How a Potential Blog Post Became a Relief Society Lesson

Yesterday during the sacrament I was thinking about the words in the sacrament prayer, our recent trip to Europe, the crosses that were displayed in all of the cathedrals, and the Atonement. I was thinking about how in our Mormon culture we don't focus much at all on what occurred on the cross, but talk about the suffering that Christ endured while praying his Intercessory Prayer in Gethsemane. I then began composing a blog post in my head about how seeing those crosses over and over again transformed my feelings about the Atonment and made me appreciate even more Christ's sacrifice for me. I was thinking I would write about how much I think we miss by not spending a bit more time talking about Christ's crucifixion. Because the Atonement is also about the spikes driven into His hands, wrists and feet; the crown of thorns plaited on his head; the spear thrust into his side and all of this Jesus willing endured, absent of His Father's comfort, so that we might be saved. I would share in my blog post how because of this sacrifice, I know I will never have to suffer this kind of pain and torment if I accept Christ as my Savior and Redeemer and allow His goodness to work in my life. All He asks of me is come unto Him and share His "good news" (the gospel) as I work to become a true disciple.

Then sacrament meeting ended and we moved on to Sunday school and I didn't think too much more about my developing blog post. At the conclusion of Sunday school I leaned over to the elder's quorum president and asked where we would be holding our combined meeting (yesterday was a 5th Sunday and usually the men and women meet together during the 3rd hour). He said we weren't having a combined meeting. Really? sez I because when I was texted our RS president on Tuesday to make sure it was combined she said yes it was, she had checked during ward council last Sunday. The elder's quorum president said that an e-mail went out on Wednesday and didn't the RS pres forward it to me? Nope I sez because SHE IS IN EUROPE and the bishopric knew that. Oops he sez right back to me.

So in the 10 minutes between Sunday school and RS, I played some prelude music for RS on the piano, grabbed a couple of pictures from the library, rifled through the Ensign that I had in my bag to see if there was a talk that would go with the blog post I had been composing (and yes there was. It was entitled "Redemption"), and then conducted opening exercises before turning the time over to myself to teach the lesson. Somewhere along the way I did manage to say a quick prayer that I would be able to teach by the Spirit. By the discussion generated and the feeling in the room, it seems that the Spirit was there and that the message was uplifting and drew the sisters closer to Christ.

And that is how a potential blog post became a RS lesson.

Life Marches On

While I was busy blogging about our summer to trip to Europe, regular life continued to happen. I guess that life can't be a vacation all of the time, although you would be hard pressed to tell that if you took a glimpse of my life during summer. Sometimes it is a whole lot of nothin'. Wait, maybe my regular life is vacation since when we are on "vacation" we tend to pack in so much we come back exhausted.

Anyway, this week did have some fun things. I took Katelyn to get things for her apartment. That was weird to type...her apartment. I didn't intend to pick the stuff for Kate, but she was a little disengaged and saying she hates to shop, even though she had been bugging me to take her. Anyway, I tried to keep the colors young and upbeat, picking towels that are torquoise with washclothes that were stripes of torquoise and a dull lime green. Katelyn actually became interested in shopping when we got to sheets and comforter sets. And amazingly she stayed with the same color scheme that I had started. I figured she would want to go a completely different direction just get away from what I had picked. She also picked out some plates that are torquoise and black and then used red for the bowls as an accent color. She still needs some silverware, but we'll get that in the next couple of weeks.

The boys felt a little left out of the fun so they decided to go and have some fun of their own. Dave was drawn to participate in the RAMROD (Ride around Mt. Rainier in a day) so he and Carson left on Wednesday for Puyallup to stay with Mike and Kristi. Mike is Dave's older brother and the one who keeps talking Dave into these crazy adventures. And yes, Mike, was also drawn to ride in RAMROD. Anyway, the ride was yesterday. Dave made it. It took them about 10 hours to complete. When I talked with Dave last night he said there was one climb that he wasn't confident he was going to make it up, but then he pictured Carson and I yelling "Oop, oop, oop" (which is the Tour de France version of up, up, up) and that got him up the hill. Ahhh, isn't that sweet. Dave and Carson are extending their fun by seeing a Mariner game tonight. Bummer that they don't have a camera so no pictures to memorialize the event.

