New Years & More Food

For those of you that know, I am not a night person. Even on New Years Eve, I could probably guess I've stayed up til midnight only a few times. So pulling an all nighter just as my body, and Brigitte's was getting used to the 8 hour time change was quite the experience. We partied until 5 am with Jimmy's parents, Petchaye, and Antoine, and Antoine's family. Here's an idea of what it was like...

 Brigitte at 3 am.

 More images on the food:

 This was so delicious! Mushrooms on top and the best pureed potatoes I've ever had!

 Tiramisu

 The most expensive and best macaroons ever! (Thanks Sophie!)

 Dessert

 A typical breakfast

 coffee and chocolate ice cream

 Notre Dome made entirely out of chocolate!

Don't forget to subscribe with your blogger account of your e-mail! Have a great rest of the day, it's sunny outside, and not too cold, so I'm heading out on a walk.

Christmas In Paris

I have been so busy since coming back from Paris, and I'll explain in a later post. But for now lets talk about Paris. So originally our flight was supposed to be 11 hours but because the wind was blowing in our favor, it was only going to take 9 1/2 hours. (I've never heard of that happening). We flew our night time and would be getting into France at around 11:00 in the morning. So I thought, "great, I'll just sleep on the plane." Worst mistake ever! I think I slept maybe 20 minutes between that and the 8 hour difference from France and Idaho, plus having a baby, I was super exhausted the first week.

 That night, December 23rd, we drove around Paris a little bit with Jimmy's parents.

 The next morning, Christmas Eve, Jimmy and I decided to go out for breakfast and get some pastries at the boulangerie. (***For those of you that know my typical diet, I ate way more meat, cheese and pastries than I ever do normally. I've noticed that many French seek for pleasure with out thinking of the consequences, and we definitely over-indulged.) ^^The photo above is the street Jimmy lives on to the left, a church to the right.

 I know, lame, Subway was everywhere, so was McDonalds. But here is a picture of Jimmy and our kaboo (Brigitte).

 Me in front of the place we got breakfast that morning.

 Christmas Eve Dinner:

 I don't even remember when it started, but after each course, someone took your plate, washed it up and brought them back for the next course and we talked (we as in them and translating for me). Dinner took many hours.

 This was appetizers. On the left is fois gras (duck liver) spread on a type of bread. To the right is a different type of bread, kind of like a small pancake, that we put smoked salmon on it.

 We had lamb, it was the best lamb I've ever had, though I'm not a fan of lamb, but this was very good. And green beans wrapped in bacon.

 Then there was cheese, lots of different cheeses. It doesn't seem like a lot of food for sitting at the table for 4-5 hours, but when you're eating slow and enjoying the ambiance, time seems to stop. Infact, I still haven't gotten my sense of time since being back.

 My in-laws, Petchaye and Antoine fell asleep while opening presents at around 2:00am in the morning.

Sohpie's birthdday, Jimmy's sister, is on Christmas eve, but we celebrated it on Christmas, since the French celebrate more the night before. Above is Antoine and Sophie.

Petchaye, Jeremy, Jimmy's brother, and Jimmy's uncle, Patrick.

Jimmy and Danielle. I tried twice to get a good picture of Danielle, but it didn't really work.

Christmas day dinner:

Yes, we had Caviar. Jimmy's dad works at a restaurant as the purchasing agent and for Christmas by the company gets some really nice gifts, this is one of them, so was the cheese.

I could see why Caviar is expensive, it has a fancy texture. (don't really know how to discribe it, but it's like salty melted butter-ish). So here we has barely cooked up eggs and Caviar,....eggs with eggs. and you pick it up with bread. Not a fan of either of the eggs, but it was a good experience.

Above is a castrated rooster. They get nice and plump and moist. It was stuffed with veil and chestnuts.

More chestnuts.

Antoine and Brigitte.

More cheese....

Sophie's birthday dessert....it was very good!

So here is just part of my trip to Paris. Hope you enjoyed and I will post more soon!

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Packing For Paris

I wanted to make sure that I could fit my clothes in a carry-on. I didn't end up putting it on a carry-on, rather, I wanted my suite cases to all be somewhat empty so all my souviners would all fit coming back home. So, in order to make sure I had enough outfits for Paris, I took classic clothing pieces that I could mix and match with, also, that I would be able to nurse in, no problem. Here are just a few things that I packed for my Paris trip this past holiday season...

My top tips when packing are:
1. Don't fold, roll! Rolling your clothes you get more in your suite-case.
2. Put your socks and tights in the shoes. Shoes have empty space that can be filled.
3. Wear the things that take up a lot of space on the airplane. I had on my coat and boots. Packing it is wasting space for more clothes!
4. Plan your outfits. I was able to get a lot more "mileage" out of each item of clothing because I thought through what I was actually going to bring and wear on vacation.

Stay tuned to know how my vacation went.

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