Italy

Okay, so its been a while since we blogged so sue me! Here are the pictures from Italy. What a trip!

We started out in Venice and fell in love with the place. It is literally a post card picture around every corner. We took the oligitory gondola ride with the kids and saw some incredible museums. The famous drawing by Leonardo da Vinci, the Vitruvian Man (sp.?) was on display. Apparently they only take it out every ten years or so. Emma was again unimpressed (the Mona Lisa did nothing for her) she thought it was too small.

Next we travelled to Rome. Beautiful churches, the Vatican, the Collosseum, it was all incredible. We had the good fortune of hooking up with a priest we knew from home and got a compressed tour of the sights and an overall great evening. Enjoy the photos.

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This set of photos concludes the boat trip on the Seine and includes our trip to the Louvre (or "Loof" as Emma called it) as well as our evening trip to see L'Arc de Triomphe and Eiffel Tower.

To anyone considering a trip to Paris, I highly reccomend the boat trip. There are a number of companies who provide this service. We did ours in the afternoon but would have liked to have had the time to try an evening cruise as well.

The Louvre was, as you can imagine, both amazing and daunting. It is sooooo huge and a bit much to try and cover in one day, especially with an eight and ten year old in tow. We got to see the Grand Gallery, which is home to the Mona Lisa, the French Painters, a lot of Greek and Roman statues, and the Egyptian antiquities, including a real mummy!

The Arc had 284 steps to the top. How do I know that? Because Lori, Ian and I climbed every one of them! The view was incredible as was the sense of accomplishment at climbing the thing. We only made it to the second level of the Eiffel Tower, not that I'm complaining, it was quite high enough. Enjoy!

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Paris Part 2

Sunday was another wonderful day. The most incredible thing about this trip was that everyday seemed to be better than the one that preceeded it. Sunday was truly extraordinary however. We started off by hopping on the metro and attending the Gregorian Mass at Notre Dame. The intro on the pipe organ was spectacular and the music throughout exquisite. If the intention of the church was to draw the mass goer towards the Almighty, it suceeded on every level.

Our next stop, after lunch at a sidewalk cafe of course, was Ste. Chapelle. It was originally built by the French king, St. Louis, to house the Crown of Thorns and a remnant of the original cross. It has now been secularized (the relics are now housed at Notre Dame) and remains quite a site. The king's chapel has some of the most beautiful stained glass windows ever seen.

From Ste. Chapelle we moved on to the Concergerie. It was part of the palace that served as a prison during the reign of terror. Marie Antoinette spent two months there prior to being beheaded on the Place de la Concorde. Ouch!

After that we decided to rest our feet a bit and took a boat tour on the Seine. This tour highlighted the major tourist attractions in Paris and afforded us our first close up view of the Eiffel Tower, the kids were thrilled. All in all quite a day!

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Paris Part 1

We arrived in France on Friday afternoon. Our loft apartment can best be described as delightfully French. We went out for dinner and Emma experienced escargot first hand, brave child. Our first sightseeing expedition was to the Opera house, "The Palais Garnier". A beautiful building. We went onto see the Madeiline Church as well as St. Augustin's. We also took a walk through the Tuilerie Garden's past the Louvre. It was love at first sight.

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Disneyland Paris 2009

Well after a considerable delay here are the pics from our Disney trip. While not quite Orlando we had a ball. Space mountain 2 rocked and the Tower of Terror was just as scary. The first two days were nasty weather wise but as it turned out this was a good thing because as soon as the sun came out the lines became intolerable! For the record the ride of the trip was Crushes Coaster, totally! Check out the pics!

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Later!

She's a calf!!!

We had some excitement around here about 3 weeks ago. One of Mr. Dave's cows gave birth unexpectedly. I say that because when he bought them, they were supposed to be...how shall I say it? Untouched. Well much to every ones surprise, out came the calf!!! Dave and Mary let Emma name her and now we are the proud aunt and uncle of Annabelle. This concludes the sad state of affairs in the Ouellette household when livestock are the main focus of the blog. Very sad.


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Now for Christmas!!!

During Christmas in Ireland you don't go to the mall to see Santa (there aren't any malls near here) you go to the Ailiwee Caves! The caves are a natural phenomena that draw people mainly during the summer months. Santa utilizes the downtime during autumn to visit with children and give them an early gift. As you can see from the photos there are rides, face painting and free mulled wine for the parents (YUM!). We also included pictures from Christmas morning. Again late as anything but we hope you enjoy them.


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Thanksgiving update? Wow am I behind!

We have discovered facebook. Why do I mention that here? Because we have been ignoring the blog as a result. It is suffering from neglect. I therefore will treat you all to the pics from our visitor from last Thanksgiving. It was a nice time and with spring approaching (it is actually here in Ireland but I won't rub it in) we are expecting a new round of visitors as well as Emma's first Communion. March 31st I will have been here one year. I still can't wrap my head around that one. Time is flying! We have done so much since arriving but there is still so much left to do. Anyway enjoy the pictures and feel free to comment (or visit!). More photos on photobucket!!!

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More London Photos!!!

I really hope this works!!!!

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Enjoy!

Snow!!!

Hello All!

We woke up this morning to a blanket of snow. I must admit I felt the urge to go down to the garage and start the snowblower. The only thng that prevented me from doing so was the fact that we possess neither. It was quite pretty but it is already 90% melted as I write this. Toto, wer'e not in NH anymore.....

London Photos

Well they are finally here. Enjoy!!

London with Pete and Lee

Pete and Lee Anne came out to see us in November for 10 days. We explored Ireland and London. London was way cool!!! We stayed at the world's skeeviest hotel I am pretty sure that Mike's dorm room was nicer than the Airways Hotel. Sometimes it is just not worth it to save a buck. Lee Anne slept on her towels!

We went to Buckingham palace, Madame Tussaud's wax museum, The Imperial War museum, The Queen's gallery, (Paintings by Reuben, priceless furniture and jewels) Covent Garden, The Lyceum Theater for The Lion King show, A huge toy store named Hamley's with 5 floors of toys, Trafalgar Square and Westminster Abbey.

Ian and Emma had a great time with their first taxi ride and tube(subway) ride. They were thrilled to have time to spend with Auntie Lee and Uncle Pete. We all agreed that Westminster Abbey was the best thing we saw. We went inside and the architecture is amazing. It is so neat to walk around and see where Kings and Queens were crowned.

Pictures to come soon.