It hit 98F and felt like 100F. Still managed to squeeze in a little sightseeing (just me, Bee, and Vince). We went to a shopping area around l'église de la Madeleine. The church there is modeled after a Greek temple and is beautiful and quite dramatic. Vince and I shopped at IKEA while Bee window shopped all the bougie designer boutiques. I was sad to see that Hediard, a wonderful gourmet boutique had permanently closed.

Bee and I stopped in Fauchon for some fancy looseleaf tea and then we all went to Laduree for the best macarons in the world.

I spent the rest of the day booking train tickets for our side trips and also grocery shopping at Monoprix. I found a bottle of Newman's Own ranch dressing there!

The heat wave is nearly unbearable. It's going to be worse tomorrow. They are predicting highs of 101F. Did I mention there are no fans in our house either? Well, that's not exactly true. Jonathan's bedroom came with a tiny little desk fan. Guess he got lucky. Thomas's bedroom is in basement level, so it's nice and cool for him. He loves to remind us of this fact. It's supposed to cool down next week. Fingers crossed.

Today was Thomas's day to choose what we do. He wanted to go to a gaming store and get some dice and Pokemon cards. We visited a shop called Starplayer. It was really good! I made me think of my friends back home that I play board games with. I'll definitely be going back there. Thomas did find Pokemon cards at this location, so we'll keep trying other shops.

After shopping, we saw a little Thai restaurant across the way and decided to eat there for lunch. It was so good! It is called Taeng Thai (33 Pl. Maubert, 75005 Paris, France). It was a bit expensive for lunch, but we loved everything. I need to do better with taking pictures!

On our way back home, we enjoyed a musician playing in the Metro station. Vince thought he recognized what was being played but couldn't name it. I wasn't sure either. Maybe you are?

A heat wave is sweeping through Paris. Air conditioning is very rare here so we are doing our best to keep cool. I took Vince and Bee with me to the neighborhood open air market and loaded up on fresh fruit and vegetables. Really though - the strawberries are to die for. Vince was in need of a new belt and we found a vendor who custom sized a nice leather belt for Vince, right there on the spot. So cool. It looks rather spiffy too. We also found a bagel shop there. They were good, but not really bagel like. There's no chew, more soft and bread-like.

It was Jonathan's day to pick our activities and he chose to play D&D with the whole family, with me as the DM. I have NO IDEA what I am doing, but they seemed to have fun. I'm learning as I go. It's nice to spend time together as a family like that. We are a lovely crew of weirdos.

We had my birthday cake today, since I wasn't able to get one yesterday. It was a fraisier cake from a nearby patisserie. Delicious isn't strong enough a word for how good it was. Vince took a picture, he'll post it on his page at some point.

Today I am 52 years old! Never would have thought I would ever spend a birthday in Paris. I'm remembering back to my senior year of high school and my ambition to backpack around Europe on a Eurailpass. I was a francophile then and that never went away. I am also finding myself eternally grateful to my French teacher, Bernard Manker III, because those 2 years with him in high school have certainly stuck. I surprise myself daily how much French I am able to quickly speak and to understand.

Wednesday is my day to chose what we see and do and of course, a big hiccup would occur. My plans were for us to just bop on over to the Louvre first thing in the morning, get our annual membership, and spend about 1 1/2 hours there in the Denon wing, looking at the Greek and Roman sculpture. I discovered, one does not simply go to the Louvre willy-nilly anymore. On fait une réservation à l'avance! Oh well. So I made a reservation for 3:30 in the afternoon, with the intention of mainly just getting our membership and seeing a little bit of art for an hour. So for our morning sightseeing, we hop on the Metro to see Notre Dame.

It was fascinating to see the reconstruction. The site was surrounded by tall fencing so you couldn't see much, but what I could see was so interesting - seeing what was once hidden structures. Before leaving Notre-Dame, I left some of my mom's ashes there in remembrance of our time there. She thought it was so beautiful and took so many pictures.

We also had a little fun in the souvenir shops. The boys loved being able to spend some of their euros on themselves. From Notre Dame, we walked to Île Saint-Louis. I love this little place for shopping and also for a gelato place there. My first time in Paris, Vince and I were wandering down Rue Saint-Louis en l'Île and found Amorino. They had pear gelato that was one of the best things I have ever eaten. I revisited when I was in Paris with my mom and they did not have pear then. So I crossed my fingers and went back again... nope. Still, it's all delicious there! We also sampled crepes sucre from a nearby creperie. Vince and I had a nice time reminiscing and we did some shopping. I bought a painting from a gallery that reminded me of my sweet little Max who just died before we left. I will post a picture of it later.

