Wednesday, May 4, 2011

Where Did April Go?



Have you ever gotten to the beginning of a new month and wondered what happened to the last one??  In my last post I was just hours away from leaving for Paris.  I've been back for three weeks now and in that time have caught up with family and friends (and laundry!), celebrated Easter with loved ones, adjusted to the return of my MIL from her winter stay in the south and have made a few cards to get my creative juices flowing again.

My husband Keith took over 500 photos during our trip!  For someone many affectionately refer to as "the bean counter" I'm impressed with a lot of the subjects he chose to capture:
Look at the gorgeous wisteria covering a residential building in Montmartre:

I really cannot overstate how much I enjoyed the desserts in Paris (good thing we did A LOT of walking every day!):

Rodin's sculpture of "The Thinker" (Touring the gardens of Rodin's museum was an incredible bargain at only 1 euro/person!):



That's me standing in front of Rodin's "Hells Gate" in awe of its size (and wondering if the artist was dropping acid while he created it - LOL!):



Here's a view of the base of the Eiffel Tower (and a sobering reminder of the times we live in):


Here's the Eiffel Tower at nightfall in all its glittery goodness:

Here's an embarrassing pic of yours truly (he made me do something similar at the Leaning Tower of Pisa!):











You can barely make out the people walking around the top of the Arc de Triomphe.  After paying 10 euros/person to walk over 300 steps to the top (yep, I counted them!) my dh husband who has a heart condition announces he left his nitro back at the hotel!


Not only do I love the Byzantine influence you can see in the architecture of the Sacre Coeur but could the sky be any bluer?????  I haven't seen a sky that blue since we returned home - it's rained here almost every day for 3 weeks :(

I really had no idea how huge the Louvre Museum is - we spent 8 hours there and still didn't see everything!  We spent a lot of time in the Egyptian antiquities section as who knows whether we'll ever be able to safely travel to that part of the world.  Leave it to my husband to notice this statue making a "shadow dog" on the wall!:

And don't you just love ole blue eyes??!!!:

Spent another day touring the palace of Versailles - King Louis XIV sure knew how to live!  I think the gardens alone are larger than the village I live in!:



My husband really has an obsession with fountains (I swear 100 out of the 500 pics he took contain fountains!):

Statues too!:


You just never know when you'll have a celebrity siting in Paris!  Oh wait.......that's just me!:

I love some of these random shots of the river Seine and the streets of Paris:

Leave it to yours truly to sniff out the only scrapbooking store in Paris!:




And finally, I will leave you with a few "What on earth was my husband thinking?!!" shots:


Thanks for stopping by!!

13 comments:

Anita Rex said...

I so loved looking through all these photos! WOW is Paris ever beauitful and it really sounds like you two had the best time! :> I love that you have some photos of you in them too, so nice to see you! What a trip! And love that blue sky! And was that scrapbooking store any good??? :>

Rosemary said...

OH.MY.GOSH!!! what fabulous pictures your hubby took, robin!! i absolutely love the very first one of the house covered with wisteria! and the church against that blue, blue sky... AMAZING!! thank you for sharing them with us!!

Lin said...

Oh, Robin, thank you so much for this little walk down memory lane!! I thoroughly enjoyed your husband's pictures - I think he has another career if he'd like!! It's been over 30 years since I was there, and every picture you took brought back so many memories! (When we lived in Luxembourg for a year, we would often hop on the train on Friday nights and spend the weekend there). It breaks my heart to see the soldiers in that one picture. And the rats in the window - what a hoot! We remember rabbits......
Feel free to share more if you'd like - I'd LOVE! Thank you!

Judy1223 said...

Robin, what a great photo trip for US! I was in France with my DH the year after we married, and we saw so many of the same things. Great refresher for me! I loved Versailles...did you see the people selling post cards calling out, "VersaillesVersaillesVersailles..." repeatedly? We still comment about that with a chuckle! And the first thing that came to mind when I saw the picture of the captured rats was the Disney movie "Ratatouille!" (Your DH has a good sense of humor!) Thanks again for sharing!

Tiffany Ervin said...

Oh Robin! Thanks so much for sharing these GORGEOUS photos, wow!! What a sight, and each one so stunning! I hope to visit France one day, looks so magical!

Barb said...

Wow, your hubby takes fabulous photos, Robin! Paris is such a beautiful place! I'm so glad you shared these! And I'm with Lin. . .would ADORE seeing more! Welcome home! I've missed you!

joy said...

What fabulous pictures of the City of Lights, Robin! You are one cute little gal, too! Love the wisteria covered house (mansion?) and of course the ET at night.

Glad you're home and looking forward to your beautiful cards again!

Lisa said...

Wow, Robin- what a fantstic time you two had :) Thanks for sharing your beautiful photos with us! Your husband looks like quite the photographer- fabulous shots! Great to see you are back- I missed seeing your creations :)

Trinh said...

Fantastic photos, Robin! I laughed at the pic of the sculpture's shadow; don't think I would have noticed that on my own! Glad you're back & I look forward to seeing your fab cards again.

Sarah at SmallWorld said...

So awesome, Robin!! What a perfect time of year to go. We were in Paris in January, so all our pictures are gray and sad looking. (Also, that was back in 1987 with a crummy camera!) I was cracking up at the pictures of--rats?? Why?? I mean, what the heck was that store? And did you speak French with a Syrian accent, a la Madame Baroody?

Marilyn said...

Wow! Thanks a lot for sharing some of your vacation with us! Your hubby's photo's are great, Robin!

Nancy said...

Thank you for sharing your beautiful photos, Robin. Looks like you had a wonderful time and great weather!

Ruth H said...

Wow, I'm feeling quite envious!! Tell your DH that his photos are amazing.