Be careful who you host!

Our Italian adventure ended with us riding the bus/metro home at 2am. After a short night’s sleep, we raced to the grocery store to fill our empty cupboards in preparation for our impending guests (My brother Stuart, his wife Keagan and her parents) who would be arriving that evening! We then raced to catch the RER train to meet up with our guests at the Paris Temple.

Benjin did some sealings with them while I was with the boys and then Stuart watched the boys while the rest of us did a session. It was so great to actually be in the Temple at the same time as Benjin and Stuart managed to keep Pierce from falling into the fountain! Woohoo!! 

Sunday we went to church and stopped by the Chateau Vincennes on our way home. Then during Pierce’s nap Gideon and I took our guests into the bois to go "dog hunting" (don’t worry, no dogs were harmed!) But, my sister-in-law Keagan is a vet-tech and loves dogs and here in France we have an impressively different selection of pet dogs than you find in the states. We had a blast walking around, keeping our eyes peeled for dogs and then standing in awe of Keagan as she expounded on each one using her immense expertise. In the evening we headed downtown to walk around Notre Dame, through the Latin quarter and along the Scene. It's hard to top that! 

Monday, I got to serve as tour guide around Paris hot spots such as Arc de Triumph, Concorde, the Champs Elysee and Jardin des plants. Along our tour we stopped for macaroons at the famous Laduree as well as the historic French perfume shop, Guerlain. It was fun to smell all the beautiful (and not so beautiful aromas). My personal favorite was a perfume timeline where you could smell different perfumes that were popular as far back as the late 1800’s! For lunch we stopped for French Tacos (meat with French fries and gravy/sauce in a tortilla). When the shop owners saw that I had ordered a small side of fries for Pierce to eat, they were so kind and instead gave me a big plate with meat and fries for him. I just love how much people love babies here!! After a quick walk through Jardin des Plants, we ended the day all meeting up downtown for an epic bike ride to the Eiffel tower. It is honestly of my favorite things to do in Paris… It just never gets old to bike along the Seine especially with little Pierce boy making up songs to sing to me along the way. 

Day two of Erin’s Paris tour included a morning stop at Angelina’s for some thicker than mud hot chocolate. Then it was off to the Carnavalet Museum where I showed them my favorite pieces (guillotine earrings, a rope ladder used to escape the Bastille, the full showroom of an art nouveau jewelry shop, etc.) After that we raced over to Les Voisins (our favorite French café) where we met up with Gideon and Benjin. We had a great meal of shrimp soup followed by a plate of black rice with fish swimming in an incredible yellow sauce. Unfortunately the lunch took too long and we were not able to get Gideon back to school on time… so, he played hooky the rest of the day! From there we went by the Palais Garnier and explored the Galleries Lafayette. Finally, we walked through some of the lovely downtown covered passages. In the evening Keagan’s parents were kind enough to watch the boys while Stuart and Keagan joined us on a double date to go rock climbing inside an old church. It was fantastic --- a super fun activity, but also incredibly fun to just chat with each other on the metro.  

On Wednesday our fabulous guests left for Belgium and the Netherlands, and we attempted to put our life back together. In the afternoon, we rode the RER out to our stake center for a stake party because May 1^st in essentially Labor Day here. It was an awesome activity and super fun, but also challenging to jump back into French mode after so many weeks of friends and family all speaking English!

 

Thursday we were back to picnics and parks, school pick-ups and scooter riding, but all too quickly, Friday came and Benjin flew to Scotland for a work conference!

 

The boys and I made it through the weekend with trips to the Ludotheque, movie nights and inviting the missionaries over for dinner… but everyone anxiously awaited daddy coming back!! Especially when we realized that yet again we had a lice problem. AHHHHH!!! 

I was not only horrified by the idea that I may have given our guests lice, but also worried because they were supposed to be coming back the same night Benjin returned for one final stay before flying back to the states. I was sick of playing hostess to the little army of bugs on my family's heads! 

Fortunately, our guests were super good sports and were willing to take the risk and still stay with us Monday night. We met up at Sacre Coeur and then returned home to share some patisseries. It was just so fun to have Uncle Stuart and crew here with us... I guess some guests are just a whole lot more fun to host than others...Unsurprisingly, Lice are NOT on my list of people who are welcome back any time. 

Bisous, 

La famillie Facer