June

I know I say this alot (do I say it alot, or do I just think it alot?), but time flies.  I am honestly one of those old ladies now.  You know, the ones in the grocery store, who tell you to enjoy your children while they're young.  Those old ladies are so disarming- catching you just as you put back the boxes of expensive fruit snacks in favor of the cheapie store brands- all while negotiating with your 3 year old.  Anyway, I've become one of those old ladies.  Enjoy your children while they're young, ladies.  Because they just keep growing up!  Behold:



Camille and Grace playing "royalty"



 Laid back kindergarten graduation.  Grace getting her "diploma"

 And Camille

 Standing in front of the raffled playhouse that miraculously ended up in the kindergarten play yard the last few weeks of school.  EVERY little girl at the school wanted to win that raffle.  I keep dreaming up ways to have a playhouse in our backyard now.  Specifically this one.

 We went to the kidspace museum with some pals a few weeks ago.  I forgot how much water they have to play in there.  Clark got completely soaked.

 He also wore this bucket around.  I'm not sure why.

 Camille and Grace on the last day of school with their best pal Alyssa.  This was kind of a tearjerker moment, looking through their folders of accomplishments, listening to them sing a song about moving to first grade.  But, like the first day of school, I did not cry.  Yes, I'm a big girl too.

 Camille with her wonderful teacher, Mrs. Thomas. 

 Grace and Mrs. Thomas.  We couldn't have had a better school year, or teacher.

 Croissants that I made for father's day.  It's a good thing that I'm not a food blogger, because my pictures always turn out terrible!

 Although not as terrible as pictures of people eating my food.  There's my dear husband.  He really is a terrific dad.

 It's summer vacation!  The girls made a carnival for Clark while still wearing their pj's.  I love having everyone home.

Treats.

 Fishing game

 I made a dress with some fabric that I bought in Paris.  Some people buy new clothes in Paris, some people are dumb like me and buy material and patterns to make clothes.  I think my priorities may be a little messed up. 

Good thing that I'm not a craft or fashion blogger, or people would have to put up with pictures like this (oh, I made Clark's outfit too)...

...or this.

Latest Clark-ism

Dad: So Clark, what would you like to be when you grow up?
Clark: A scary paper bag.
D: A scary paper bag?  What would you do?
C: Fight.  Fight fight fight (making little punching gestures into the air).
D: Who would you fight?
C: I'd fight my kids.

Just Look in the Mirror

The girls have been having a wonderful summer vacation.  So have I, truth be told.  My girls are a creative wealth of energy and ideas, most of which do not involve me, but involve her sister instead.  Those who know me know that I am somewhat of a "hands-off" parent.  I've never been able to tell whether it's a result of having twins, or if my girls especially are self-sufficient because of me (or of being a twin).  Whatever it is, I'll take it.  Each day is filled with creative play- like playing school (Clark as the student, Grace as the teacher, Camille as the mom), playing carnival (Camille as carnival hawker, Grace on refreshment preparation, Clark as willing fair-goer), or playing library (Grace as librarian, Camille as bossy teacher, and Clark as curious reader).  I enjoy these exploits for so many reasons, my top two being watching everyone's creativity and happiness, and giving me so much more time to do chores.

I love how my girls are best friends.  They chat happily almost all of the time about things that they know or about how they are playing.  Last week I was amused to hear Camille tell Grace about the hat that she had borrowed from me.  "Grace, just give me the hat.  You know it would look so much better on me."  When I told her that that is not even possible because she is a twin, so she'd look exactly the same, she just smiled slightly and ignored me.  Visions of things to come.

Dear Kids,

We can't wait to see you tomorrow!  Camille and Grace, I'm sorry that we're going to miss your awards assembly.  Dad and I keep talking about what your awards must be for... maybe best penmanship?  Toothless grin?  Most likely to be related to someone in their class?  Sweetest kid?  I can't wait to hear all about it and give you tons of hugs when I get home.  I thought we'd write our final letter to you about the last things that we did last night and today.

 Last night we went up again to Montmartre- I told you about it a few days ago.  At the top of it is this cathedral called the Sacre Coeur.  It's nice because you can get a good view of the city.  It's an interesting area because many artists and writers lived here or hung out here.  So that's why we went.  Because we're so artsy.  (that's a joke).

 We tried to go to the cemetery, but it was closed.  You can see that most of the graves aren't under ground but in crypts, these little rooms.  Different, right?

 Then we went to dinner.  You can see that this is the perfect daddy dinner, because it is a salad with lots of cheese and meat, covered in these fried potatoes.  You know how much dad loves fried potatoes!  Did I tell you about the weird flavors of chips?  Dad tried the roasted chicken chips.  But he didn't try the smoked ham or the cheeseburger chips yet.