We got pretty tired out from walking and so we headed back to home. Very close to our house is a little hole-in-the-wall quick order restaurant called My Food. They have pizza, "tacos" (burritos really), sandwiches, burgers, etc. We decided today was the perfect day to try them out. They were quite good and it is very nice to have them so close by. The prices were very cheap by Parisian standards and the portions were very substantial.

Then it was soon time to leave for our Louvre reservation. The website forces you to purchase tickets, which I found annoying as I was planning to buy a membership. I couldn't get the membership online, so I crossed my fingers that they would deduce the cost of our tickets from the membership. Well Jonathan and Thomas were exhausted and didn't want to come. So they stayed behind and Vince, Bee, and myself left for the Louvre. It was a long line even with the reservation and things were not well marked, so we ended up waiting in the wrong line. And it was blistering hot. So we eventually got in at around 4pm and then began my adventure in securing a membership and getting a ticket refund. It was close to 5pm, I think, before we were in the museum to begin looking at art.

We did head to the Denon wing, as I had originally planned. I was thrilled to be able to take my time with the artworks. Most visitors to the Louvre spend only a few seconds looking if at all, due to the immensity of the collection. I mean, that's what I did the 1st two times I visited. Already I noticed things about a couple of my favorite pieces I hadn't noticed before. I also discovered some new pieces I had previously overlooked. We stayed until closing, at 6pm, all three of us quite exhausted. We headed home to figure out dinner.

I had intended for us to go out to a French brasserie for dinner, but we were all so tired. So I tried my hand at ordering food delivery. That was a colossal fail because the service, for some reason, does not accept American credit cards. Here I was, all excited to have a nice Thai dinner delivered and that was a big nope. So we ended up walking to a brasserie not very far from the home. We had a delicious dinner (I enjoyed my steak frites very much) and an even more deliciously decadent dessert (I had creme brulee, a favorite of mine).

Despite the mishaps, it was a very happy birthday.

I absolutely LOVE open air markets. Our neighborhood market is on Tuesdays and Thursdays and is only a few blocks away. I was so excited to do my fist visit to the market, which opens at 7am, that I was there first thing, with my little wheeled cart in tow to stuff all my culinary treasures into. Annnnnddd... only a handful of venders were actually set up already. So I sat at the nearest café and enjoyed a coffee while I waited.

I was on a mission. Get the most delicious fresh French strawberries (they are in season right now) and my favorite olives that I can't find anywhere in the United States - niçoise. Mission accomplished. Really though, the strawberries are superior. So tender, sweet, and juicy. They are how strawberries are supposed to be. We ate the lot within minutes. My niçoise olives are a lovely snack.

Tuesday is Bee's day and he wanted to check out the Lego Store and a large mall called Westfield Forum des Halles. Vince, Jonathan, and Thomas had no interest in joining our shopping adventures and stayed at home. I found some earrings at Balaboosté, which is a bit like Claire's. Upon leaving the mall, we saw a beautiful church very close by and walked up to admire it. It is L'église Saint-Eustache. Saint Eustache (Eustachius in Latin) is the patron saint of hunters and Madrid. He was an early church martyr who was roasted to death inside a brass bull (with his family). This particular church claims to have some his relics.

We found a nice little Lebanese restaurant nearby - Al Boustan. We shared a chicken shawarma, fattoush, and seasoned roasted potatoes. All very delicious. I highly recommend it.

Waking up in Paris, in our lovely little neighborhood, knowing I'm about to enjoy the simple pleasure of walking a couple blocks to get fresh croissants for the morning's breakfast was bliss. Vince walked with me and we stopped at the nearby café for a coffee. The croissants were très délicieux.

We decided as a family that Monday-Friday, each of us would be assigned a day and that person would get to choose one thing to do as a family for that day. Monday is Vince's day and he chose going to see the Eiffel Tower. So after breakfast, we headed to our Metro station (Vaugirard) to get our Navigo passes which would give us unlimited local transportation. The passes require a photograph and fortunately, they had a photobooth right there. It took quite a while to get the whole process done (but worth it - financially and for the convenience). By the time we got to the Eiffel Tower, there were long lines already.

As the way things are in the world now, they have added a security screening gateway. I had just finished warning my kids about all the pick-pockets and scammers and the various scams that they run. With the security and fencing in place around the base now, all those elements were virtually gone - just a few cheap trinket venders outside the security lines. As we approached the entrance, we saw that due to the crowds being too large, they were not allowing entry to the top level. Quel dommage. And it was such a beautiful day outside too.

I remembered my time here with my mom. We were both so happy that day.

