While we were in Paris, our flat did not have internet. I would type my day in to an OpenSource Text Document and the plan was to have Joshua update my blog when he got to the Cite each day. Well, since we both forgot to remind each other, that did not happen. So here, three months after we left Paris, I am finally putting them on my blog. 

Title:

Paris Day Two

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On Sunday,  we went to Mass at Sacre Couer Basillica in the Montmartre area of the city. A little history on the church itself. First of all, St. Boniface in Lafayette is older then this church, so not exactly what I was expecting for my first Mass here in Paris. However, the reason the church was built is the exciting part. It was started by two men here in Paris in 1870, during the Franco-Prussian War. They offered to God that they would have a church built if Paris was spared invasion by the Prussians. It is a magnificent church set on top of a “butte” or  hill. This isn’t just any hill. This is a mountain. Well, maybe not a mountain, but by the time we got to the church and into a pew, I was sick. I mean pregnancy sick. I sat through most of mass as I could not get a handle on the fainting feeling I was having. I felt like such a pagan and just hope that no one thought ill of me.

The Mass itself was beautiful. Religious Sisters sang during the Mass and 4 or 5 priests con-celebrated, however, I did not understand a bit of it. That there is the beauty of the universal church. While I didn’t understand all that was being said, I knew what was going on. God is good.

After Mass, we ate at a little stand, where I got some very healthy Pomme Friites and a Coca Cola. That is all my poor little stomach could handle. After a while, I was able to eat more though.

We hopped back on the train to go up to the Cite de Sciences (where Joshua is working from.) and met up with the group there. As I was still feeling a little tired, jet lagged and just out of sorts, I sat in the room with the geeks (self proclaimed) and read my Paris book. I was able to find a few places that I wanted to visit and mapped them out on the Metro Map.

After a while, I did get bored so I headed back to our flat and vegged out for a while until Joshua got back. We had a light dinner of left overs Joshua brought home then went to bed.

Title: Paris Day Three

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On Monday, we started out early, we needed to go to the Post Office to buy stamps. We found a post office then we stopped in to a little pastry shop. I had a most delicious eclair cafe. (coffee eclair). It was very yummy. So yummy I told Joshua my wedding vows included to love in sickness and in health but they did not say to share my yummy French pastries.  We then went to the grocery store and picked up a few more things for the flat. Joshua needed to be at the Cite at 11, so we parted ways. I stayed at the flat and slept. After a nice refreshing nap, I walked around a little, then met Joshua and the team at the Cite. We were offered a ride in one of the team members car to the big apartment the rest of the team was staying at. Let’s just say the team member who took the Metro beat us there, by about an hour.

We ate dinner then they talked shop, I think. We got back to the flat at about 130 and I was ready to call it a night.

Title: Paris Day Four

Text: I went with Joshua to the Cite early in the morning so that I could check email and train schedules. (We had been hoping to go to Lisieux.) I went back to the flat, napped (seeing a theme?) then out. Out. Out. Out. BY MY SELF. I read about a bookstore in the Latin Quarter of Paris that sold second hand books in English. I mapped the Metro then headed out. I found it. I was so proud. I looked around there for about an hour  and was treated to some Canadian Coffee that they had (coffee with maple syrup). After picking out my selections, I noticed the sign that said “No Credit Cards Accepted”. Oh darn. The owner then told me about a cash machine two blocks away. I walked over and while I was waiting to use it, window shopped the shoe store next store. As you might imagine, I bought some shoes. The very nice sales clerk did not speak  English, but we managed. She was very nice.

Back to the bookstore I went…and found out the guy waiting on me was from Sarnia. (For those who don’t know, it is a border town, right across the river from Port Huron, MI). We chatted for a few minutes then I was on my way. I stopped in at a church called, Saint-Sepherin. (Sp?). I was able to spend a few minutes with Our Lord in prayer, always wonderful.

Back to the Cite I went, where I met up with Joshua to check email again. Then we were off for a night on our own. We headed to a part of town that had camera things, but the store closed at 7, so we were not able to see if they had what we needed. However, we found a really neat Pizza place. Dinner took 3 hours. THREE hours. I ordered the Anti-Pasta appetizer, and well gave it to Joshua. It consisted of 4 different kinds of meat and two pickles. The meat wasn’t quite to my liking so Joshua saved me from the embarrassment of having to return a mostly full plate (and I did my best to try to eat it.) Dinner was Pizza Tuscano. A normal thin crusted pizza with normal toppings, except for the creme on it. It was pretty good though. Dessert for me was Tirumisu. I loved every spoonful of it.

