A River Cruise to Remember!

Thanksgiving Day Brent & I left for Paris, France and the beginning of our 2-week trip to Europe.  The 10-hour flight over was made possible by being able to sleep across 3 empty seats on the airplane.  We spent 3 days in Paris trying to see as much as possible.  Notre Dame is an awesome place.  It is so beautiful inside - Awesome!!  The Paris Opera House is all I expected it to be & more.  The architecture is amazing and so ornate & beautiful too.  I could see the "Phatom" there among the box seats & the chandelier too.  The Louve is beyond description.  So enormous and full of amazing art dating back to the 1400s.  We got to see the Mona Lisa which is a great work of art.  Seeing it in person just made it all the better.  The other famous piece we saw was the Venus de Milo.  After 2 hrs. there we had only just seen a mere fraction of what was included in the building.  One day we took a tour to the Palace of Versaille.  There are no words to tell of the abundance & expense put into that palace.  I think Louis XIV bankrupted France building it.  It is so huge, for one thing, and so ornate for another.  Nothing was left out in this building.  The walls & ceiling were all painted or covered with amazing paintings and tapistries.  On the Champs se lesys we climbed the Arc de Trompe built by Napolian, walking up over 200 steps to the top.  Then we walked through the Paris Christmas Markets, trying their crepes & other foods and buying mementos.

Our next adventure started 3 days later when we flew to Prague, Chech Republic.  It is a beautiful town full of interesting architecture too.  We toured the castle and the cathedral that took 600 years to complete.  Each part is different from the other.  We took a boat ride down their river and crossed under their famous St. George bridge built centuries ago.  They also had a small Christmas Market which we roamed through trying their food and to buy the famous Chech Crystal for ourselves.

Finally, we took a bus from Prague to Nuremberg, Germany and boarded our River Cruise to the Christmas Markets in Germany.  What a delight.  Each little town we stopped at had a castle, some in tack and some in ruins.  Most were medevial towns so the castles had motes, now only grassed in & cobblestone streets.  Such quaint little towns.  Loved them all:  Bamberg, Wurzburg, Rothenburg, Wertheim, Heidleberg & finally Frankfurt.  Each town had its own flavor of Christmas Market, but there were similarities in all of them.  We ate bratwurst, sourkraut, sneeballens, snitzell strudel & cheese spaetzel, etc.  What fun & such fun things to buy.  Brought home some different things to remind me of the trip.

I loved it all, but every trip has an end and ours came & we had to  head back to frozen cold Utah.

November is Going Fast!

I can't believe it is already half way through the month of  November.  It has been a busy month & there is still more business to do. BYU football games, Jude, then Avery's birthdays to celebrate & don't forget quilting.  I have hardly had a moment's rest.  Then last Wednesday, Brent & I flew to Colorado Springs, CO, where he had some medical meetings.  I read, did some quilting, a bit of walking and then some shopping too.  We took a drive through the "Garden of the Gods" which were giant red rocks jutting out of the ground.  Such a beautiful place.  We went out to eat, to the gym & then Brent spent most of the day in meetings.  It was beautiful weather too & the view out our resort window was beautiful - a golf course in the foothills.  We arrived home Saturday evening, unpacked & watched BYU Basketball & went to bed.  Being Sunday & a day of rest, I have just been reading the Ensign and doing some family history work.  BUT tomorrow I must get really busy because in 10 days we are leaving for Europe for 2 weeks.  If that is not enough, Trisha & family arrive next Sunday and will be here for a week for Thanksgiving.  That means, I need to get all my vacation "stuff" done before next Sunday.  I always love my kids coming to visit and we will have a lot of fun together, but it is a bit stressful trying to get ready to leave.  I will write all about our trip when I return.  Hope I make it through the month!

We Need a Vacation!

What normal person does not want a vacation every now & then?  We had an opportunity to go to Newport Beach, CA, & stay at the Marriott Villas on the coast highway.  The only "drawback" was the 1 1/2 hrs. we spent listening to a Marriott saleswoman try to get us to buy in for $35,000.00.  I have to admit it sounds good, but way too expensive for us.  However, we had a great 4 days there.
We left home Tuesday, 9/24, & stayed in St. George for the night.  We love St. George.  We arrived in Newport the next day for our days at the Marriott.  So beautiful!  Overlooking the ocean, if you are lucky enough to get a villa up high on the hill.  Thursday our friends, Bob & Sandi, came down to stay with her mother in Newport, so we met up with them in the afternoon & went sightseeing & then  out to eat.  Friday morning after our "Marriott talk", Trisha & kids came up to spend the night with us.  We had so much fun with them just hanging out at the pool.  Went out to eat that night.  Matt came up to stay also after work.  Saturday morning we were at the pool again.  Kylie & Lauren found a large chess set incorporated into the walkway and played there all day long.  We just hung out at the pool until lunch.  Grandpa bought pizza and we were all happy.  At 12:30 it was time for all of us to depart for home.  SAD:( :(  The fun part is that we bought another week there in April, so we will all be back.  I did come home with a better tan & a promise of more days there in the future.