So a few fun things and a whole of regular life stuff like Costco shopping, training for Spokane to Sandpoint relay, killing earwigs which have invaded our house (so gross), and some garage sale shopping to look for kitchen stuff (pots and pans, silverware) for Katelyn.

Versailles and the Louvre

Versailles was my favorite place that we visited. I was blown away by the opulance and over-the-top living. It seemed like every surface was covered in the finest material; either gilded in gold, lined with velvet, painted, etc.

There was imported marble and exotic wood furnishings throughout. And even though it was very crowded and there was really weird modern art displayed all over the main palace, I really enjoyed my time here.

Just one of the really weird modern art pieces.

Once we left the main palace, we headed out to the gardens. Oh, the gardens. I could have spent all day wandering through those lovely gardens and discovering all the nooks and crannies. I wanted to just drink in all of the beauty in a leisurely manner.

We worked our way to Marie Antoinette's palace and her mock peasant village. They were just as amazing as the main palace.

Finally it was time to head out but not before we took a minute to enjoy the swans and feed the cignets.

Was going to make some comment about the "Ugly Duckling" but I didn't want anyone to think I was referring to my hubs.

We also toured a small portion of the Louvre (not on the same day as Versailles). The Louvre is sort-of like the Smithsonian--impossible to see it all in one day. Since Carson had actually studied up about the Louvre, we let him choose the areas to be seen. He wanted to see the Mona Lisa and Wedding in Canaan as well as some of the Egyptian exhibits.

Trying to see the Mona Lisa was a bit of an adventure as it is very popular and everyone wants to see it. The area in front of the painting is roped off and people just pack in to the area. There is hardly any elbow room, but if you want to see the painting you just have to elbow your way up to the front.

Yes I did elbow my way to the front to get a picture.

Look at the colors and movement in this painting. Incredible.

Winged Victory --we passed this sculpture several times

Dying Slave --another "must see" for Carson

This was an amazing trip. I am so grateful that we, along with my parents, were able to provide our children with this experience. 

We Toured It All...Well Almost

Eiffel Tower? Check, including climbing the 670 stairs to the 2nd level observation deck. Sure we could have taken the elevator, but the line for the elevator was ridiculously long. And it was more expensive.

Champs Elysees? Yep walked up and down that twice. It was very busy! Even though the Louis Vitton flagship store is on the Champs, the boys and I preferred touring the car dealership stores that are also on the Champs Elysees...Mercedes, Peugot, we skipped Toyota, but loved Citroen. Citroen has some really funky concept cars.

The passenger sits in a recline position facing the driver and the passenger seat is lined with red velvet.

Conciergerie? Saw that too. It is the place where Marie Antoinette spent the last months of her life before she was sent to the guillotine.

Random picture on bridge outside of the Conciergerie.

Notre Dame? That one took us two visits. One visit for touring the cathedral and then another visit to climb the tower. The line for the tower was too long the first visit, so we went back first thing Friday morning. We were in line about an hour early and still had probably close to 70 people in front of us. But the wait was worth it, and so was climbing the 700+ stairs it takes to get to the top. Katelyn, Carson and my dad made it to the very tippy top, but Dave and I got separated from them and didn't make it before they roped off the tower stairs to change a light bulb. After 20 minutes of waiting after seeing Dad and the kids go back down, Dave and I just bagged going to the top because we still had 3 more museums to try and see.

Anciet Roman (?) ruins under Notre Dame

Peek-a-boo

Hello down there. Mom, how's the book?

