Fun with Mom and Dad

Heading to Paris

Eating at a sidewalk cafe in France. The waitress did not speak English, so we were very fortunate to be able to order something we wanted. Pointing to the menu worked very well.

Last week my parents paid us a visit and I unintentionally just ran them into the ground. I know they were glad to get back home so they could get off the merry go round I put them on! Knowing it might be their last visit to the UK, I wanted to make sure Dad had the opportunity to play at St. Andrews, check, got that all sorted except the only problem was that I sent them to Scotland the day after they arrived here, so they were still dazed. If you know my mom, you'll understand that the 3 hour suggested time to arrive before a flight sounds just right, well--- we arrived at the train station with literally 3 minutes to spare so I had to run my 70+ year old parents down the platform and when the conductor blew the whistle, I just shoved them onto the train. They had to walk about 1,000 cars down toward their reserved seats carrying their luggage in the aisles and jostling between people/seats/etc. Dad was having to carry his golf clubs in front of his body instead of dragging them behind and I think his forearms got the workout of a lifetime. I think it was worth it though. He got to play the St Andrews course and got a tee time without any problems. well done.

Their train ride back was FULL of confusion, closed tube lines, helpful and not-so-helpful people. You'll have to ask my dad for the whole story. The line "what time is it?" will never have the same meaning again. Ha.

Then on their arrival back into London, we got all kinds of stories about hurricane Ike and the damage it was going to do to Texas. Not a comforting thing to hear when you are thousands of miles away. In addition, the Eurochunnel (which we were scheduled to take on Sunday) had a fire on Thursday and they had to close 1 tunnel indefinitely, which affected our Eurostar train. It just added to all the confusion and chaos of our travel plans.

enjoying a crepe with nutella in the Latin Quarter

at The Louvre

REGARDLESS, we made it to Paris and had a lovely time hitting all the high spots: Eiffel Tower, the Louvre, Notre Dame, Arc de Triomphe, Champ Elysees. Doing all that alone wore them out even more.

The one downer was when Dad had to fight off a pick pocket thief at the Eiffel Tower!! It was a classic case, but I am so glad Dad realized what was happening and shoved the guy away before he got the wallet out of his pocket. That was about 1 second away from a disaster. We tried to put that behind us and the following morning we traveled to the Normandy beach area in France for a D-day invasion tour.

Omaha beach. This photo does not do justice to how wide the beach is. It's huge.

So moving. So impressive to see. The soldiers really had a huge obstacle to overcome just getting up to the beach. To see the wide expanse of Omaha Beach just makes you realize the sacrifice those boys and men made. My deepest respect to them. We visited the German cemetery, Pont de Hoc, Omaha Beach/museum and the American cemetery. It just made me proud to see that the American cemetery is beautiful, peaceful and kept in tip top shape overlooking Omaha beach.

American military cemetery with Omaha beach in the background

Pont de Hoc. The uneven ground is due to the heavy bombing that took place. Ground has been left untouched to give a glimpse as to what it looked like on Dday.

The little town of Bayeux we stayed in was lovely. A very nice chateau as our hotel and a cute little high street area to browse. Mom and I enjoyed Onion Soup and Dad took a page out of B's book and had pasta bolognase at several meals. Dad even joined us for a tour and movie about the famous 1,000year old tapestry of Bayeux. not something he would normally tour :-) but I found it very interesting.

Our hotel: Hotel Tardif

They had 1 last day in England and then it was back to Texas. I was sad to see them go, but happy that they came to visit us. We are enjoying all our goodies they brought from home.