My favorites

 These are a two of my favorite photos from this weekend.  Paris is for LOVERS!

I love this photo and may have to frame it!  He is so cute!

My favorite quote of the weekend was from Lincoln.  He said, "I have fat cheeks and Ethan doesn't!"  Those chipmunk cheeks are so squeezable! 

1st day of Kindergarten!

 My baby started Kindergarten!

 He was a little nervous when we talked about going last night, but today he was all smiles!

 He went right in and got comfortable!

 Of course, riding the bus home was a highlight!  He said he can't wait to ride it the whole way to and from school tomorrow!  In Germany, they ride the nice comfy buses!  He will be in the third grade before he has to ride the big yellow bus!

Unlike his silly brother, he sat in Nate's lap and told him all about it!  The playground was his favorite thing!  He got to paint.  He was able to eat all his lunch and he made a friend!  I am so proud of my big boys!

To celebrate sending them BOTH to school, Nate and I went out for breakfast and then to the movies!  I think everyone had a great day!

The Louvre

 On the first Sunday of every month, entry into the Louvre is free!  We took full advantage of this bargain along with a few other thousand people!

We stood in line for about thirty minutes just to get into the doors.  

The big boys looked a the maps while we were waiting.

 

This place was packed!  I guess we weren't the only ones taking advantage of the free entry!

 First stop was to see the Venus de Milo.  The statue is said to have been created somewhere between 130 and 100 BC.  

 After seeing the Greek statues, Ethan wanted to go see "that famous painting."  I kept trying to tell him how small it was.  I don't think he understood until we go to the room and we couldn't even get close to see it. I had to pick him up to show him.  He still couldn't see it, so I held my camera up and snapped this picture!  He looked at it and said, "Oh.  It's really small."   

 Besides "that famous painting," he wanted to see the Egyptian exhibits.  This "Seated Scribe" is dated back to 2500 b.c.  Again, I couldn't fathom how ancient and well preserved some of these artifacts are.  We got excited to see Abraham Lincoln's hat in DC and this is thousands of years older!  It's amazing!

 We started seeing the sarcophages and he got really excited.  He started wanting me to take pictures.  I think I took about 100 pictures for him.  He plans on making a book about his trip! 

 He got excited and Lincoln got sleepy.   Poor Nate!  He carried his little buddy around for the rest of our time at the Louvre!

Ethan was so flabbergasted that Lincoln could sleep through all this cool stuff!!!

One of the highlights of the museum was seeing the real mummy!  Lincoln even woke up for this one!  It was really cool!  We only stayed a few hours.  Link was too sleepy and Nate was hurting from carrying him!  I think Ethan could have spent hours there!  I love that little nerd!

Eiffel Tower

 I don't know if you can see it very well, but behind Ethan is the double decker metro train that we took to the Eiffel Tower this morning!  

 Lincoln has become quite the photographer.  He has taken MANY good pictures of us this trip!  It drives Ethan crazy that we give the camera to Link instead of him.  

 I know that I am a planner.  I accept that it is an obsession of mine.  Today it totally paid off!  We were the second family in line to ride to the top because I bought our tickets online a few weeks ago!

 We learned yesterday that on a good weather day you can see 62 miles away.  Today was NOT one of those days!

It was super misty.  The ride to the top was so fun, though.  The boys loved it!

We had to stop for a fruit snack break before walking across the street for a view of the tower. 

They let me take about 42 pictures of them!  They were troopers!  

We saw these crazy Brits in their bathing suits dancing in the water.  We have no clue why, but it was funny!

 I had to get a picture of the boys and the Brits!  

 We went back tonight to see the tower lit up!  It was so spectacular!  The boys loved it at night even more!

Ethan scored points on this awesome photo!  He might get the camera a bit more!

Paris

We have had plans to visit Paris for a little over a month now.  Going to Paris and seeing the "REAL" Eiffel tower is something that the fellas have wanted to do ever since they learned that we were moving to Europe!  Nate and I went to Paris nine years ago for our honeymoon and were super excited to show the boys Paris.

