Monday June 13th

Friday night we went for drinks at Eric and Mary's place. It is this spectacular apartment right in the middle of Reims. He has completely refinished it himself and has done an unbelievable job. I wish I had brought my camera. Bruce used to work with Eric and he and Mary are newly married. She is a camera enthusiast to say the least. She has really inspired me to take even more pictures. From there we drove for an hour or so to Stephan's place.
OMG! It is an old French Farm house. I felt like I was on a movie set. It was a great evening. Stephan and his wife Alex have a 2and a half year old, Garlone. She is absolutely adorable! The girls played for hours and we ate for hours! Eating, drinking, more eating, more drinking! We didn't get back to Reims until 1amish! Yikes!!!

The next morning we were out of the hotel by 11am heading off to Paris. I gotta say, staying out until 1am and eating VERY RICH food and drinking alot may have not been the best plan...
On the crabby scale Olivia won hands down, Bruce as next in line, Shannon behind him. I sucked it up until the boat cruise then I was on the lookout for a new family!!

We started out at the Eiffel Tower, the line up was unbelievably long. But we still got to tick it off our list! Nothing like a Saturday in July in Paris!
From there we headed to the Louvre. We saw the Mona Lisa and Venus DeMilo, both on our list, tick,tick, and finished up with Napoleon's apartments, tick. Mr. Shook would have been so proud of Shannon. She recognized all the Roman goddess statues! By this point we were all idiots we were so tired.

We got the girls ice-cream and then Bruce literally snoozed by one of the fountains and the girls played with the boats. This is another one of those fantasies I had from when we were in Europe when Shannie was a baby!

I just wasn't ready to leave Paris yet but Olivia needed to chill for a bit. I know, a boat cruise sounds like a great idea, that's what I was thinking!
Think again!
At one point all three of them were sleeping. I didn't realize that Bruce was asleep. He had his sunglasses on, so I made several attempts at small talk and he totally ignored me. Then he did the head bob of all head bobs. It was so funny I had to forgive all and appreciate how great my family is and how lucky we are to be having this great experience!
Sadly the boat cruise did nothing to revive Olivia. We got off at Notre Dame, a biggie on both Shannon and Bruce's list. Olivia lay in my arms as I soaked up Paris and S & B did Notre Dame at break neck speed! There was a young guy playing an accordian and 3 inline skaters doing a sort of ballet to it! It was amazing!
Olivia just chilled in my arms and by the time Bruce and Shannie were back we were all ready for a little dinner and souvenir shopping. After the girls made some cheesy purchases we attempted to go to Sacre Ceour! We say it in the distance once but never got closer than that. Lola, our nav. system, isn't familiar with Paris! Oh well, next time maybe!

Poor Bruce only had another hour and a half of driving before he could rest his weary head!