Europe trip... part 7... Paris!

Hello Dear Readers!

Oh! My! Life has been, um, "full" here. It does seem that there are seasons which are more fraught with opportunities to trust God than others. In the past few weeks

• I've continued to deal with an injured hip (IT Band injury, which turned into bursitis, which is now beginning to gradually improve),
• my computer which insists on needing reformatting every few months despite the fact that I keep our financial information, homeschool records and of course my photos on it (on the bright side, 15 year-old Gabriel is getting really good at reformatting and reinstalling Windows and I'm getting much more diligent about backing up my files),
  
• our septic system is acting up (this is not pretty any time, but in a house with 12 people in it full-time... well, lets just say that it's not a good situation)
  
• little Timmy has had numerous asthma attacks after a year with no symptoms... no idea what caused this, but he is doing much better now,
• and most significantly, my dear Nana fell again this past Monday, this time shattering her hip.

All opportunities to trust God and see Him faithful in the midst of the "un-fun" stuff that happens. And He is faithful.

I know that it's been a while, but I thought I'd go ahead and post some additional photos from Hannah and I's trip to Europe. If you haven't already seen them you can find the other installations here: Part 1, part 2, part 3 (doors and windows), part 4, part 5, and part 6!

After a very full week in London and the nearby countryside, we took the bullet train under the English Channel to Paris! I tried not to think about the train which was stuck under the Channel for way too long last spring.... I don't think that would be very fun at all!

All in all trains have to be one of my favorite ways to travel. What's not to like... beautiful scenery (except for when we were under the English Channel!), plenty of room to move around while traveling, etc. My parents upgraded our tickets to first class so my father could have the leg room that he needs after a knee replacement.

This was our breakfast... actually only the first course of breakfast. I decided that I like first class!

I would have been perfectly content with that for breakfast, but the main course was still to come... I believe we had scrambled eggs, etc. So good!

It was raining when we arrived in Paris... almost the only rain we had during our whole two week trip! Here's the view from the little restaurant where we ate lunch.

We began our Paris sightseeing on foot...

One of our first stops was Notre-Dame Cathedral.

Do you see the poor headless chap second from the right in the photo below? That, my friends, is a representation of Saint Dennis. So the story goes, Dennis influenced quite a few conversions, to the consternation of the druid priests of the time. Their solution was to behead poor Dennis in approximately 273AD. That was when the story got interesting. After his head was chopped off, supposedly Dennis picked it up, washed it off and proceeded to walk 6 miles, preaching the whole way!

So there you have it, that's pretty much what you have to do to end up as a statue on a beautiful cathedral like Notre-Dame.

A rose garden near Notre-Dame. Loved the scrolley fence!

The hotel we stayed at was only a few blocks from the Eiffel Tower. Here was the view from our hotel room.

The hotel provided a fabulous breakfast each morning.

I seriously could have these croissants with chocolate in them every. single. day. I'd have to ride my bike 4 hours to make up for it, but I'd happily pay that price!

Now for some Eiffel Tower photos... no trip to Paris would be complete without them, would it? The Eiffel Tower was so much bigger than I imagined. It really was awe-inspiring.

Everything was so ornate.

It stayed light so late there. I believe it was after 10 pm before it was dark enough to photograph the Eiffel Tower with the sparkling lights that turn on every hour during the night for a few minutes.

Rejoicing in His goodness, especially in the trying times,