 This morning we accidentally slept in!  So, we had to walk really fast to church.  It was probably about as far as walking to our church now.  Maybe we'll have to try that next week!  You go in this door on the right and there's a big courtyard where people can park their cars.  And then the building surrounds the courtyard.  Most of the people speak French, but there is an interpreter that speaks English for all of the people that don't understand.  And even a special room that you can sit in that has a speaker with the interpreter speaking English.  Today was a little funny because it was testimony meeting, so a lot of people got up to bear their testimonies.  But, the same man was interpreting them for us.  A little girl sitting behind us that was also visiting the ward said, "if that woman is speaking (a woman was bearing her testimony), why does she sound like a man?"  She didn't realize that the interpreter was translating what everyone was saying.  It was pretty funny.

 After church we walked around a little bit and then went to the Musee d'Orsay, an art museum that has a lot of famous art.  I'll have to show you some when I get home, because you aren't allowed to take pictures of the art in the museum.  The locks in this picture are a new tradition that people have started doing.  They're "love locks" on the bridge over the River Seine  You write your name and the name of the person you love on the lock and then throw the key in the river.  Somehow that's supposed to mean that your love will never go away.

 This is inside the big clock inside the museum.

And this is the second Arc de Triomphe that I was telling you about.  It is much much bigger than the other one.  You can go on the top, but we didn't do that.

So, that's it!  Now we get to go to bed and tomorrow we have a long flight to get home to see you!  Can't wait!

love love love!

Mom and Dad

Dear Camille, Clark, and Grace

I hope that you are having a fun day today.  Maybe you feel like me and you're about ready to get back to normal life.  Enjoy your fun weekend, and then we get to be back together!  Yay!  We've been busy doing our usual Paris things- walking around and looking at stuff and eating food.  Most of the food that we eat isn't very fancy, but even the normal foods here are better than the food that we have at home- like bread and chocolate.  Some of them cost more, but they taste a lot better.  Did you know that European candy bars, like kit kats and snickers have better chocolate than the ones in America?  I think it's because Europeans just won't stand for blah foods the way Americans will.  Next time we get a gross candy bar, I think that we should throw it in the street and shout, "I won't stand for this!"  That'll show them.

 Today we went to Versailles.  It is a huge palace with enormous gardens.  You really have no idea how enormous it is- we walked and walked and didn't see everything.  I'll have to show you a map of how big it is.  The grounds go for miles.

 It's very fancy inside.  Everything is marble and gold.  This is the chapel where they had church.

 Almost every room has the ceilings and walls painted.  This is the ceiling in one of the rooms.

 This is the "hall of mirrors".  It's a very long fancy hall with mirrors on one side and windows on the other.  It's where people could wait to meet with the king, who would be sitting WAY on the other end.

 I liked this picture of Louis XV, who wanted a picture of how he could be a peaceful king.  I don't know who the woman is in the right of the picture, but she seems to be holding baby twins.  Go twins!

 This is daddy.  You can see behind him the extent of the gardens- huge fountains and lakes and paths as far as the eye can see.

 Here's me in front of a fountain.

 Looking back at the palace from the gardens.

 Versailles is where we went today.  Yesterday I went and walked around some more.  I was looking for some special sugar to make those delicious waffles that we had from the food truck.  While I was looking for the store, I turned down this street, which happened to have a huge church at the end of it.  That's what I like about old cities- like Boston.  You never know what strange thing will be around the corner!

Last night we went to the Luxembourg gardens, which is another former royal garden.  Now it's a fun place for people to walk around and sit in the sun and play.  There are a lot of fun things to see- my favorite were the fruit trees.

I love you and miss you and can't wait to see you soon!

Love, Maman et Papa

 PS.  Here is a picture of a room in Triannon, another house near the palace where the king and queen stayed sometime.  It's so yellow!

Dear Clark, Grace, and Camille,

Hello!  How are you doing?  I am so so tired.  I have a cold and I walked a billion miles yesterday so I am quite sore.  I might wait around in the hotel until after dad gets done with his conference at 2.  That sounds kind of silly and lazy, though.  I wish that I had a good book to read.  I read my good book and now I just have a boring book left.  Maybe you can come read to me.  Bring me a fairy book and pat my tired head, okay?  

 Yesterday I walked around a lot.  I did a lot of shopping and saw many things.  I even got your presents!  Hoorah!  I also ate this huge falafel sandwich.  It has lots of veggies and falafel.  I don't know if you would have liked it.  I think that you would like it if you tried it, but looking at the pictures probably makes you think that it was gross.

