Paris and Heidelberg

It's been almost two months since we took our amazing 9 day trip to Heidelberg and Paris (thanks FF miles!) I think pretty much everyone reading this has seen more of the pictures and heard about our trip, so I won't go into blow by blow detail about everything. If you want to know more, please ask! I thought that I'd just list my favorite places to eat and things we did.

Paris:
1. Falafel at Au L'As du Fallafel: They say it's the best falafel in the world. I know that it was definitely the best I've ever had.
2. L'Avant Comptoir: A teeny, tiny bar/restaurant that's adjacent to a much more expensive, fancier place. This place was incredible. You order from a huge menu (pictures of the different items hanging from the ceiling) tapas-style and eat standing up at the bar. Awesome!
3. Bread! Every kind and everywhere!
4. Spring Restaurant: Our fanciest, most unique meal of the trip. The chef is actually American, but has been in Paris a long time. It's also a very small place, with the tables seated around the kitchen so you see and hear everything. It was awesome.
5. Fat Tire Bike Tour: We took a 4 hour guided bike tour around Paris. Highly recommended!
6. Musee d'Orsay: I love this museum. My favorite museum in Paris is the Picasso museum, but it's closed for renovations. The d'Orsay is a close second. We ended up going on the first day of the month, when it's free to everyone....so the line getting in was long. But, I guess it was nice to save that money.
7. The Latin Quarter, St. Germain des Pres, and the Marais: Beautiful neighborhoods. One of my most favorite things was to just walk around these areas and the parks within each. We stayed in the Latin Quarter and liked it, but we might want to stay in the Marais district next time. So beautiful!
8. The Eiffel Tower at night: We didn't go up at night, but we watched the sunset behind it from the lawn. A lot of people had picnics and wine- very romantic!

Heidelberg:
1. Vetter - awesome, traditional brew house. We ate there 3 times in 3 days!
2. Hot chocolate at a Belgian chocolate house on the Hauptstrasse.
3. Walking around the Hauptstrasse (main shopping drag) and people watching.
4. The castle lighting and fireworks at night, illuminating the Heidelberg Castle.
5. Our hotel- it was right off the river in a historic townhouse with a little balcony.

Things that make me happy

...at the moment:

1. The new Bon Iver album
2. The new Fleet Foxes album
3. Planning Sarah's bridal shower
4. Thinking about Sarah's wedding and the fun we'll have in Baton Rouge in October
5. Listening to music with Matt (this is always)
6. Tacos on Buford Highway...followed by a foot massage at a Korean spa on Buford Highway
7. Reading some new blogs that I've discovered
8. Cold drinks
9. Talking to friends (this is also always)
10. Family (also, always...of course!)
11. Thinking back on our wedding day, now that our 4 year anniversary is next week
12. Dreaming about the beach- our trip to FL is coming soon!

Good friends have great kids

Hi everyone,

Again, I realize that I have major gaps between my posts:(
I've been thinking about changing the name of this blog for awhile now, so I did. What do you think? For some reason, I feel that would help me to write more and find a better focus to this blog. We'll see....

I need to post some pictures and details of our recent trip to Paris and Heidelberg, which, in a word, was amazing! I will do that soon, I promise. I'm co-teaching a summer class this semester, so that and a research project are keeping me fairly busy this summer. I can't believe that we're now in July!

This week I've been thinking a lot about my friends who have kids (which is now most of my friends). One of the coolest things about the last few years has been seeing my friends become moms and to meet their beautiful kids. On Monday, I watched my friend's 2 year old son while she and her husband ran the Peachtree Road Race. It was such a nice morning and he is just the coolest and smartest kid ever. He's not the only cool kid though. It's been lots of fun to meet and spend time with my friends' kids and see how their own personalities and parenting styles are coming out in their kids. And while I realize that this is not a revelation, I thought the other day- Wow- Cool people have cool kids! (Insert the duh! here). Of course, I know this already because just look at my parents and me/ my siblings:)-

I took a couple of pictures from Monday morning, but I'm becoming more conscious of posting kids' pictures on the web, so I won't post it here. Instead, I'll post one from our trip as a teaser:)