc de Triomphe, which is actually a bit complicated to get to because it's kind of on an island surrounded by streets.


It really is beautiful. While Arran wandered around and took pictures I just sat in a corner and looked around- at all of the names on the wall, the ceiling, the reliefs. Very cool.


The Arc also offers opportunities for dramatic tourist photos :)


And silly ones, too!


Of course we also walked down the Champs-Élysées, which I tried to call the Champs-de-Lysées pretty much the entire time we were in Paris. The Arc is at one end of the street, so we just wandered on over after dinner. As you can see it was prettily decorated for Christmas with blue lights in all the trees!


How perfect for a picture!


The street had tons of shops and also the movie theatre where we went to see Avatar in 3-D with French subtitles later in the week! Arran and I both enjoyed the movie and I left really wanting my own dinosaur type creature to fly around on. And on the other end was the Luxor Obelisk, a giant Egyptian obelisk with gold painted hieroglyphics, which once stood outside of the Luxor Temple in Egypt.


And nearby there was a fountain with mermaids, who look like their snuggling with fish!



Those last two pictures were for Marilee :)

So, there are still more pictures to come, worry not!

Paris!

So, as most, if not all, of you know, Arran and I went to Paris for Christmas/ New Year's. Aside from trampsing through yet another European capital (we've got two under our belts!) we got to spend time with Ian and Kathleen (Arran's brother and sister-in-law) who were spending their holidays there!

I will start this post out with one of our favorite things about Paris- the bread. This was our first baguette and certainly not our last :) While this was just one that we picked up at a local bakery, we ended up eating a lot of super tasty hand-me-down bread from Ian. He bought a good amount of bread at well-known bakeries that he just wanted to try, and we got to finish off many a high quality loaf.


While we were in Paris we went to the typical Paris places. So obviously, the Eiffel Tower! Here Arran is incredibly excited :)


Arran was most impressed by how wide the tower was at the bottom. We enjoyed walking around the base and taking large quantities of pictures, which I will mostly spare you from.

But, oh look! There's me!


And the Eiffel Tower from a little further down the river.



And:

I figure I'll go through our pictures and then do a couple Paris posts.

Christmas!

Arran and I just got back from Paris yesterday, so we've got plenty to report from our super awesome vacation. But! since we left on Christmas Day, I wasn't able to make a blog about our (first!) Christmas together.

We had some presents under the tree to unwrap and among other things, I got an apron and hat! I have decided that this will be my baking garb, which is especially appropriate because of the gingerbread man (for cooking I have an apron that my friend Hallie made for me). Arran was definitely most excited about his Lego set and we also got some card games, which we have plans to play this weekend with Stefan and Amanda.

So, for Christmas morning I made apple pancakes (with Christmas sprinkles!) that we ate with agave and then I made kiwi, apple, lichi juice. Which happened to be a bit too sour, but hey! it was green :)

Here I am in front of our Christmas nook.


Here is Arran excited to begin on his Christmas themed meal.



And to further get into the spirit, Arran drank coffee out of a holiday mug!


Soon there after we were off on a flight to Paris!

We hope everyone reading this, and who celebrates it, had a Merry Christmas, and that everyone has started off the New Year safe, happy, and healthy :D