Paris, the Quick Version (sort of)

Ok, here's the quick and dirty of the rest of our time in Paris. We visited Versailles. One thing we discovered is that the French often just ignore the last few letters of words. Take Versailles for instance. To spell it like it sounds, I would spell it Versi. Versailles was a short train ride outside of Paris. Again, keeping with the theme, tons of people and long lines. Also discovered that the French aren't very adapt at organizing crowds. The line to get in was just a random zigzag with no rhyme or reason to it. Versailles was built by Louis XIV.







We really could have spent more time here. It was really nice.

Next Paris icon, Arc de Triomphe.






Our hotel was within walking distance of this. We didn't go to the top. Again, crazy crowds.

I thought the Opera National de Paris Garnier was one of the prettiest buildings I'd ever seen. I loved it!! I'd never been inside an Opera House before. I could just imagine the audience in their tux and evening gowns. The pictures don't do it justice.










I'm getting tired. Another quick post to come later. I just can't get it all in one post after all.

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The Eiffel Tower

Paris around New Years is apparently a popular time to visit, little did we know but how soon we realized. First night we were there we did the 'must' do tourist attraction, The Eiffel Tower.













We wanted to make sure we went when the weather was clear. So glad we went at night. So beautiful at night all lit up. We had to wait about an hour and a half to get in the elevator to go to the first level. After that we didn't have to wait too long to ride all the way up to the top. It was cold and windy but so awesome to see Paris from that vantage point.






Thanks Mom and Dad for the rocking toboggan!! Came in very handy!















Great views! We rode the lift (very European of me huh?) down to the first level then took the stairs down. I expected the Eiffel Tower to be over hyped and thus a disappointment. It did not disappoint in the least. So worth the wait in the cold.

I promise to not drag my vacation posts out too much this time...

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Location:Paris

Elf Ron

It was time for our annual work Christmas activities. First, our building had a door decorating contest. My department was two time defending champion. We found out the day before that no one else in the building was going to participate. What can I say, they were scared. We didn't care, we decorated our door anyway. The theme was Christmas carols. Our door was based off of the classic, "Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer".



We tweaked it a bit to be "Our Budget Got Run Over By a Senator". We re-wrote the entire song. We even had it performed at the building Christmas lunch. What can I say, we're rock stars.

The big to-do at the building was a contest we had to raise money for a needy family. It was between me, Ron, and Alvera. Alvera is the HR Director. If you will recall, I plastic wrapped Ron's entire office one time. People put money in our respective jars. Bills were positive and coins were negative points. The person with the most points had to wear an elf outfit at the Christmas lunch. You've got to understand, Ron is a 6 ft 5 in black guy. Who wouldn't want to see him dressed as an elf?? He thought he was smart because he brought in a lot of coins to put in his jar. I was waiting until the last minute to make my move. I even requested help at the Principals meeting. At the last minute I put in plenty of money to ensure that I got the outcome I wanted.




Check out the rockin white shoes!! He wasn't happy but was a good sport. The best part were the ears. We says he's going to get me back but I couldn't have done it by myself.




This is the Finance department. Does this not look like a capable department??



We had to have our picture made with the Christmas elf!! So funny!! He may look like he was smiling but he was more gritting his teeth and mumbling under his breath.

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Two Wild and Crazy Girls

Went to Concord to visit with Virginia and check out the new house. Oh, and meet the newest member of the family, Cookie. The house was great and seemed to be perfect for their little family. So happy for them! Cookie is indeed a pup. He, yes, Cookie is a he, is quite enthusiastic. He is adorable though. Susan and Samantha also came up to visit.




Here they are making sweet music.

We went out to lunch. Check out Virginia's outfit...had me cracking up.



Love the boots. Only problem was it was about 60 degrees outside. I harkened back to a softball game I had as a kid. Mom dressed me in these god-awful gold shorts. They did not come close to matching my uniform shirt. I can still vividly remember knowing that my mom had dressed me funny. At least Virginia will be too young to remember this. Kathy tried to blame it on Virginia by saying that she picked them out. I had to remind her that she was the parent here.

It got even worse. By the time we left the restaurant, this is what she looked like.



Tragic!!!!

We did have fun in the car grooving to some Temptations. Samantha has good taste in music. We danced and busted out some classic Temptations moves. Too fun!

On the way back Samantha showed us her wild side. She let her hair down, literally, and proceeded to do some head banging.



Just makes me laugh!!! That's her 'don't mess with me' rocker look. I tried to get her to do a classic rocker pose but she couldn't quite get it. Virginia got it though.




Now we just need to work on her rocker look.





Just thought I'd throw this one in.

After lunch I schooled Kathy and Susan with my dance moves. I dominated in some Wii dance game.




Virginia wasn't the only one with funny shoes. Susan left the house wearing her bedroom slippers. But with those two cuties a round no one is looking at us.

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Redneck Thanksgiving

This post will not have pictures of your traditional Thanksgiving gathering. For entertainment we did some target shooting. We bought Mike's dad this for his birthday.





Our zombie was a notorious terrorist.



This was a good little target. It was supposed to 'bleed' when you shot it. It really didn't bleed a whole lot but I think we just weren't using big enough ammo.



We did some damage and we'll do some more later too.

We also did some skeet shooting. Brandon had a hand held thrower, which I sucked at. Thankfully, others were much more successful and it actually worked better than I thought it would for sure.

Fun times but I did miss my family and my sweet little nieces.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!!

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Fall Festival

Saturday I went down to Fort Mill to visit the Millers. It was time for some quality time with Samantha. But first we had to eat lunch at her favorite place, Jersey Mike's. And she knew just what she wanted, a turkey sub. I tried to get her to call Mike and tell him where we were going because it is his favorite place too, but she was a bit phone shy.

The Fall Festival was a bit disappointing. Not only was there no face painting but Pickles the Clown wasn't there either. But Samantha is only 3 so she is easily entertained.



This was hard work.



Playing in the kiddie maze. This, surprisingly, was very entertaining for her.



Cutest pumpkin I saw all day.



No matter how many times she threw it in the hole, she reacted like it was her first time every time. I think she just liked Susan and me cheering for her.




Last thing we did was take a wagon ride to the pumpkin patch. Susan made sure Samantha only picked out a pumpkin she could carry. Smart. After turning her nose up at the first ones we found, she ended up wanting those in the end.

The kid is lots of fun and is very silly!! She'll be a great big sis! It's always fun seeing Samantha. I do love her!!

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Carolina Ballonfest

This weekend was the 38th balloonfest in Statesville. This is the longest running balloonfest in the country. There were 51 hot air balloons at the event. I volunteered to work at the event on Saturday. I sold food vendor tickets from 11 - 3pm. Thank goodness I had a partner because it was very busy. I did have time to take a picture of the Ghostbusters though...



These three were just walking around the event. It was hilarious.

After my shift Mike and I decided to go drive and park right outside the event to look at the balloons as they had their afternoon launch. We ended up being in the perfect spot to see the balloons.



We then drove down the road a bit and that's when we really got a good view of the balloons as they flew right overhead. We had the top down on the Jeep so it was perfect.












Then we went to get pizza and the balloons were still all around so we got a good view of them as they landed any where they could.







There was perfect weather this weekend for the event. There were so many people that they had to stop letting people in on Saturday. We really had a good time watching the balloons. They were so pretty and it's not something you get to see everyday.


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