Moving on to the Paris Part of Trip

We flew out of Johannesburg for London and took the Eurostar train to Paris.  It was a beautiful way to see the Paris countryside on our way to the huge city.  On the train, we were provided with a delicious lunch that has given us lots of ideas for future dishes to make and wine, of course!  I don't think a day went by that I didn't have at least one glass of wine!  It was everywhere!

We will definitely learn more French before we attempt to go back to Paris or anywhere else in France. We took the subway to get from the train station to our hotel instead of taking a taxi.  We had to change trains two times, but had no problems.  It was very interesting taking the subway in an unfamiliar city in another language.

Everything was so beautiful!  The language, the buildings, the food!  We had an amazing time.  The streets are very hard to navigate in Paris though.  Very windy-twisty as I would call them.  There was no grid-pattern to the streets I am used to like in Philadelphia or most of Manhattan.  I don't think any of the streets ever ran parallel to another, LOL.

The other interesting piece of the trip was the first night we were there, there were riots on the Champs Elysees.  The Paris Saint-Germain soccer club won their first championship in 19 years and they started a parade for the team, but cut it short due to fan craziness and then the fans got even crazier.  We stayed away from the Champs Elysees that first night, except for one part at the end of the evening we needed to be on part of it to get back to our hotel.  We saw a small white car do a 180-degree spin on the street.  Then they turned back around and kept going.  Immediately, a police car was chasing them. Interesting times!  That night we did go to a restaurant where they knew very little English at all and we sat next to a table of eight Americans who were trying to get away from the rioting area of the city.  It was very cool, sitting there, googling French words from the TV on at the restaurant to find out that 30 people were injured and 21 arrested, and talking to these other Americans about where they were from.

Here's some of the cool pics!

Taking the train to Paris from London St. Pancras International train station.  I also kept singing "King's Cross" from the Pet Shop Boys in my head after being at that station.

Here is the view of the train station in London before we left

Lunch on the train:  cold stuffed pork, couscous salad with mango and nuts, roasted eggplant and peppers and wine!!!

France countryside from train view

Flares going off one of the bridges over the river from the riots

Going to see the Eiffel Tower - taken by Phoebe

Phoebe's turn

Daytime view of the Eiffel Tower

I fell in love with this dress.  I didn't get it though.  Need to look it up and see how much it is!

The architecture was amazing!

We went to the Rodin Museum - we have one in Philly too that is excellent!  Wanted to compare.  Especially since the Louvre was closed the day we had (Tuesday) free to go to museums.

Here was the back of the house at the Rodin Museum.  They were getting ready for an event.  I'm sure it was an amazing event!

Flowers from the garden there

Here was the front of the house

Phoebe eating a pastry and hot chocolate at at coffee shop

We went out for a nice dinner that night.  Here we are all dressed up in our finest!

And the next day, we took the train back to London.  Here's the train station in Paris.

Next up, the London leg of the trip!

Trip to South Africa

I'm finally getting a little bit of time this Father's Day to reflect on the trip to South Africa.  It really was amazing!  My favorite part of the trip was seeing my dear friend, Marcia, and her family.  They are such lovely people and we spent a beautiful day at the Lion and Rhino Nature Reserve checking out the animals and had a Mother's Day lunch.  Malva pudding has become one of my favorite desserts, right behind creme brûlée.  And Marcia is so right that it tastes best with the creme on top warm.  I think I ate malva pudding at every place that served it.  Kind of like my love for fish and chips.  I usually love to try it everywhere it is on the menu and mentally compare where I think it is the best.  I think Phoebe was really missing her brothers that day.  She was playing a lot with their twins, having races and showing them different things.  She is really good with kids, but then again she may not look like it, but she still is a kid, LOL.

My second favorite thing about South Africa was Table Mountain.  The views are truly breathtaking there.  It was a shame I was there with my school class walking around by myself and that Tom and Phoebe were not with me.  I did send them there the next day when I was doing the last day of school things.  That was the day of drama I mentioned before.  Turns out everyone has started forming teams for the fall term when we have to work on a final project that will be due in May.  I found out that morning that people were forming teams and that no one had talked to me about it, which kind of left me feeling like the last person picked in gym class.  My feelings were extremely hurt.  I'm afraid to ask why I was not approached to help make up a team, but I think it's because not too many people know me well.  I'm usually too busy trying to balance the kids, work and school.  I think my team for the summer semester is liking me, I'm really pushing myself to do well and be more outspoken.  I was not a big fan of the team I had last term, as the only person I don't like in the class of 30 people was on that team.  He's much more impatient with getting moving on things, when I like to sit back and think a bit before diving in.

After this post, I have a lot to say about the rest of the trip to Paris and London with Tom and Phoebe.  We had so much fun!  On to the South Africa pictures!  First Joburg with Marcia driving me from the other side of the car!

