~Family Night- Pumpkin Carving~

Our annual Wangsgard pumpkin carving was at our house this year, since my parents were heading back from Las Vegas.  They made it back just in time to carve pumpkins.  The kids had fun carving, although cleaning out the pumpkins got old pretty quick for them, hahaha.  They all made the comments "Mom, will you finish cleaning out my pumpkin?"  I did give in at the end, and helped them a bit.  They had fun though.

Grandpa was a party pooper and didn't carve a pumpkin :)

We have now our jack-o-lanterns, so we are ready for Halloween!

~Trunk or Treat~

This month has been so busy!  I haven't even had a chance to think about Halloween costumes.  I am so glad our ward had a trunk or treat, it forced me to get the costumes ready. And forced the kids to make up their minds of what they were going to be.

Mckell and Lexi were both Witches, which worked out perfect because Mckell has to be a witch for her school program on Halloween.

Garrett was an alligator.  He loved carrying his bucket around, but wasn't into getting candy.  He went to 2 cars, and then he was done.  He just wanted to carry his bucket around, which was all good with me.

Hunter was Rocky.  He really wanted to be Santa Claus, but for whatever reason I just didn't feel good about it.  I didn't feel it was appropriate to dress up for Santa on Halloween. And I didn't know if it was appropriate to dress up as Santa since there were lots of little kids around.  Maybe I'm over reacting, but Hunter was a good sport and picked another costume last minute.

Dave was a goblin/troll.  Garrett did not like Dave's mask.  At first he would run away from Dave crying for me to pick him up.  But after awhile, he would just growl at Dave.  He'd still run to me, but once I was holding him, he'd just look at Dave and growl.  It was funny.

Mckell with some of her friends.

I was a doctor.

Lexi and Lauren

The kids going through their candy stash.  They love Halloween!

~Fieldtrip to the Pumpkin Patch~

Lexi's Preschool, SmartyPants Preschool, had their first fieldtrip to Black Island Farms to get pumpkins.  It was the perfect day to head to the pumpkin patch!  Lexi and her little friends had so much fun.

Dallas, Melyn, Lexi, and Andrew.  Dallas joined our preschool today for our class fieldtrip.

Lexi and Garrett heading out on the tractor ride to get their pumpkins.  Garrett LOVED the tractor!

 

Such a fun day!

~Versailles~

The next day I had a travel buddy.  Yeah!!!! Dave was able to spend the day with me, which was nice because he has been to Paris twice and never seen anything touristy.  Today we decided to go visit Versailles.

The palace is beautiful.  Each room is so exquisite.  To be honest, I liked the artwork and statues much more at Versailles than I did at the Louvre.  So beautiful!

The grounds.  We were amazed to find out that in the days of King Louis XIV, about 10,000 people lived here at the palace.  From the royal family, to servants, to the court.  That is a lot of people, but the palace and grounds are so large, that it could totally accommodate all those people.

Its funny because the summer between my Junior and Senior year of high school, I went with the German teacher and a group to Europe.  I spent 3 weeks traveling Europe.  We went to 5 different countries; Austria, Germany, Switzerland, France, and England.  So I've been to France before.  But if you asked me what we did in France, I couldn't tell you.  Since we traveled to a new city a day, and saw many sites, it all blurred together.  I wouldn't have been able to tell you what we did in the different countries, or even what belonged to each site we visited.  I  could tell you the names of the places we visited, but what was in those places, I couldn't remember.  As I was visiting all the different sites of Paris, it all came flooding back.  Of what I saw back in high school, what I liked about each place, etc.  It was nice to remember :)

I figured Dave couldn't go back home without seeing a few more of the sites. So we visited a few that I'd saw the day before.  Then we headed out on a boat tour of the city.  It was cool to see the city at night.  Our favorite thing we saw on the boat tour was Notre-Dame.  It looked so pretty all lit up.

It was a fun trip.  I am really glad that I was able to tag along with Dave on his work trip. :)

 

~The Sites of Paris~

The next day Dave woke up bright and early to get on the bullet train and head into Grenoble.  He had meetings there all day.  On the bullet train, Grenoble was a 3 hour ride away.  He was going to be gone all day long, so it was up to me to find what I was going to do.

To be honest, I didn't want to go out exploring.  I was a little afraid to go out into the city alone.  I was afraid I would get mugged, kidnaped, or lost.  And no one would even know where to look for me.  I kept trying to talk myself into just staying at the hotel and go swimming in the pool, but then I'd think that was silly.  I didn't come all this way to sit in the hotel.  I finally talked myself into going out and sightseeing, which I'm so glad I did.  I headed to the Eiffel Tower, which to my surprise was pretty easy to find.

It was poring rain, but that didn't stop me from visiting the city.  And never mind the several pictures of myself you are about to see.  You can't go to Paris and see all the sights and not have pictures to show you were there :)
At the Eiffel Tower, I got on the Hop on Hop off tour bus, which took me to all the major sites of the city.  It was my favorite thing I did while in Paris!
Next I headed to the Louvre.  It was nice to get inside since it was pouring rain.

The Mona Lisa

I walked through the entire museum, which was pretty big.  It was fun to see how the artwork got better over the centuries.  The bodies in the paintings became better proportioned and more lifelike.

After the Louvre, I hopped back on the bus and stopped at Notre-Dame.

It really is the most beautiful church.  I was surprised to find that this is still a active working church.  I guess I just figured it wasn't because of all the tourists that were filling the halls.  There were people in the confession rooms and a choir was performing up by the alter.  It just surprised me :)

Jumped back on the bus to see the Arc De Triomphe.  It was fun to watch all of the cars drive around it.  I learned that this is the area of Paris I would stay in if I ever come back.  There was lots of shopping, you were close to all the touristy sites, lots of little cafe's and restaurants, and most of the places speak English.  After touring the city, I realized to get from our hotel to the city you had to go through some pretty rough neighborhoods, which to be honest scared me.  I felt totally safe in the city.  This is what I thought Paris would be like.  It was clean, the buildings were beautiful, as well as the bridges and parks.  I even felt safe enough to stay and see the Eiffel Tower at night.  Very pretty!

I really didn't want to leave the city and head back to my hotel because I was afraid to ride the metro back, but I survived :)
Not only did I realize Paris has some pretty scary neighborhoods, as does any city, but I realized I love to travel, just not alone.  I had an enjoyable day, but I think I would have enjoyed it more if I had someone to share it with.  I saw such cool things, and had no one to talk about it with.  I was so lucky to be able to go to Paris, I just think next time, I need a travel buddy :)