Kelly Visit: Cute Puppy

Apologies for the poor quality of the image, but I didn't want to be too obvious of a tourist.

This is definitely one thing that I am going to miss about Europe - dogs allowed in restaurants. Before you 'ewww' - you need to know that they are always really well behaved. Many times I can be in a retaurant for hours, and not even notice that there is a dog there until I get up from the table. I think they really understand that dogs are just part of the family.

This particular cutey was found next to us in a small brasserie in Le Marais. I wanted to get up and play with him, but Patrick said no (like he does everytime).

Kelly Visit: Rollerblading in Paris

Walking back from dinner on our first night in Paris, we were stopped at a crosswalk for a long time. After a few minutes, we see tons of rollerbladers coming down the street. We had heard of this before; every Friday in front of the Mayor's residence basically everyone groups up to rollerblade through Paris.

It was pretty cool, but I don't think we would have been able to keep up - they were going pretty fast. But we couldn't have timed it more perfectly if we tried.

Kelly Visit: Dinner with Liane and Ellen

I know Kelly has a look on her face like, "Oh my God, I just had dinner with a bunch of crazy people" - but we really did have a wonderful time at LiAne's - as always. The woman can cook. And after a too long of an absence in seeing Ellen, we were able to have dinner with her as well.

I would go through what we had for dinner, but I'm on Day 3 of a fast - so I don't really want to think about it - cow liver is sounding good right now.

Kelly Visit: Freezing in Strasbourg

Aren't they cute?!

Had to get a quick picture of Patrick and Kelly before they took the Xmas decorations down. It's not the best shot, but you can kind of see the Cathedral in the background - and it was basically taken just outside our old apartment.

Kelly Visit: Looking out of the Musee D'Orsay

One of the more interesting views of Paris - this is a shot looking out of the huge clock in the Musée D'Orsay and out towards the north of Paris. Has a cool picture of Kelly and Patrick in it, but it turned a bit murky.

Kelly Visit: Most claustrophobic bookstore on the planet

Although I appreciate the population density of Paris, and I understand that small shops are a requirement - this is just too crazy.

While in Paris we stopped at an english bookstore that you literally could not move around in very easily - OK, not at all. It was like 10 pack rats who all share a disturbing attraction to books set up shop in a size of an American master bathroom. I went downstairs in the basement (even worse), and someone else came downstairs. They had to walk backwards and go back up the stairs part way in order to me to get by him. Awesome.

Skating Party

The other bonus for being home this time around for Xmas is that Patrick and I were also able to go to our skating party. See blog on highlights - but don't expect much right away, I'm still behind on posts for this one.

Patrick and Cheryl at the Skating Party

While home for the holidays and the skating party - we were able to get this shot of Cheryl (my brother's wife) and Patrick.

No, she normally doesn't have that face - bad timing of the flash - and yes, I'll probably get in trouble for posting it.

Insanity at the Smith Household

OK, we made it home for the holidays. Did the whole Xmas Eve thing at our house (not bad, for arriving from Europe just a few days earlier). First time in a long time so many siblings were in one place - only the oldest, Michael, was missing.

We tried to the Brady Bunch pose, where we were all lined up on the stairway, but you get the idea. From bottom to top - me, Tim, Tom, and Julie (in that order of age).

We're moving

We decided that even though we're going to be in France for just 3 more months, we thought we'd move to a new place.

Gaby's apartment is just around the corner from us, but it has the added bonuses (in order of priority) of:

1. Underground parking under the apartment
2. A bathtub
3. Twice the size of the old apartment
4. Terrace (more important if the three months were not in winter)

The only bad thing is that we need to say goodbye to all our friends, finish Xmas shopping, pack for home, clean old apartment, move all our crap to the new place, and make a 7AM flight on Friday morning. And we have one week.

The only really bad part was packing (amazing the amount of crap you can accumulate in 15 months) and moving all the crap to Gaby's (I think it was about 25 trips when it was all done). The distance didn't seem too long when we were in the planning and design phase, but when we hit the implementation phase - we were surprised. It is probably only 500 paces (literally around the corner), but it was the season for Xmas markets. Do you know how hard it is to move a huge box of crap, when there's a father and child walking in front of you on a crowded street at 10 centimeters per minute. Next time, I'm at least getting a dolly.