France Trip

La France etait tres fraiche!
We were in Paris from July 2-10, staying at Eric's aunt Claire's beautiful house in Le Vesinet Le Pec. Eric's mom (Mimi) met up with us on July 3 from her trip to Norway, and Eric's sista Jessica met up with us on July 4 from her study abroad in a different city in France.
Mimi and Jess stayed at Eric's grandparent's house which was next door to Claire's.

The first night we were there we saw la Tour Eiffel. At first sight of it I said, "that's it?!" It looked like a huge piece of scrap metal put together to make something grandiose. But the closer we got the more striking and impressive it became.

But the closer we got to the tower the closwer we got to the guys who were trying to sell us souvenirs every step we made. They were relentless and we finally learned that you had to ignore them all together to get them to not bother you.

There was one guy who gave me a rose...we were shocked but pleasantly surprised...until after a few steps he came right up to Eric, sneakily so I wouldn't notice, and asked him for 2euros for the rose. Ha! Those sneaky guys. We gave the rose back.

That night we also went on a boat ride along the Seine. From the boat we were able to see the Louvre, Notre Dame, the Eiffel Tower, famous bridges and lots of old, gorgeous buildings. Also, along the Seine were partiers, mainly college aged kids. They were drinking, dancing, socializing, partying and peeing. There was also a Michael Jackson dance party because of his recent death.

From the Baton Mouche (boat name- Fly Boat) on the Seine

Notre Dame from the Baton Mouche

We visited Notre Dame and the Louvre the second day we were in Paris. By far, the coolest thing we saw that day was when we were in the Louvre. There was an older tourist walking around looking at the paintings of course, after all, what else do you do in the Louvre...when Eric pointed out to me that he had eyebrow hairs extending at least 2inches off his face?!?!?! It was quite a sight I have never seen before. It was brillant.

When Eric and I were buying tix for the Louvre, this guy our age comes up to us to sell 2 extra tix he had. We were a little sceptical but were going to buy them from him. Once we walked to an area where we could stand aside and give him money, he told us we could just have them and he walked off fast.

We started walking to the entrance with our new free tix when we looked more closely at the date, which read: 03/07/09!
We were ripped off! Good thing we didn't pay for them!
So what do we do? We go back to the ticket kiosk and buy two new, good tickets. But when the kiosk spat out the tix, they also read: 03/07/09. The French put the day ahead of the month! Oh we felt so dupped by our ignorance. But don't worry, we sold the two extra tix we had, and still got in for free. And then when we were done with the Louvre we gave our tix to a couple who then also got in for free :)

Notre Dame

Notre Dame

Gargoyles on the side of Notre Dame

Le Louvre

Le Louvre

One day Eric, his mom and I went to Versailles to visit the Palace of Versailles where the Sun King (Louis XIV) lived. It was full of self portraits, random ladies with their boobs falling out of their clothes (portraits), and decorative ceilings and walls. It was cool but there were oh too many tourists there.
Before the palaces' gates were more of those annoying guys trying to sell souvenirs. Mimi succomed and bargained with a guy in buying an umbrella hat.

Eric and his mom on our way to Versailles

In front of Versailles...hot day

Versailles

Inside Versailles

Inside Versailles

Inside Versailles

Inside Versailles

Inside Versailles

The Move

July was a crazy month. It started out with the move from our ParkSide apartment (which we loved) to Eric's parent's garage. We did this so we wouldn't have to pay for July's rent because we went to France for the first two weeks of July.

Kent, our awesome landlord. We helped put in the path in front of us and Kent rewarded us with a $50 gift certificate to Carrabas last summer.

Eric's mom lent us her Subaru, we rented a trailer, and moved our heavy stuff in one day with the help of two guys who were helping a couple move into the Deceusters old apartment, Kyle Baxter, and a BJJ friend of Eric's named Eric.

With our table and furniture packed, we had some fun meals together on the floor...

Eric's parents went on a vacation to Norway before we left for France so we were in charge of taking care of the bunnies- there is a pretty funny video of Eric trying to catch Ziggy to put her back inside if I can figure out how to post it.

Before we left Utah we took advantage of IKEA!!! We loaded the Sub up with a new bookshelf, desk and chair for the office in our new condo. They look awesome.