On the day we climbed Notre Dame, we also saw the Orsay Museum and the Rodin Museum. At the Orsay we saw the works of Van Gogh, Monet, Manat, and others. For me, the most striking painting was Golgatha. At first glance it might appear as just a landscape with a moving shadow, but upon closer inspection one sees a small corner of light at the bottom of the painting. In that light there are three shadows of three personages on a cross and it becomes apparent that the shadow growing across the landscape is the darkness that enveloped the world after Jesus was crucified. It was heartwrenching.

At the Rodin museum we saw The Thinker and other works by Rodin.

OK this post is becoming too long so tomorrow will be about our visits to the Louvre and Versaille. And then the documentation of the European Vacation will be complete.

Food, Lodging, and Transportation in Paris

One of my favorite things about Paris was the food, even though I couldn't eat some of the very best things...the breads, pastries, and French macarroons. But there were plenty other tasty morsels for me to consume. Probably my most favorite was the hot chocolate that was served every morning at the Hotel Crillon. I'm not sure how the French make their hot chocolate, but it is delicious. It is thick, rich, and almost like drinking a melted chocolate bar. Matter of fact, it is so rich that a pitcher of cream is served along side it so you can dilute the hot chocolate. I acquired many of my daily carbs through this heavenly beverage. And the other carb requirements were fulfilled by eating ice cream for lunch. Hey, when you can't eat bread you have to find other satisfying things to fill you up. I also had some great dinners...roast chicken one night, calamari another, and a fish dish on the last night. I was worried about finding things to eat with my long list of food allergies, but it turned out not be to be too worrisome.

I thought the Beach Club and the Beach Boardwalk townhouse at Epcot were luxurious. I didn't know luxury. Four of our five nights in Paris were spent pretty much in the lap of luxury. The Hotel Crillon is a very old hotel and a place where royalty used to stay. There is marble and crystal covering the lobby, dining areas, bathrooms, basically almost everywhere in the hotel. I think the bathroom in our room was almost as big as my master bedroom in our home. I'm not kidding when I say I almost fainted when we were shown our room. And I did cry when my dad said he was picking up the bill. I wish my pictures were better so you could really appreciate how nice the room was.

Entry way looking towards bedroom. Yes, that is a walk-in closet off to the left.

Hallway from entry way towards bathroom. Open door is the water closet; closed door is the bathroom with soaking tub, huge walk-in marble shower and double vanity.

Bedroom with king-sized bed, single bed, and sitting area.

We used the subway (or Metro as it is called in Paris) almost as much as we used our own two feet. I was a bit nervous to use the Metro only because I really haven't had much experience riding public transportation and figuring out schedules and such. My fears were unnecessary as the Metro trains run almost every five minutes (some of them more frequently than that) and the lines are color-coded with directional signs all over the place. The most complicated thing about the Metro orienting yourself to the neighborhood once you were back at street level. Several of the stops have multiple exits to street-level so it can be a little confusing to know exactly where you are at one you come out of the Metro.

For the most part, our Metro rides were uneventful.Two funny stories, though. One night were coming back from dinner and I could hear our train coming so I picked up the pace just a little to make that train. Dad and Mom were a little bit behind and Dad said to just hold up and we would catch the next train. So I did. The train was stopped for a little longer than usual so it gave everyone a chance to catch up. Dad, Mom, Katelyn, and Carson managed to get on the train but Dave and I were cut off. We had given up our position because we thought were catching the next train. Anyway, it was funny to watch the doors close and all we could do was wave to everyone else as they left the stop. The next train was 5 minutes later and we all regrouped at the next stop. The other funny is very similar except this time it was me who squeezed onto a train and had to wait for everyone else at the next stop.

Some travelling tips and saving money:

• If your hotel includes breakfast as part of your stay, fill up fully at breakfast. Then for lunch eat ice cream or grab a sandwich at a take-away counter. Also ordering the plat de jour can be a less-expensive option.
• If you are staying in Paris for less than a week, don't buy a Metro pass especially if you don't mind walking. We bought 4 packets of 10 tickets (12.95 euros/pack) and 3 round-trip tickets to Versailles (13.80 euro/ticket), which was significantly cheaper than 3 Metro passes.
• When the travel books tell you to avoid the Metro during rush hour, they aren't kidding. I think every working Parisian is on the Metro between 7 and 8 a.m and then again from 5 p.m to 6 pm. The trains are crowded! On one train it was so crowded that not everyone could grab a handle or bar, so Dave had a woman leaning on him the whole time.