Home we went and relaxed and talked with the kiddies for a few minutes. Karol went swimming and though I can’t share through this blog his voice when he was telling me about it, it was great to see him so excited.

Dinner was very good, if not a touch bit spicy. The wee ones got leftover oven friend chicken as the Italian beef was that spicy. We started dinner off with a salad with my grandmother’s tomato vinaigrette salad dressing. Dinner was Italian beef sandwiches on Italian bread with some mozzarella cheese. Dessert, quite possible the best part was Chunky Apple Cake with Cream Cheese Icing. Yum. I am going to share the recipes with you all as it was that good.

Salad Dressing:

1 cup oil
1 can tomato soup
1 cup vinegar
1 large onion – chopped
1/2 cup sugar (I only used 1/4 cup)

1/3 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
1 tsp mustard
1 1/2 tsp worchestire sauce

Place all ingredients in a jar. Seal and shake.

Italian Beef (from Anne)

3 lb round or shoulder roast
8 oz jar of pepperoncini with juice – no stems (uh, make sure they aren’t TOO spicy)

3 cloves garlic
2 t oregano
1 can beef broth
1 can beer (optional)
S&P to taste

Place in slow cooker until done. This was about 6 hours for me on med high.

Apple Cake

12 to 15 servings

• 1/2  cup  butter, melted
• 2  cups  sugar
• 2  large eggs
• 1  teaspoon  vanilla extract
• 2  cups  all-purpose flour
• 1  teaspoon  baking soda
• 1  teaspoon  salt
• 2  teaspoons  ground cinnamon
• 4  Granny Smith apples, peeled and sliced
• 1  cup  chopped walnuts, toasted
• Cream Cheese Frosting
• Chopped walnuts, toasted (optional)

Preparation:Stir together first 4 ingredients in a large bowl until blended.

Combine flour and next 3 ingredients; add to butter mixture, stirring until blended. Stir in apple slices and 1 cup walnuts. Spread into a greased 13- x 9-inch pan.

Bake at 350° for 45 minutes or until a wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool completely in pan on a wire rack. Spread with Cream Cheese Frosting; sprinkle with walnuts, if desired.

Cream Cheese Frosting:

•   (8-ounce) package cream cheese, softened
• 3  tablespoons  butter or margarine, softened
• 1 1/2  cups  powdered sugar
• 1/8  teaspoon  salt
• 1  teaspoon  vanilla extract

Preparation

Beat cream cheese and butter at medium speed with an electric mixer until creamy. Gradually add sugar and salt, beating until blended. Stir in vanilla.

First and foremost, I have to totally recommend Ron Paul’s book “The Revolution”. Not too far in to it and I am even more in love with the man then I was before. How, how, HOW, and why, why WHY is this man not the Republican Candidate for President this year? More to come on that later!

However, I did want to report that I finally got around to turning the gas on in this place. I had called Columbia Gas about 16 times before, only to be put on hold for a half hour each time. I saw that the tempurature will be down in the 30’s this coming week, so I decided for the sake of my beautiful family, to call. Well it turns out that the losers before us did not pay thier bill for a LONG time, so WE have to prove they don’t live here. Before Columbia Gas will do anything we have to send a fax of our lease then they will contact us to turn the gas on. Great.

Wow, I have never been so torn for voting as I am this year. No it isn’t a choice between Obama and McCain, it is the question of “is there another person”? Amazing how a person could change so much in 8 years.

8 years ago, I was volunteering for the Bush campaign and thought that I would be a Republican all my life. In 2004 I voted for Bush as a “no” vote against who ever he was running against. Today, I sit here, in the swing state of Ohio, a state that is a battle ground and in 2004, hung in the balance for a while, thinking of “wasting” my vote on a third party candidate. Why? Good question.

I am Pro-Life. I am Pro-Life to the point that I do not think abortion should be allowed for any reason, ever. The Republican Party had given lip service to the Pro-Lifers of America for too long.  Someone needs to stand up for the life of the unborn in our country.