Competition

One night Eric and I had a flexibility contest...

You tell us who won:

You have to zoom in on Eric's picture to get the fullest quality/experience from it. First of all, look at how he's pointing his toes... I love it. Second, look at his face, it's so pained as he's trying so hard to be flexible. We've laughed long and hard over these photos.

Today Eric and I went rock climbing at the Quarry in Provo. It was fun but now our forearms are so sore!

We then went to Eric's co-worker's cafe that she owns and it was delicious. We scarfed it down because we wanted to catch "The Soloist" at the dollar movie theater, but once we got there about 30min into the movie they wouldn't let us buy tickets! Fools.

So we went home and headed out for a walk. There was this dog I discovered on one of my walks a week ago and I wanted to show it to Eric. The 9wk chocolate lab was still in the back yard I found it in, so we asked the owners if we could play with their dog. They were more than happy to let us, and so we got to play with the hyper puppy who bites everything.

It was a fun day. We're trying to do as many fun things as we can while we still have time to do everything together before school starts, babies/pets start and life gets busier.

Life is so sweet and simple now and we love it.

One and a Half Baby!

Yesterday Eric and I had a pretty good day celebrating our one and a half-a-sary (18 months of being married).

We started out by playing tennis..but after losing too many balls to the Provo river, we threw the towel in. But that's not to say that we didn't have a couple good volleys!

We then rode our bikes on the Provo River Trail to Utah lake. I can't believe I've been here for 5 years and haven't been to Utah lake before. The trail was gorgeous! I love spending time with Eric and being able to do anything we want. It's such a blessing to be married to a fun and wonderful husband.

We got back home pretty late and started making our delicious fajita dinner at around 11pm. One of the best things about cooking is doing it with your spouse. We have some pretty good things going for us in our lives and we're so happy together!

Our movie for the night was all about mammals. Watching animal shows are very interesting, and Eric knows all about animals so it's fun to see how much he knows compared to what is being presented (which is usually 70%).

Do One Nice Thing

For those of you wanting to do a nice act, here it it! Click here for the address of where to send a small package of school supplies to a child in Iraq or Afghanistan to help promote literacy. It's the easiest and cheapest way to do a nice thing. As Dr. Laura would put it, "now go do the right thing."

Colorado Trip

Our CO trip this past weekend was very good. We found our dream condo (sounds funny, I know), visited the parents, family and Eric's aunt and uncle, and maybe most importantly I interviewed at Regis' School of Pharmacy.

Our trip started out rough. Our flight was supposed to come in at 9:30pm (4/15/2009), but was of course delayed until 10:30pm. We got into CO late and had trouble finding our way to my parents home (my parents always pick me up from the airport so I don't know how to drive home on my own, sad huh). We got a rental car which turned out to be an awesome Toyota Prius!

It was a struggle first learning how to operate it because we didn't get any instructions from the rental center. For example, it doesn't have a normal key, you press a power button to turn it on, it has a funky gear shifting mechanism, and you have to have your foot on the brake to turn it on. Sheesh.

We got home and were in bed by 2am but had to wake up at 5:45am to get to my interview. I was so tired the next morning I felt sick and terrible. We were on the road at 6:30am, and good thing too because we got lost finding the dang school. We drove 50 blocks past where we were supposed to turn, but had time to get there and still be early.

The interview was 7 hours long (7:45am-3pm)! But I pretty much rocked it and felt very confident about it. After the interviews two of the interviewers came up to me and told me they were very impressed with some of my answers. I felt so happy after they told me that I wanted to jump and shout, literally. I was probably the happiest person there.

I'll find out this week to see if I got in. Wouldn't that be perfect- Eric and I both getting into our dream professions! My fingers are crossed big time.

We did a lot of real estate searching after my interview (Saturday through Monday) and found the perfect 3rd story condo that backs into a beautiful field with a path that runs to the Cherry Creek shopping areas as well as Downtown Denver. The person who lived at the condo had a vision and went with it, but ran out of money and so the construction he had started is at a standstill because he got foreclosed on. It'll take about $10k to finish his projects (because right not it's not livable), but the condo price is really low because of it. It also includes a garage, work out area, pool access, and a club house area.

So many new changes are coming up for us and we feel so blessed and excited. Thanks to everyone who is looking out for us and supporting us!