First up...Montmartre and Sacre Coeur

I didn't blog about Paris right away because I was still trying to digest our trip and figure out my feelings towards our stay in Paris. There were parts that I loved, but there were other parts that I found disappointing. But it was pretty cool to be watching the finishing stage of the Tour de France yesterday and know that just a couple of weeks ago I had walked on the Champs Elysees and seen the sights the bikers were riding past. The gold Joan of Arc statue? Yep, walked past it a couple of different times. The obelisk in the Place de Concorde? Saw it every morning as we left the hotel. The Hotel Crillon was just out of camera range, but Paul Sherwin mentioned it, and that was the hotel we stayed at for 5 days. It is the most luxurious and beautiful hotel I have ever stayed in. Those were good memories that were brought back to my mind's eye as I was watching the race.

I'm just glad that they didn't ride through Montmartre as that would have ruined my happy little picture I was reliving. I found Montmartre to be generally dirty, littered with garbage, and smelling of urine. It was truly the only area of Paris that I felt unsafe. The only bright spot in this area is the Sacre Coeur, an incredibly beautiful Catholic basilic that offered superb views of Paris. But even the ethereal effect of this beautiful building was spoiled by all of the street peddlers and rambelrousers that filled its grounds. Carson even asked if I thought if Jesus came to visit here would he be mad and throw all of these people out. Yes, absolutely, was my answer.



View of Paris from top of the Sacre Coeur

Stayed Tuned

Stayed tuned for the rest of the trip. The boys are giving me tips and coaching on what I should write about and how I should write it.

In the meantime, a few pictures from Paris...

Switzerland and the Tour de France

Squeal!

As if travelling to Europe wasn't enough to fulfill the "someday dream", David researched where the Tour was going to be and then planned our trip to fulfill the dream of watching a stage of the Tour de France. Once we actually made it to the Tour area, it was AMAZING!

We woke up the morning of July 8th to heavy dark clouds and pouring down rain. But the clouds couldn't dampen our enthusiam (although they did increase my anxiety about driving), so we set off with our picnic lunch, Google map directions, and plastic garbage sacks swiped from the hotel room's garbage cans.

Google maps were spot on for about 70 kilometers of the 180 kilometer trip. And then it all went to pot. At one point in time the directions told us to turn left to stay on a certain highway, but the highway directional sign pointed to the right. Since the directions had been correct up to this point, we followed what the directions said until we lost our nerve, which was all of about 5 minutes. Then we turned around and went back to the intersection and tried the other direction until we lost our nerve again. This time we had driven for about 10 minutes. We turned around again to head back to the intersection. Once we got back to the starting point, we decided to see if there was anyone around who could give us directions (we were in a small town). Yeah, well when you are in a small village in south-eastern France the chance of finding someone who speaks English is almost zero. And since I don't speak French, this was almost an effort in futility. I say almost because I did find a bakery owner and a customer who spoke enough English (this was the second bakery I went into) to know that I was trying to get to the Tour and they could give me some town names to watch for. Yipee! We are back on our way after a half hour delay.

It was smooth sailing for about 10 miles until we missed a left-hand turn we were supposed to make. How did we know we missed the turn? Well, we were sort of following the Google maps directions again since the directions we had received from the nice bakery owner seemed to line-up with the Google directions. So we turned around again and took the left-hand turn. We eventually arrived in Lucelle, one of the towns on the list given to me by the bakery lady. We were so excited, but the excitement was short-lived because in Lucelle there was another fork in the road and no signs to direct us. We thought we would be able to ask a border-crossing guard since Lucelle is on the border of France and Switzerland, but guess what! There was NO ONE at the booth. It was all closed up and the border gate up.