 I told you that Paris is a very old city.  This is what a lot of the streets look like.  Most of the streets have sidewalks, although this one doesn't.  Even though it doesn't have sidewalks, cars and scooters come zipping past.  Most people don't seem to mind but I always feel like I'm going to get run over.

 The bottom floor of most of the buildings are shops.  There are tons of bakeries, clothes stores, gift stores.  And then stores selling all of the normal things like grocery stores and banks and people's works.  Then above the stores are people's apartments.  I wouldn't mind living over a bakery, would you?  Plus, the bakeries are so good.  You may think that I make tasty breads and cookies and things, but the bakeries here are far better than anything I make.  Perhaps you can help me perfect my skills?

 After I walked around shopping I took the train to this part of the city called Montmartre.  I really wanted to go there to go to the fabric stores.  Which I did.  You know I love fabric stores!  But then on the map I saw that I was close to some fun things to do, so I turned the corner and saw this beautiful hill.  At the top of the hill is this cathedral called the "Sacre Coeur".  It means sacred heart- the sacred heart of Jesus Christ.  I walked up all the steps and stayed and rested inside the cathedral for a while enjoying the beauty.  You aren't allowed to take pictures of the inside, but my favorite things were silver statues of Mary and of Jesus and a beautiful mosaic mural of Jesus.  

This hill has a cute trolley train that you can take up and down, but I walked up and down instead, carrying all of my bags of shopping.  That was a silly idea.  This area of town has a lot of people trying to sell people stuff- bracelets and eiffel towers, sunglasses, watches, water.  The most interesting thing that I saw someone selling that I forgot to take a picture of was this guy that had a grocery cart with a little charcoal stove in it.  Over that was a grating (like on the barbecues at the park) and the guy had whole ears of popcorn that he was popping.  You could buy the popcorn.  But I didn't buy any.

Finally I went back to our hotel to wait for daddy to come back from his conference so we could go to dinner with the people from his conference.  I was walking along behind this person who I thought looked like grandma, so I took her picture.  French Grandma.  Oui oui!  Finally we ate dinner and went to bed.  It was a long and fun day.  

We miss you very much!  I hope that you are having lots of fun.  Hopefully I'll get to talk with you later today!

love,

Mom and Dad

Dear Grace and Camille and Clark,

 This was my breakfast this morning.  In French, breakfast is called "le petit dejeuner", which means "the little lunch".  I thought you might like that, because I always call breakfast lunch or dinner by mistake.  Look, Clark!  Yogurt!  But, no gogurt.  This is much better.

 We got to see the Eiffel Tower.

 Who's this?

 Here's daddy.  Instead of waiting for hours in a long line to take the elevator to the top, we decided to walk to the top.  You actually can't take the stairs ALL the way to the top, just to the second level.  It's about 680 stairs.  Camille, I know how much you love to count stairs.  Do you think that you could count that high?

Here is a view from the tower.  It is looking west along the Seine river.

 Remember us?  Yes, Grace, I am wearing lipstick every day in Paris.

 Here's daddy in front of the Louvre- a huge art museum.  It was built about 400 years ago.  The glass pyramid that you see was built about 20 years ago.  Some people say they don't like the pyramid next to the old museum because they think it doesn't go together.  But, I think it looks great.

 Here's your mother in front of the "Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel".  We didn't take a picture of the top, which has a picture of Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte riding a chariot with horses and golden horses.  Napoleon was a guy who basically made himself the ruler of France, and then had a bunch of monuments put up for himself.  There is another Arc de Triomphe not too far away.

 This painting is by Camille Corot.  There were a lot of paintings by him, but this was my favorite.  There were also a lot of paintings by Camille Pisarro.  Maybe later we'll listen to some music by Camille Saint-Saens.  There are a lot of Famous french artists named Camille, Camille, but they are all men.  You may be the first famous female Camille.  

These statues were from a tomb in Assyria.  They made me think of the books that we've been reading about Egypt.

 

 Here is the most famous painting in the world.  I think it's the most famous.  It's called... do you know?  I think you know.  I'll write the answer at the end.  It was painted by an Italian artist named Leonardo Da Vinci.

 Then we took a break at the museum cafe and ate some dinner.  People here eat quite late.  Which kind of makes sense, because it stays light until about 10.  Weird!  The cafe is called Paul.  Dad is eating his 3rd ham sandwich of the day.

 I like this picture because of the colorful wings on the angels.

 Clark, see this picture?  What is baby Jesus in?

Well, that's all for now.  I have a cold so I'm going to try to sleep before I go out on the town.  Dad's at his conference today.  

I love you!!!

love, Mom and Dad

PS.  The answer is the Mona Lisa