You're the top ... you're the Louvre Museum
Extra credit if you can immediately, without looking it up, identify the movie* from which this (slightly altered) title quote, and the others sprinkled throughout this post, came.
(Well, wait. The quote beneath the above photo is from a song by Cole Porter. But the rest of them, I mean.)
There's a reason.
The night before the great Gallic getaway
Let's back up for a mo.
You aren't likely to remember this so I'll remind you that we met Mike, our Audrey's boyfriend, this past New Year's Eve.
There's a first time for everything
It was a Sunday, and that morning, he joined our church. He'd been attending for several months, but none of us knew him.
I had been sick over Christmas and so I'd decided to break with tradition and do some proper celebrating on New Year's Day.
I made some festive foods and so forth, and we invited Mike to join us, and he did.
Round up the usual suspects
Within a few weeks, by mid-January, he and Audrey were dating.
But on New Year's Day 2024 over snacks and so forth, Mike told me that he was anticipating a trip to Paris in early May.
Play it again, Sam
It had been planned for some time. Mike's wife passed away in 2020; they had been married for thirty-one years and their three children are now adults.
Their eldest daughter lives in Austin, Texas. Their middle child, a son, lives in Virginia Beach, Virginia. Their youngest, another daughter, lives in Cambridge, England, where her husband is stationed with the Air Force.
She has two small sons -- Mike's grandchildren.
Dagny snoozing in the Uber on the way to the hotel in Paris
Mike's elderly but still young-at-heart mother lives here in Columbia.
Mike had planned for his mother to accompany him to Paris in May, and for all three of his children to meet up with them there, for several days of seeing the sights and hanging out together.
We made it to the City of Light
I was amazed as Mike told me on New Year's Day that the lodging arrangements for the group in Paris were not what one might think.
As in, everyone was not staying in one place.
No, he said. We don't do it that way. I have an Airbnb for my kids. My mother is booked at the Holiday Inn. And I have a room at the Hyatt.
Mike on a break for refreshments
I was laughing at that when he said, I just want to go to my room at the end of the day and have silence.
Or words to that effect.
Dagny relaxing at the Luxembourg Gardens ... click to embiggen
But it wasn't long at all before Mike had invited Audrey and Dagny to come along on that trip.
He said that he would give them his room at the Hyatt, and he would stay with his children at the Airbnb, foregoing much of the silence and peace he had arranged for himself.
But as we know, it's all good. The more the merrier, and so forth and so on.
This is the beginning of a beautiful friendship
Audrey ran the plan by me and her dad, and we were a tad bit shocked, but we agreed that it would be nice for Audrey and Dagny to have a chance to go to Paris and meet Mike's children.
(Audrey has been to Paris once before, in 2005, when my mother treated her to the trip as a college graduation present. She was eager to return.)
Taking the Paris Métro to the Louvre this morning
So the grand preparations began. Audrey's passport had expired and Dagny didn't have one. Those documents were secured and we began counting down the days.
Less than a week before the trip, the travelers started to get sick. It was a stomach bug. First Dagny, then a few days later Audrey, and finally even Mike had it.
Empress Eugénie's diamond brooch on display at the Louvre
Last Friday evening Audrey and Dagny dropped by the house and Audrey was still pale. But she said she felt much better. Mike was doing all right too.
The next day (last Saturday), the group -- Mike, his mother (Miss Judy), Audrey, and Dagny -- left Columbia in the early morning for Charlotte International Airport where they caught a flight to Dallas-Fort Worth.
Mona Lisa, Mona Lisa, men have named you
After several hours there and a two-plus-hour delay departing for Europe due to technical issues, they were off to Paris.
From there they traveled for nearly ten hours, through the night, and arrived in Paris just before six o'clock in the morning Eastern time (around noon Paris time) yesterday.
For snacks, Paul is a friendly bakery
I had been watching their flights on FlightAware all day and until I went to bed on Saturday night. I woke up Sunday morning at around five, and shortly afterward checked on their progress. They were fifteen minutes from landing at Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris.
They deplaned, collected their luggage, and Mike got Ubers for everyone. Dagny and Audrey were checked in to the Hyatt Paris Madeleine and got freshened up. Dagny was served a Coke, with ice, in the lobby. She was thrilled.
Gorgeous springtime skies in Paris
Miss Judy was ensconced at the Holiday Inn Gare de Lyon and Mike was getting unpacked at the Airbnb with his offspring.
Then they went out for a bit of sightseeing, and coffee, and an early supper. Dagny had pined for a baguette for weeks, and finally got her hands on one at Paul.
By around eight in the evening last night, they were back in their room and preparing to go to bed. Not having been able to sleep on the plane, Audrey had been awake for nearly thirty-three hours.
Dagny models her beret at the Blvd Saint-Michel flea market
Today they toured the Louvre. They saw the crown jewels of Louis XV and also those of Empress Eugénie, wife of Napoleon III (Napoleon Bonaparte's nephew), president of the Second Republic of France from 1850 to 1852 and emperor of France from 1852 to 1870.
Eugénie's diamond brooch caught my eye. Audrey says its much better in person, haha.
Dramatic skies over a cathedral near Notre Dame
Before she went to bed and slept the untroubled sleep of a child, Dagny wrote a note to the hotel housekeeping staff. It read:
Review From Dagny W.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
5 stars ... I absolutely LOVE it here. nice BATH, nice complimentery (sic) coke, & water.
Also the room lighting is Perfect.
She mentioned the room lighting! That's my granddaughter for sure. Pirates be all about mood lighting.
And finally, the Eiffel Tower coruscating against the night sky
There were hundreds of people jostling to get near the Mona Lisa. Audrey sent me a video and it was insane. But eventually she got close enough to take a picture of the most famous painting in the world.
Afterwards Dagny bought herself a beret in a flea market (she had a few Euros in her wallet) on the Boulevard Saint-Michel, and then they went for hot chocolate before taking the Métro to see the Eiffel Tower all lit up at night.
Here's looking at you, kid
Meanwhile back here in Columbia, Chad and Erica celebrated their sixth wedding anniversary on May the fourth.
They took a day trip with the boys on the day, but last evening we had a mini photo shoot.
After their wedding at our church on May 4, 2018, the photographer had them walk across the street to a field our church owns.
Elliot a/k/a Skippy is a classic Mama's Boy
Late April and early May each year, the field is filled with yellow flowers. I'm sure it's a weed but they're pretty, however very quickly they get mown down by church maintenance.
And since Erica has photos of herself and Chad on their wedding day walking and posing in the field of yellow flowers, she likes to recreate that every year.
Once a fine romance, now a family affair
So it was that last night she asked me to do the honors after our evening church service.
It was a little after seven o'clock, so the light was perfect, and there was a beautiful sky.
Rhett and Elliot made four, but I got a few shots of Cherica by themselves too.
The Germans wore gray ... you wore blue
All of these pictures remind me to count my blessings, name them one by one.
I'll keep you up to date as to the goings and doings of the group in France, but TG and I are going on an adventure of our own this week.
And you will be required obliged to read all about that, after the fact.
Keep a weather eye on the horizon!
And that is all for now.
*Casablanca (1942)
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Happy Monday :: Happy Mother's Day Week