What to do now? Well, fortunately I had printed off the map for Stage 8 and it showed most of the roads, although anyone over 50 wouldn't have been able to read the small, fuzzy words (good thing no one in our party was over 50). So we found Lucelle on the map, oriented ourselves and headed in the direction of the Tour, praying the whole way that we were on the right road. Well I was praying. Carson was chirping in my ear about "why don't I just follow the directions." Really son, what do you think I was trying to do? The directions from Google were wrong. Dave was steady-eddy like he always is and just kept driving. Miraculously, and it really was a God-given miracle, we stumbled upon the yellow directional arrows for the Tour. We followed them right to the col de la Croix.

Because I had made sure we left early enough to give us "get lost time", we arrived at the col right on time. We were able to find a parking place and a great place to watch the race. Actually, there was a bit of a disagreement as to where we should watch the race, but it was eventually settled. The atmosphere was just what I thought it would be...CRAZY and incredible amount of fun. When the riders came by they were RIGHT THERE. I could have patted Mark Cavendish on the back as he went by if I was that kind of spectator. Oh it was fabulous.

Now for some pictures...

Maybe he should have purchased some of their polka dot sunglasses and he could have received a kiss on each cheek for the picture.

Almost at the summit of the climb. This area was packed! once the riders came by. We did not stay here.

Looking up the hill from our watching location.

He waved the flag when the riders went by and got on the Eurosport race feed.

Kessikov--the stage leader for the day. He was caught by Pinot shortly after he passed us.

Look how close they are!

Wish I could identify the riders.

I think this was my favorite part of the whole European trip...even with getting lost. Fortunately the return trip back to the hotel was completely uneventful and David actually got to enjoy driving 160 kph on the Autobahn (yes, France has their own version of the Autobahn.) I am glad I had no idea how fast he was driving!

Still reading? Well here are some tips for watching a stage of the Tour de France live and in person...

• Research the tour by visiting the official website as well as www.velowire.com. The official website will provide stage information and maps as well as links to the websites for the start and finish sites websites. I found the Porrentruy website very helpful in planning our trip. Velowire website is run by bike enthusiast. He researchs and follows the Tour quite closely. He has a section on his website where you can ask questions about specific stages. And the nice thing is, he actually answers your questions! He provided us with information on the best way to approach the col de la Croix as well as what time we should plan on being at the col.
• If you want to watch a mountain stage, watch one in Switzerland if possible. It appeared to us, and was confirmed by a couple of different spectators who watch the Tour every year, that the mountain stages in Switzerland are not as popular and the roads stay open longer. Matter of fact, even though there was a barrier up to block the road, cars were still driving up the route when we arrived at 10 a.m...five hours before the expected arrival time of the publicity caravan. In France, the roads are closed by 6 p.m. the night before, if not earlier. I know that sometimes the roads are closed up to a week in advance on some of the French mountain stages.
• If you want to get stuff from the publicity caravan, be in an area that isn't totally crammed with people. And make eye contact with the person distributing the stuff. Oh, and don't be afraid to climb down the hill to get the stuff that might have overshot the mark.
• Want a water bottle? Make sure you are close to the top of the last climb of the day and that there isn't a great distance to the finish line. Then place yourself on the right hand side of the road so you can talk to the mechanic who sits on the passenger side of the team car. Finally, dress in a biking kit and hold up your water bottle to indicate you want a replacement. We, of course, didn't do this but we watched a fellow spectator follow this whole procedure and she successfully received 4 water bottles; 2 each from 2 different team cars.
• Make friends with those sitting around you because you're going to be with them for several hours. The boy in the green shirt behind us in the last picture spoke English and could fill us in on what was happening in the race because he was listening on his iPhone. We also found out he followed Gonzaga basketball because of Rony Tourioff. Small world.

The polka dot jerseys and caps were some of the promotional items distributed by the publicity caravan. So much fun!