We had a free apartment thanks to a guy we met while staying in TLA, and we got super cheap tickets on the ICE train.  The catch was that the train left at 8:30 pm, Friday night.  Unfortunately, the train was late and we didn't get into the apartment until after midnight.  Most children would compensate by sleeping in.  Our children were up at 7:00 am raring to go!We had planned on doing the big bus tour on our first day and seeing as much as we could!  

I love this picture of Ethan intently listening while the Concord is in the background.  The Concord is where Marie Antoinette was beheaded.  

 First stop was Notre Dame.  Everyone told us you would get sick of seeing hundred of year old churches....and the boys already have.  Ethan said, "Yep, another Dom (church)."

 The Champs Ellyse and the Arc de Triomphe are my two favorite things in Paris.  I think mainly because I love how Nate tries to say them with his French accent.  

 When I told the boys that we were going to go up 300 steps to get to the top, they laughed.  Then they screamed.  Then they laughed again.  I actually was wrong about the number of steps.  There were only 284.  

 We stopped for a breath and a picture break.  That statue in the back is totally Ethan's exasperated face!  He makes it all the time!  

 The views from the top made the trek to the top totally worth it!

 They had been waiting ALL day to see it!

 We were all red eyed and BEAT!  I think he just stared out into space for a while.

 We switched trains and stopped at the Jardin du Luxumborg, and the whining began.  Poor Link was beat! 

 We wasted some time people watching (and there were enough people to watch).  I guess when there is very little grass in the city,  you sit where you can find some!

After we couldn't stand the whining anymore, we started walking back to the apartment and towards the restaurants!  The boys quickly spied the slowest carousel in the world.  Ethan started kicking his legs trying to make it go faster!  It was hilarious!  

We have BOTH boys in bed and asleep by 7:00 pm!  Everyone should feel refreshed tomorrow for a day at the Eiffel Tower and the Louvre!  

First Day of Second Grade

 The big man started second grade today!  It was sooo chilly this morning.  He is freezing as I made him go outside for this photo!

 Apparently, the school had our address wrong, so we missed the info that BOTH boys had open house today.  Thankfully, Nate had cleared the time away from the office with his boss. We spent the entire morning at the school meeting teachers, principals, and special teachers!  

 Ethan has a really nice teacher!  I love how she has the boys sitting at a table and the girls at another.  Wonder how long this will last?  :)

This is Ethan's teacher.  The schools seems very open and welcoming!  Both boys teachers seemed wonderful!  Link doesn't start until next Tuesday.  His teacher is doing home visits to meet the kids one-on-one this week.  

Daddy's back!

 Nate made it back safe and sound Saturday morning!  He arrived about 7:00 am, so we planned a busy day to keep him awake!

Since we were unable to see the Falsenkirche (church in the cliff) and the castle ruins in Idar-Oberstein when Joe and Rachel were here, we decided to head back and see if we could tour them both.  

 It was a HIKE up to the church.  Legend has it that two brothers fell in love withe same girl.  Apparently, the lady they fell in love with was from Castle Lichtenberg (the first castle we visited).  Lady Bertha chose the younger brother.  In a fit of rage, the older brother threw the younger brother off the castle to his death some 450 feet below!  He fled for many years.  When he returned, Betha had died.  He built the church into the rocks as penance for his brother's murder.  

The boys loved hearing about the story!  We were able to go into the church.  It was very small, but you could see that many of the walls were actual rock from the cliff.  

 It was a HUGE hike up to the castle.  We are all sore today!

 Unfortunately, the castle was not open.  We were able to walk around part of it and take some pictures.

 Thankfully, Nate and I knew that there was an eiscafe (ice cream) back at the bottom!  We bribed both boys to pick up the pace and make it back down for some ice cream!

 Nate stayed awake about twenty minutes before I told him to close his eyes!  

Lincoln made it about twenty one minutes!  (Ethan took this picture for me)  We all thought he was joking when he said he was going to go to sleep so we should be quiet.  He wasn't kidding!