One Day at a Time

A few months back, I found this idea on Pinterest, and it was one of the first things that caught my eye on the website. I started on it immediately and vowed to begin writing on January 1, 2012.

Well, I forgot about it... but remembered it today. And I figured I'm only a week late, I can remember something from each day in the past week, right? Yes ma'am, I can. :) So I finished writing the date on each and every card, since I only got through the end of June when I first started. I couldn't find a date stamper anywhere, so I figured I'd just write them out myself.
Why is it when you write the same word over and over again, it starts to look like it's spelled incorrectly? August gave me nightmares...

I still want/need to find postcards to put between the months, but I also color-coded them so it's easy to tell them apart. I've been searching to find the perfect box to put them in, since the original creator used fruit boxes and I didn't have any--but truth be told, I wanted to find something a bit different and more "me."

As I finished writing all the dates on them today, I thought of the perfect box:

January 1, 2012: Kissed under the Eiffel Tower at midnight, then went to the top during the day.

 

I love Fossil watches, and so does Arron, so we have several of these boxes around the house. I swear by them to travel with--they're perfect to put bobby pins and hair ties in, and another for jewelry. So I figured why not use it for my calendar journal?

I'm really hoping I keep up with this, because I think it could be a really cool thing to have around in a couple years, especially when we have kids and can mark when they said their first words and took their first steps, etc. :)

Ciao ciao!

P.S. I'm working diligently to update on our Paris trip... it's taking forever to upload pictures! Day 2 is uploading now. :)

Paris--Day 2

Day two in Paris... December 30, 2011. We decided to head to the Louvre and to Notre Dame, since the Louvre would close early on New Year's Eve, and we had no idea how long we would want to spend in there.

 Getting ready in the hotel. 

 We started playing with the different functions with my camera, including black and white.

 We saw some cool postcards along this same line, so we tried it for ourselves. I wish I could have had someone videotape us, we were in all sorts of weird positions to try to get the right shot! 

 The Trocadero.

 Starting out our walk to the Louvre.

 This one is actually really cool... We walked past it, not knowing what it was. A couple days later (we were still in Paris), we found out it is a life-size replica of the Liberty Torch the Statue of Liberty in New York holds. On top of that, it is placed above the tunnel where Princess Diana died in 1997, and became an unofficial memorial for her afterward.

 Hotel des Invalides.

 Assemblee Nationale Palais Bourbon

 This bridge was a lot of fun to play with perspectives... Arron took this one.

 My mind's eye worked a bit different than his, and I took this one. :)

This one just made us laugh.

The Louvre!

It was a lot smaller than we expected.

 In the other courtyard, where our wait began. From where we got in line, it said the expected wait time was 2 hours. It ended up being an hour and a half, thank God.

 From inside the Louvre. 

 It was pretty crowded!

 I loved this statue.

 The real reason we went into the Louvre! It was bigger than expected, because everyone told us how "small" is was. According to Wikipedia, it's 30 inches by 21 inches.

 Arron really liked the colors in this picture.

 I loved this ceiling.

We did not realize how far away the Louvre actually was, and Notre Dame was even further past the Louvre. From our hotel, the Louvre was 4 miles one way, and Notre Dame was another half mile past that. Which means (not including walking around the Louvre), we walked at least 9 miles in about 7 hours. I dressed to look cute, not to actually walk forever and a day. By the end of the day I was limping from my boots (which are usually super comfortable), and my right knee had started to ache. It was a lesson for me to always Google Map how far away these things are, and to dress comfortably, even if it is like a tourist (jeans and tennis shoes).

We went back to the hotel and rested up, especially since we were still jet-lagged and wanting to nap in the middle of the day. Later that evening, we went to the Eiffel Tower again after dinner to try to play with some of the shutter speeds on my camera to try to get better pictures of the twinkling lights. :)

 The fog was crazy looking!

 Love me some black & white.

 A guy nearby offered to take our picture. It was raining, which accounts for the spots on the lens.

That's day 2, finally. Hopefully will get day 3 up soon! Ciao!

Paris--Day 1

After spending 18 wonderful (but not-so-relaxing) days in Houston with family, Arron and I set off to Paris, France, for five days. We specifically planned our trip to coincide with New Year's Eve in the City of Lights.

We flew AirFrance out of Houston straight to Paris, arriving at 8:30 in the morning. It was the easiest trans-Atlantic flight I've had so far. I slept most of the way, and when we were close to arrival we looked out the window (approx 7:30 am) and it was still dark. Huh? Ok... We landed and it was still dark. Apparently the sunrise in Paris this time of year doesn't occur until 8:45 in the morning. Weird!

We grabbed our luggage and then jumped into a taxi and headed for our hotel. I found Hotel de l'Avre online with great reviews (8/10), and it included breakfast and was within walking distance from the Eiffel Tower. I knew from our experience in Verona for our first anniversary in August 2010 that "walking distance" in Europe can mean 30 minutes or more, but Google Maps told us it would take us 20. Deal. We arrived at the hotel only to be told that our room wouldn't be ready until 2 or 3 pm, and it was 10 at the time. This is my only complaint about the hotel, period. So we dropped off our luggage (the guy took it and asked if we packed for a month, ha!) and left to wander Paris.

Now, if you know me, I travel comfortably. This means sweatpants and a hoodie with tennis shoes. I may look frumpy, but it's comfortable. Arron, on the other hand, can fly in a t-shirt, jeans, and boots. Don't know how, but he can...

So here we are, walking around Paris, looking frumpy and jetlagged and just plain old nasty. And then we get our first glimpse of the Eiffel Tower, and it is gorgeous. I didn't have my new Canon Rebel T2i that Arron bought me for Christmas (seeing as it was packed in my luggage that was sitting at the hotel), so I have no "first glimpse" pictures for you. :(

We walked around Paris until 12:30 and decided we were just too tired to walk around any more. We went back to the hotel to try to nap sitting up in their small lobby. The guy (who I felt was in charge of everything while we were there--maybe the owner?) took pity and gave us a room that had opened up early. We grabbed our luggage and headed up to the room #38.

When we got in the elevator to go to the 4th floor (in Europe the bottom floor is always 0), the elevator was so small we literally had to cram ourselves in--and it was just me and Arron, plus our carry on luggage and two suitcases. Now we knew why the guy thought we were crazy... We settled into our room (just a bedroom and bath with a closet, so tiny but cute) and fell promptly asleep.

After about six or seven hours of sleep, we woke up hungry.

 Arron playing with his Christmas gift, an iPad 2.

 Commerce Street, the next street over from our hotel.

 Lots of little cafes to sit in!

We wandered around, looking at menus outside the cafes, trying to find one that wasn't overly expensive. When we got to one, a guy who was standing outside told us we'd love the food, and that it was owned by his best friend. Sure, why not?

 Where we had our first French dinner.

Arron had beef sirloin and I had a leg of lamb. It was delish! After we finished, we headed toward the Tour de Eiffel.

 Our first glimpse!

Just so beautiful!

 Everybody at once: "Oooohhh..."

 Every hour, it lights up with 20,000 blinking lights. We were trying to find the best setting on the camera to capture them.

 Looking out over the Seine River.

 Multiple failed attempts to get a picture of both of us in front of the tower...

 The road our hotel was on.

Our little hotel!

I'll update soon with the rest of the day-by-day plays! Ciao!