Reception Pictures

January 5, 2008 Kira's Reception - "Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don't matter, and those who matter don't mind." Dr. Seuss

OK, so maybe I'm not a very good blogger. I guess I've been a little busy. But it was easy enough to add this slideshow from Kira's reception in Rainbow Girls. It was a beautiful reception. The weather that day (January 5) was the worst of the season with power outages, wind, and rain preventing some from making it, but the room was packed and the love was definately in the room.

Grand Assembly is less than 2 weeks away now. Coming in on the final stretch of the Grand Year, now all that's left to do is practice her 7 speeches, and make some gifts for next year's Lecturer.

c-ing the world part deux

Well, I guess I'm not a very good blogger, its been a while since my last post, life just seems to go so fast and sitting at the computer more than I have to is somtimes more than I have energy for.

The trip to France was...interesting. The best way to describe it is "unconventional" I had a good time, and learned a lot about myself.

There were some stressful times. Thursday, the day I arrived (after being awake for more than 24 hours), I realized that somehow I got out of the airport without my passport! To make a long story short, luckily the airport was a short walk from the hotel, so I kept checking back at the "objets de trouve" (lost and found) and they had it (luckily in time for me to fly to Paris on Saturday). Alas, the patron saints of passports did not receive enough gratitude from me, when MaryEllen and I arrived in Paris, after a heavenly breakfast at the Marriott, we headed straight for the Arc de Triomphe, unbenownst to me "the" place to go to be taken advantage of. My passport and entire wallet was stolen out of my backpack on the metro just below the Arc. Being me, I can hardly blame the patron saints alone, I must confess that I was being an oblivious tourist, not taking my normal precautions of separating my money, credit cards and passport, no I had everything together in one handy package at the top of my backpack for any clever thief to simply unzip and take.

When I arrived Mary Ellen was already in Nice teaching a class. We had planned to travel to Paris for the short weekend before she had to return to work in Nice Monday AM. Mary Ellen teaches telecommunications software for an international firm. I must say the hosts at the office in Nice were very kind to this "outsider". And the students in the class provided some entertainment too.

Thursday evening we (Mary Ellen, and 3 students from Belgum, India and Singapore, and I) went geocaching. This was my first geocaching experience, great fun that I will try to blog about later, but if you cant wait, check out http://www.geocaching.com/. This adventure took us up a big hill to a cemetery where we found our "treasure".

On Friday the same geocaching crew grabbed a train to Monte Carlo, in the principality of Monoco. A very rich location, with lots of expensive cars, yachts, and buildings. We (and me very begrudgingly) walked up to the "palace" where we got to witness the changing of the guards. Much mor low key than I expected, but interesting. Being with a large international group as we were, meals were quite the challenge. Some not as open as others to the local tastes and textures so we chose Thai food for dinner (even that took some convincing), which really was a great meal that everyone enjoyed. We got back to Nice in time to prep for the trip to Paris the next day with our plane leaving at 6:30 am we wanted to get a little sleep.

Paris was a whirlwind. Being there barely 2 days, it was a quick tour, a lot of which was spent on the subway figuring out the best way to get from point A to point B. After the 2nd passport incident, Mary Ellen and I spent most of the rest of the day finding the police station, filling out a report and calling airlines, and banks to make arrangements.

Being Saturday, the US Embassy was closed until Monday (where an American goes when one finds oneself in a foreign country with out a passport). Since our plane tickets back to Nice were for Sunday, I had to stay an extra day so I could get my replacemnt passport since I had no other photo identification.

Other than the unfortunate incident, I liked Paris. There is a lot to see there. I would recommend not going during the summer. Even though it was late September, the City was still crowded, and quite warm. I cant imagine tolerating higher temps and even more people! We did a quick tour of the usual places, I returned to the Arc to climb to the top, we sped through the Louvre to witness the Mona Lisa and saw some other great pieces of art. We hit Notre Dame (though didnt have time to go in) and even found another geocache along the way.

I decided to take the train back to Nice (Air France refused to honor my ticket regardless of my circumstance), but I really enjoyed the train, I got to see some beutiful countryside, and it was very relaxing and lots of elbow room. It really didnt take a lot longer than flying and was much more enjoyable.

I had relaxing times on the beach in Nice. The water was perfect. The waves were very strong enough to knock me down. The beaches on the French Riviera though are not sandy, they are rocky naturally (small-ish cobbles) which made it a little uncomfortable to lay on, but on the good side, you dont have all that sand in your shoes and stuck to various parts of your body when you go home. Nice is a fairly large city, since my stay was short, I didn't do all the cultural/touristy things. But I did figure out the public transportation system, and walked a lot!

I have many other antecdotes, but I think that will have to do for now. I will go back and maybe this just prooves that a little planning and mental preparation is a good thing.

c-ing the world

On Friday I decided (more or less on a whim) that I would take a trip to the south of France...in two weeks.

Actually my good friend Mary Ellen will be teaching a class in Nice (in the very southeast corner of France, on the Mediterranean Sea). She had mentioned this to me and invited me to come along. When she sent her itinerary, I said to myself, "Self, that's only a few weeks away, that's crazy to consider!" So I went with the crazy, started looking at flights. Once I start looking at flights, it becomes real to me, and I cant stop my mind from planning...so I went with the whole idea.

I picked up my air tickets on Sunday at the airport, and then a quick stop at Barnes and Noble resulted in a travel book and a map. I will leave on September 12 and return on the 20th.

This will be the first time I will get to really practice the 4+ years of French I took in High School and a couple semesters in college. I can still remember some of it, although I don't think I'll be impressing the locals at all. Of all the places I've visited, I've never been to France, so I am really looking forward to it. I don't have a lot of time to research it, which in a way will make it more exciting, not knowing what to expect. But I'll do some reading ahead of my departure (I couldn't go without ANY preparation).

I used to really love to take last minute trips w/ very little planning. I'm interested to see if that strategy is still as enjoyable as I have "aged" and if it also works when travelling to the other side the world.

Au revoir for now.

Carolyn

Cousin's Float

August 10-12 was spent with extended family at our annual "Cousins Float" get together near Grants Pass Oregon. We were greeted with beautiful weather and a meteor shower. Its always fun to reconnect, share a meal, relax, and take a dip in the Illinois River.

Don't look so surprised Dad, you know who is in charge...Dad (Dennis) and Justin share a moment.

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Aunt Paula soaks in some sun early Saturday AM before packing up to head to the Illinois River for the day.

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My cousin Jim and Dana's kids, Reese and Carsten safe in their life vests are ready to take a dip.

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Hailey shows her 2 year old independance by letting go of mom.

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Cousins Float

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I love the look on Tony's face.

First time blogger

I'm just trying this out. After looking through the blogs posted by other family members, I thought I'd give it a try. Since I love sharing photos etc with family and friends, I thought this was a good place to try it out. Lets see how it turns out...