Vacation Redux - Versailles, France 2011

Our last full day with the Maguires was spent at the amazing Palace of Versailles. ::drool::

KC planned ahead and bought us tickets, so we could skip the line...

Oh, wait! This WAS our line!

 We passed the time by taking pictures!

 But Brady wasn't feeling it...

Once we got inside the Chateau, it was a battle to fight the crowds - who knew May at  the Chateau was so busy?!

McColley had to have his picture taken in the Hall of Mirrors...

And in the map room...

 AND in the courtyard...

It's a good thing we like him. :-)

After our self-guided tour of the palace, it was time for the gardens! This was the real reason I wanted to go, and probably why it was SO crowded - it was fountain season!

(That is a LONG walk...trust.)

The Apollo Fountain

Surprisingly, only ONE of the fountains dances to music...

This was my favorite fountain - the Enceladus Fountain:

We wandered through so many rows of boxwoods, but then we found this humorous statue and just had to try and recreate it...several times.  

Our final stop was the FAMOUS Neptune Fountain. They only turn it on a few times a day, mostly because they have to turn off every other fountain in the garden to provide enough water for its 99 water features.

We were really excited to join the crowd, sit for a while, and watch this amazing fountain...except...it doesn't do a whole lot and you really just spend 20 minutes watching a lot of water. 

All in all, I am SO happy that I finally got to see the Fountains of Versailles! Unfortunately, we didn't get nearly as many pictures here as I would have liked, both of our camera batteries died...but I did manage to get some extra pictures/videos on my cell phone, which I believe are still on my phone. See, I don't just procrastinate on the blog! :-)

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Vacation Redux - Bayeux, France 2011

Our hotel in Bayeux proved to be quite entertaining. Not only did we have enough beds between the two rooms to house an army, they had knights in armor in the hallways! 

We continued our tour of patisseries and cathedrals in the morning. 

The inside of the cathedral was dominating, but the windows were gorgeous!

 McColley had to point out several things to Uncle Tim...

 We even managed to go into the crypt of this cathedral, and I don't think it cost anything! (Unheard of!)

 From the cathedral, we headed over to the famous Bayeux tapestry. And...this is all I got of that experience - the boat in the courtyard. No pictures allowed inside!

We left the city for the Beaches of Normandy, aka the site of the D-Day invasion and the American Cemetery. The museum at the cemetery is amazing. 

This was an especially special experience for Tim, his grandfather was a part of the third wave of the D-Day invasion and saw action on these beaches. 

 Thankfully, we had a beautiful, clear day for climbing down the hill to the beach.

Our climb back up was a bit slower, considering KC was 7ish months pregnant. Good thing there were benches!

 At the top, we headed to the actual cemetery...

It was after this that we headed South towards Versailles and our final stop with the Maguires. 

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Vacation Redux - Rouen, France 2011

Our first full day with the Maguires was spent in Rouen, France. It's home to many famous and historical sites. Our hotel was very cute, except for the part where Tim and I had to trudge up three flights of narrow stairs to the attic room we were assigned. 

Our view was pretty much only peripheral, but we could see the Notre Dame cathedral only a short walk away...

This was also the first morning of our Patisserie tour of France. While the boys took all of our bags back to the car, KC and I wandered back to a bakery we had found the night before. (Oh, dear sweet Pain au Chocolat...how I miss thee.) We all met up in the courtyard in front of the cathedral for our morning breakfast. 

Once inside the magnificent cathedral, we found Richard the Lionheart...

 And McColley insisted on having his photograph taken multiple times.

We left the cathedral and walked towards the city center. On our way, we walked under the famous Gros Horloge, an astronomical clock that has been around since the 15th century.

 Like many sites in Europe, we were able to pay a fee to climb into the tower and listen to an audio tour. Here's a view of one of Rouen's streets from the clock...

 We walked all the way to the top, via some tight spiral staircases, to see the view of the city. That's the Notre Dame Cathedral behind Tim and me.

There were several signs inside the tower basically saying "These bells are very loud! You may not want to be in here."

Seeing how it was only a few, short minutes until Noon, Tim and I took the boys out of the tower to watch the changing clock. Do you see the bottom portion of the clock? How it's turning from light blue to dark blue? The photo changes at noon everyday. 

After the clock, we walked farther towards the city center and got lunch. We followed that up with some photos in front of Place du Vieux Marche or the modern chuch of St. Joan of Arc...

And a quick walk through the fish market, where we had to take a picture of a stunned McColley...

Yes, those are lobsters.

Our next stop was the Tour Jeanne D'Arc, but we passed a park along the way and the boys just had to play. This is still one of our favorite pictures, just for McColley's face. 

I don't remember the actual purpose of the tower, but I do remember standing with KC in the bottom while the boys jumped on the wooden doors on the floor above us. You know what? Towers echo A LOT! 

After our tour of the Tour (ha...you see what I just did there?), we jumped back in the car and headed towards Bayeux. 

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Vacation Redux - Paris, France 2011

It's been awhile when your browser doesn't remember the web address automatically...

My wonderful sister has given up pestering me about posting photos from our various trips to visit them over the last 12 months. So of course, now I'm going to post some pictures. :-)

While it's been almost a full year since our trip to Italy and France, I hate to not share some of the photos from our time in Northern France with our nephews and their parents. For my sister's perspective, you can visit her blog here: Maguire Madness. And to see where I previously left off, you can go back to this post: Manic in Milano.

From Milan, we left SUPER early and flew to Paris. We had a few hours in the city before we had to catch our train to Calais to meet the family. We decided to walk towards the Notre Dame Cathedral, a much longer walk than we anticipated! And it didn't help that I felt SO sick.

 Tim loved taking (or attempting to take) pictures of the beautiful stained glass inside the cathedrals.

After visiting this landmark, we got on a train back to the station, retrieved our luggage from the lockers and waited to board. A word to the wise: Don't sit on your suitcase in a busy train station...I fell over and looked like a total doofus, but Tim got a good laugh out of it. :-)

The train ride was a few hours and we had to switch to a commuter train closer to Calais. We had been told that we would have a 30 minute layover between trains, but when we got off the first one, there was an earlier train to Calais leaving in about 5 minutes. We jumped on that one and were able to get to Calais right on time to meeting KC, B, and the boys! Then it was a long drive to Rouen.

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Snow and Show.

I've been told I need to blog more...

In case you're not aware, it snowed this week. And for our area, it was quite a lot! 

Instead of being productive and actually getting anything done...we watched movies and played in the snow. I refused to do anything right outside our condo (dog poop bombs everywhere!), so we trekked down to the tennis court. 

Our snowman has a top hat! 

 Things have been busy around here. Tim is working most weekends and I have been at rehearsals almost every evening. Tim got his first taste of acting a few weeks ago when we filmed a commercial for my next show, Black Comedy.

I can't figure out how to insert the video, because it's only uploaded on to Facebook, so I'm going to give you the link:

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=2811728186775

Can you spot us?

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