The lions about to eat

Malva pudding! Yum!!!

Beautiful Marcia with her sweet boy on Mother's Day!

Phoebe watching the hippo

These two look cozy!

This giraffe did like Phoebe's hair.  Thought it was a snack!

New friends!

I was so happy to see Marcia and her family that day!!!  Can you see how tired I was from the trip though???

Our handsome men!  Hope they are both having a great Father's Day today!

More love for the Mommy!

Me and most of my crew on Mother's Day!

We had exhausted the kids at that point!  Hope they slept well that night....

Views from Table Mountain

These are from when Tom took Phoebe to Table Mountain.  Cool pic of Phoebe, eh?

Here's a view of the Robben Island where Nelson Mandela was imprisoned. 

I have so much blog posting to catch up on!  I have posts about Paris and London, coming back to school for me, things going on with the kids, the foods I've been cooking lately (the kitchen is where I get my crafty on!) and just enjoying the summer.

Boys 4th Birthday!

I can't believe the boys turned four years old this week on May 29th!  I feel like they were just born yesterday and so small.  They are definitely not small now.  I have no babies left.  That said, they are so much fun!  They love to say, "You're joking" and don't like when we say "Let's see."  They told us that means no.  The boys got Legos, books and Spiderman, Batman and Superman action figures to play with.  Tommy is all about building things with Legos, blocks, tinker toys and anything he gets his hands on and gives great big squeezy hugs!  Liam loves books, puzzles, pretend play, dressing up as a superhero (Batman is a particular favorite) and only cuddles when he's tired.

They loved their birthday.  They took home made carrot cake cupcakes to preschool to share with their friends and teachers and then had two individual cakes at home to blow out their candles.

I have so much to post on about the trip!  I'll try to do that in little pieces over the week.  For now, enjoy these pictures from their birthday.

Goodbye Cape Town

I've enjoyed my time here in Cape Town very much.  Some things were tough with school classmate issues, but it will all work out I'm sure in the end.  I often wish people didn't have to behave so 'human'. Human behavior can often hurt people's feelings, or in particular, mine.  

But the school leg of this journey is over. I get to go enjoy time with friends in Joburg tomorrow and then off to Paris and France with my DH and Phoebe.  We are hitting so many life list items it's amazing! It is really making me feel that if you put your life list in writing, many more amazing things will happen then you ever thought possible.

It's All Good

I bought this book as a present to me this week.  Not sure if I'll have too much time to do a lot of recipes from it before my trip, but I did look it over and I really like it.  I'm not sure what the deal is with people not liking Gwyneth.  I personally do like her, but maybe it's because we resemble each other, although my butt does not look as good as her's right now.  The boys did notice she looks like me.  When I opened the Amazon box, Liam was so excited to see "Mommy's present" and he looked at the front of this book and said, "It's Mommy!"  LOL.

Another fun thing I found recently is the blog What Would Gwyenth Do?  It's a really good blog I found on a day that I really decided to ask Google that question when I was having a bad day.

So, don't be a hater or as LMFAO would say, "Stop! Hating is bad."

So Overwhelmed

I haven't lost my password to this blog, but sometimes I feel I've lost my mind.  I'm currently finishing up my second term for my EMBA program at Villanova, just went through the third re-organization at work in the last 9 months and am now leading a team of 14 employees in IT, and of course gearing up to travel on May 3rd to South Africa!!!  The good thing to say is that I have amazing opportunities everywhere I turn.  The tough thing is there is lots of work to get done and I'm a bit overwhelmed and stressed.  I guess one could say I'm on opportunity overload!!!

The other side of the coin is the family is doing well, DH is completely stressed with work and traveling a lot.  His sister, Niki, is still with us and helping me get everyone out of the house for school and work everyday.  Phoebe is doing very well.  She's almost taller than me at the age of 12 and looks like she's about to go through another growth spurt, eating and sleeping constantly.  She got her braces off before Easter and has top and bottom retainers.  She's already broken the top retainer and another one is on order!  The boys are doing very well.  Tommy got glasses for seeing close up about two months ago and he's doing very well with wearing those.  Liam has an ear check up before I leave for SA and I'm sure that will go well.  Both boys are eating and growing a lot!!!

Here's the boys getting ready for an Easter Egg Hunt

Tommy found two eggs up the clubhouse for the slide

Liam looking so cute!!!  He found lots of eggs, but when he finds those, he moves fast and can't catch him in photos

Hope everyone is doing well!  I have a ton of assignments to get done for school over the next two weeks before I leave the country as well as getting my team at work to a good place before I leave.  I'm sure it will all get done, but I need to work on reducing my stress while I work like mad on the school and work fronts to get there.