Paris

Ooookay. So we don't just sit around and eat sushi. We do other stuff too! Jesse's sister Tara came to visit, and we had a supercool time. We took her around Canterbury, then on a little trip to Paris. Paris is an interesting, beautiful, dirty, cool place.

On arriving, we were completely lost and very obviously tourists with our backpacks and dazed expressions. We wandered through a sort of dodgy part of town in what we hoped was the direction of the Seine. Thank goodness, Tara spotted some missionaries (one of whom was from Spokane!) who were nice enough to show us around the Metro and point us in the right direction. In the next half hour we saw 10 missionaries (about a third of the missionaries in Paris), and then we didn't see another one the rest of the trip.

We saw all the important stuff--the Louvre, the Eiffel Tower, L'Arc De Triomphe, etc. We climbed the stairs up the Eiffel tower at night, which was pretty cool, and Tara only whined a little. She actually was very pleasant and good company the whole trip. We found some great chocolate creations and a food market. I think my favorite part of the trip was the night we took the train out of Paris to this little bistro on an island in the river. There was an accordion band playing and lots of dancing. It was really casual with dads dancing with their daughters and dogs under the outside tables. We sat outside under the lights and wisteria and ate chocolate mousse. It was lovely, and I wish wish wish we had an equivalent to that type of place in the states. If all my dreams came true, I'd open a pie house and serve pie and hire bands to play and have the whole neighborhood in for dancing. Sigh. Maybe I'll transform Rexburg someday...

All in all, it was a good trip. We shopped (we did, after all, have a 16-year-old in tow), we ate, we danced, we looked at priceless works of art, we got lost, we walked until our feet died. We visited the Ina-recommended Poilane Bakery and Dehillerin cooking supply store. Disappointingly, the nice man in Dehillerin didn't know what I meant as I tried to ask if they had a pastry blender. And he spoke perfect English. And OH YEAH! We went to EuroDisney! I had reservations about spending one of our Paris days in Disneyland, but I'm so glad we went. There were some great rides, and the people had to be nice to us.

Adventures with the Littlewoods

Esther, James, and Elanor came to visit us yesterday, and we had a lot of fun in the sun. We walked, talked, jumped on the trampoline, fed Bugsy the horse, laughed, watched some Black Adder, and ate some brilliant food made by Annie. All in all it was a fantastic day.



Elanor still calls me "Lady Sarah" and to be honest I think that name should stick. I think it has a lovely ring to it. (Anyone reading this can feel free to call me that at any time!)



John and Esther... feel free to come and adventure with us in Chilham anytime! Thank you for the lovely day.

Family Sushi Time

This post is a little late, but last Tuesday we decided to have a sushi night again, since Kathleen and Jesse weren't present for our first one. It was a smashing success. Annie demonstrated how to roll them, and then we were off.

While I can roll em like Annie can I made my share of creations, as did the rest of the table. We also had our share of laughs because we watched the whole first season of "Outnumbered." Annie and I were re watching it, because we had already seen them... the weekend before.



I think Annie missed her calling, and should be a sushi chef.

A Perfect Saturday

While the cats away the mice will play... or make sushi... and watch TV shows.

Jesse, Kathleen, and Tara are busy adventuring in Paris, so Annie and I decided to have an adventure ourselves.

To make sushi! Sister Kinjo taught us the fundamentals this Wednesday, and we wanted to experiment. We also wanted to experiment with British reality TV. So we watched a few episodes of Britain's "So You Think You Can Dance."







The food: a success!

The TV show: a horrific failure! (We really have been spoiled with the American version. I think there is just a greater amount of talent. Then again this is only the second season, maybe it will be better in a few years.)

Broadstairs is closed.... until... Tomorrow

This is a short of picture book of our latest adventures

Beckah, Annie, Allison, and I (all being from the west coast) were in need of seeing the ocean. So we headed towards Broadstairs, which boasted some touristy things to do.



We should have known that things were not going to go our way from the horizontal rain coming at us all day. In the morning we were still optimistic that things would turn our way. Again we should have used our misinformed train conductors as clues to our impending demise. Due to their "helpful" advice our 40 minute train journey turned into an hour and a half.



But finally we made it and were all set to tourist this place up! Too bad luck wasn't on our side. An amazing common thread followed us everywhere we went that day.



(Don't be alarmed... we still laughed our way through the day!)



The theme for the day was CLOSED



First stop on our journey was Dickens House (where he vacationed in the summer)



CLOSED (only open on Saturdays and Sundays during this time of year. We were there on a Friday.)



How about Crampton Tower?



CLOSED... opening for the season the very next day! Was the world playing an awesome joke on us?



Well how about the Crampton Tower Museum? I bet you can guess the answer to that question.

CLOSED



Even the ticket window for the Broadstairs Rail Road... closed... luckily we had already purchased our tickets.



We decided to eat away our sorrows with sweets.

Yum... French Fancies... Chocolate



But do not fret, or feel sorry for us!



We still had a blast every rainy and wet step of the adventure.



And laughed ourselves to tears. (Have I mentioned that I have awesome friends!)



In the words of Allisoni (borrowing from Casablanca)... we'll always have Broadstairs!




I can't wait to see where our next adventure takes us!

In Honor of Spring!

I love flowers. Who doesn't? They're these perfect, beautiful, symbolic, fragrant things that just burst spontaneously from the ground. So here's a little post for my fellow floraphiles. My faves:

Tulips ~ The first year of our marriage, Jesse and I lived in a tiny basement under a shop. In the winter, it felt like a cave. A cave with 70s carpet and 2 rooms. But in the spring, hundreds of tulips popped up all around the yard, and we had them in the house for weeks. Then it was a sunny cave with tulips--a vast improvement.

Dapne ~ If you've ever smelled a daphne bush, you know what I mean. This flower means Spring. It's my favorite smell in the whole world, including chocolate cake, my mom's perfume, old books, fresh-cut grass, and my grandparents' garage.

Crocus ~ After long, long winters in Rexburg, these dear faces pop through the snow around the Taylor building, and sometimes you see little groups of people huddled around them, cheering them on.

Hydrangeas ~ These are my Oregon coast buddies. I can't wait to have them in my yard.

Oh Wisteria. ~ I have had a life-long love affair with Wisteria. My window faced the sideyard as a kid, with a view of the fence and the gravel. One spring, we got a wisteria plant and my parents put it in the sideyard. Love. If I had my way, my entire house would be covered in Wisteria. Don't care if it takes over everything else. Some things you just can't fight.

Stargazer lilies ~ I took a semester off one fall in undergrad and worked at a call center for one of those online florists. It was a terrible business, during a displaced time, and I used to look at these lillies during calls and imagine having my own house someday and keeping Stargazers in the kitchen.

Zinnias ~ I was not a spoiled child, except in one respect: we had a pool. My Dad, a landscape architect, designed our pool to look like a pond, with a sort of kidney bean shape, a black bottom, and planters. In the summer, these were filled with Zinnias in all the colors of a sunset.

Peonies ~ At Pike Street Market in Seattle, the stands just spill over with Peonies in the spring and early summer.

And so many more.

These Days

On Friday morning, our dear Emma's father passed away. The last time we saw him was Christmas, which he spent cracking sly grandpa jokes. He was sick for only a few months, and their family was able to all be with him when he died. I can't speak for the rest of the Pilgrims, but at this stage in our lives, when sometimes it feels like we've sort of scraped together our little temporary family, it has been so nice to be a very small part of a very real family. Here's to good examples and families holding together.