Giverny

June 15th Taylor’s brother Greg & his wife Emily & three of their 6 kids Tom, Eliza & Isabel (the triplets stayed home) finally arrived. We have been looking forward to their arrival since December! They flew into Paris, got their rental car & headed towards Normandy. We had planned to meet them there, but Emily called while we were driving & we realized we were pretty close on the freeway soooo we took a detour to Giverny & met alongside the road! It was quite a sight as the cousins all exchanged hugs & squeals of excitement. Everyone has grown taller and older. We stopped in Giverny and enjoyed a couple of hours touring Monet’s home and gardens. It felt like we were walking right into one of his paintings. The flowers are incredible and the variety breathtaking. Color is in every corner. I especially loved the lily pads and Japanese gardens and bridge. There are huge bamboo plants and it feels like you are in a totally different climate. Every path was picturesque…we took lots of photos, but would have preferred a Monet original instead!

Pisa

Last year Clara's school teacher Ms. VanWagoner taught her all about the Leaning Tower of Pisa. Ever since that lesson Clara has been itching to get to there. She was not disappointed. The tower is still leaning AND she was old enough to climb to the top! We joined right in with the rest of the tourists and had our own family photo shoot. It's a mighty powerful feeling to hold up such a building! We had a two hour wait to climb to the top. Other than the tower and the church there isn't much to Pisa. Lilly and Maya Thomas were not old enough to make the climb (you have to be 8 years old) so Traci graciously stayed behind & entertained the two. Our climb was at sunset and by the time we got to the top the sun was almost gone. It was such a strange sensation to enter the tower. You can sense immediately that it's not straight up.


What an amazing thing that it's still standing and stabilized. A miracle? We had a couple of miracles of our own while trying to leave Pisa. The cars were parked in a big lot a few miles away from the tourist sights. We took a city bus from the parking lot, but failed to check return times. Oops! The buses were not running after 6pm. When we realized this we started walking fast. Taylor was due at the Pisa airport in less than an hour! He had to fly back to France to teach school Friday and that was the only flight out. Panic hit when we walked into a dead end and had no idea where we were going. Remember we had 7 children 4 adults and we are all on foot. There were no taxis or tour guides. Luckily we found the road and made it to the car just in time. While piling kids into the car Taylor looked over at Spencer and noticed that his contact lens had fallen out. Just as Taylor went to catch it the contact fell. In the dark on the blacktop we actually found his contact. Ohhh the miracle of Pisa!