So we opted to come back another time and just walked around, still in awe of the iconic structure. A lot of effort is going on towards cleaning and sprucing up the area in preparation for the Olympics, so some of the gardens near the tower we're blocked off. Still, we enjoyed the sightseeing a great deal. We are all building our walking stamina significantly.

Last night, none of us made it to 8pm before crashing to sleep. I think I gave in around 7pm and then I woke up at 9pm, looked at the time and thought it was 9am. So I woke everyone up and said - we slept in! The free breakfast ends at 10am, so let's get moving. To my horror, after everyone was begrudgingly getting up, I realized it was only 9pm. OUCH. They were all just so grateful to be back in bed, no one got mad about it.

But it was not a good night sleep for any of us. Nevertheless, we got up around 7am (really in the morning this time). We headed down to the hotel restaurant for their breakfast, which was a really nice buffet. Everyone feasted on croissants and cafe latte. While the kids fell in love with the croissants, Vince fell in love with the coffee.

After breakfast, we decided to take the Metro into Paris and wander around. We couldn't check into the house until 4pm and we had our hotel room until 2pm. I randomly chose a stop - Saint-Michel Notre-Dame - and we started walking. We found La Sorbonne and sat down at a cafe called Les Patios to have a drink and start living la vie parisienne. Here we discovered that pop is the most expensive thing to order.

From there we continued our meandering and quickly landed at le jardin du Luxembourg. The weather was perfect and the scenery was so beautiful. I couldn't have asked for a more beautiful first day of sightseeing in Paris. Some cover band was performing and they were doing 1 minute segments of all kinds of pop songs. I thought it was odd that they just performed snippets. It was like they were auditioning for a bar mitzvah. We enjoyed ourselves at the park very much and started to develop our leg muscles with a great deal of walking.

We got hungry and left the gardens to find something to eat. We were looking at the time as well to make sure we returned to our hotel at Charles de Gaulle before checkout. We found a lovely patisserie called Angelina next to a small art museum. We decided to have pastries for lunch and they were SO delicious! Bee tried a glass of white wine, giddy to be able to order it. After we hurried back to the Metro and back to the hotel to check out. Our taxi arrived at 3pm and we left to move into our home for the summer!

What a beautiful house! Our hosts, Jean and Sophie were so gracious and took their time to show us their home and how things work. I think we were all in a bit of a daze and tired from our sightseeing and the jetlag. Not long after moving in, we all headed to a little grocery store not far from the house - Franprix. We purchased some quick meal items for our dinner and a few essentials to tide us over through the next day. I located the nearest boulangerie and cafe so I could get fresh croissants and coffee in the morning. We all slept much better in our new home.

Charles de Gaulle - If only every airport sent its luggage so efficiently. We had our 8 checked bags in a matter of minutes. And carts are free (O'Hare charges $7).

Going through customs is so different!! So fast too. Just scanned my passport electronically, then step into this tube that scans your face, then you pass through and walk a few steps to an agent window. They asked no questions and stamped my passport and that was that!

It took a while to find our hotel (Charles de Gaulle Hilton)as we got bad directions from the information desk. We were approached by the same beggar numerous times. Nerves were a bit frazzled but we finally found the hotel. We had to wait 1.5 hours for our rooms to be ready, but we had the executive lounge to wait in. More free food and drinks and a comfortable quiet space. We all kept nodding off. Trying to make it until 8pm so we can adjust to the time change more quickly.

We decided to just stay in at the hotel rather than head into the city to see the Eiffel Tower. It was a quick walk to a little Monoprix and we grabbed some sandwiches and snacks there. Vince and I were remembering our first meal in Paris last time we were here was McDonalds. So we think we're doing a much better job this time.

Tomorrow, we check into our house!

We packed the Suburban and got to the airport with plenty of time. Construction was terrible around Chicago so I'm so glad we ended up having to take a limo service.

We lived it up at the American Airlines Admiral's Lounge while waiting for our flight to board. They had a made to order guacamole stand that was delish. It was really nice to have the space, comfort, and quiet that the lounge offered. Free food and drink was great too.

We boarded on time and very smoothly into our Premium Economy seats. WORTH EVERY PENNY! Vince couldn't believe the legroom. I think I got about 1.5 hours of sleep. Landed pretty jetlagged but excited.

"Hello, is this Khrysta Locke? Hi, unfortunately, we have not been able to secure a minivan for your reservation tomorrow morning. I can offer you a Chevy Equinox instead..." said the Hertz worker.

I know you wear a size 11 shoe, but I have a size 5 instead. Will that work?

So I hired a limo service instead. There is a silver lining - I don't have to drive or deal with rental car return at O'Hare. We'll be riding in a luxury SUV.

Leaving in 13 hours!