There is a man who is running for President who is willing to make the commitment to defending the earliest of human life. Chuck Baldwin. http://baldwin08.com/Pro-Life.cfm

I understand that many will think that voting for Chuck Baldwin will be the same as throwing my vote away, at least I know that my vote will not be on my conscience.  Of course, as the time of the election draw near, I will continue to pray and ask God for guidance in the voting booth.

When taking laundry down to the basement, don’t shut the back kitchen door all the way, it might be locked.

Then you might have to try to get your two year old to come and try to open the door for you.

Of course that will fail, because your two year old thinks you are trying to take him away from legos and will tell you no.

Assessing the situation, thank God that you actually got dressed this morning, walk out in your sock feet and try the front door.

Then make another note to kiss your husband when he gets home from work because he left the front door unlocked when he left for work.

 

 

Hello All! Thanks for taking the time to read this, Anne and Laura. 🙂 I may have more time to update in the future as I get to become a full time stay at home mom in just two weeks! Joshua accepted a job in Ohio and we are relocating there. I get to stay at home with the wee ones and hang out all day long eating bon bons and reading books. Okay not really, more like finger paint and chase the kids.

So this week we drove to Ohio to find a place and we found a cute little place to rent for the time being. Our hope is to, God Willing, buy a home next summer, and with the inexpensive cost  of living in Ohio, we should be able to.

Our trip to Ohio was pretty fun, we stayed with Becky, whom Karol called “Aunt Becky” and adores. Jaime hosted us for dinner and we also made some new friends in our new town. I even got the numbers for some midwives, praise God.

On our way there, we stopped in Lafayette to say hello to Nan and ended up getting to see Laura, Linda H and Linda S along with Claire and Grant and baby Helen. Oh, Gwen was there and that was a nice surprise. We also got to see the Newcomb crew with some Weeks kids. Did I miss anyone? I love the Catholic world.

That is my quick update. Wish us luck on our move!

Bonjour! We are in Paris. Please permit me to tell you about our trip so far. It started out (I will spare you the airplane/airport details) with our plane landing at Charles de Gaulle airport. We did not have a gate but were taken off the plane and put on a bus then taken to the terminal. That seemed to be pretty normal as no one was concerned.

We got off the bus and went through customs and showed the nice guy our passport. I have no idea what he told me or asked me but I did get into the country. We then were met by Elisa’s husband, Cedric. Elisa is one of the people working on the project. They were nice enough to host us for the day and night in their home in a little town outside of Paris called Epernon.

Epernon could have been a wonderful experience, had I not had morning sickness return with a vengence. How embarrassing. When I finally felt better, JF and I walked around and I ate a crossaint from a pastrie shop. We went back to Paris and took our things to our flat. Our flat is smaller then our bedroom. It has a bathroom the size of our closet, if not smaller. I can’t hardly shower at all. We do have a kitchenette, which is nice.

Still on Saturday, we went to the flat of the other people who are working on the project with JF. There I met more Frenchmen, a Russian and a New Zealander who currently lives in Amsterdam. We celebrated the beginning of the project with some Champagne. (Just a little.)

I will post more later…..stay tuned!

My co-worker suggested that we take the girls into the city today, via the Metra train. The Metra has unlimited $5 weekends. (You can ride all you want for $5!) What a fun time. A relaxing ride, no worries about traffic, seeing parts of the city that you don’t see on the freeways and well people watching.

We got off the train and walked to Millennim Park. Did you know that have a big water fountain that you can play in? Yep, so we are going to beat the heat tomorrow by using our day off and taking our kids to the fountain! Fun Fun!

I hope they like it just as much.

Oh, quotes from Karol:

I am reading “Witness to Hope” right now. Karol calls is the “Pope Book”. So I told Karol he was named after JPII and opened the book to find “Karol”.

I spelled Karol out for him, then asked him what that spelled, Karol replied “Pope”.

Later we were looking at the picture on the cover of the  book, and I said “Give Pope a kiss”. Karol replied “No”. When I asked why, he said “He has funny lips”.

I was wondering…do I have any readers besides the people trying to sell me pills? I have so much fun reading other people’s blogs (Anne, Laura, Annie Schap (who I don’t even really know)) that I forget to write in my own!!