Paris, October 4-6, 2008

Because we still don’t have internet and phone in our house, we have not been updating our blog often and we apologize to Owen’s loyal fans for this. Wow! It’s almost Halloween, which means October has flown by! We have just under a month left in France. We can’t believe it! We have very mixed feelings about going home but that’s another post (one that may or may not ever be written).

The purpose of this post is to catch you up to date on the travels of the Raymond family over the past month.

First, there was Paris. Really, this trip HAD to happen because 1) the scrapbook that Marisa’s friends made at her baby shower last December has a page for a Paris visit and 2) how could we be in France and not have a picture of Owen at La Tour Eiffel?! So, we headed up for a long weekend on the TGV.


In Paris, we stayed with the Basile family: Paul, Finnoula, and “the cubs” at their beautiful apartment in the 3rd Arrondisement. Sadly, we took very few pictures of the Basile clan. Here’s a cute one of Owen and Zach:


And, Owen really liked the large mirror that the Basile’s have in their hallway.


Thank you Basiles for your hospitality!!! And, Zach and Omadine, keep us posted on any more visits from the Giant Tooth Mouse!

Coincidentally, Joe and Sarah Slater were in Paris the same weekend and we happily met up with them for a tour of Le Louvre.


We had lots of fun imitating the statues in the Antiquities section and the painted ceilings:


…and, of course, we took Owen to check out the Mona Lisa:


For the most part, Owen was in awe of the beautiful art


After the Louvre, we had lunch with Joe and Sarah at a Parisian café (it was raining so we ate inside). Then, Joe and Sarah left to explore more museums and the Raymonds headed off for La Tour Eiffel! We walked all the way there – about 3 miles or so – in the drizzle. But it was worth it.


As you can see from the pictures, Owen was ridiculously cute:



The wind was too strong to go up to the top


…but we still had a great time hanging out at the bottom.

It was an awesome weekend in Paris! The only thing we were unlucky with was the trains -- our train to Paris was delayed by more than an hour and we missed the return train when the Metro was delayed.

over & out!