Remaining Pictures

Above are a few random pictures taken from our other camera...
*Doug double fisting the gelato
*Doug eating his baguette in the Luxembourg Gardens
*Doug and I at the Eiffel Tower
*Me cartwheeling and doing a handstand on the bridge over the Seine in front of the Eiffel Tower
*Me cartwheeling on the bridge over the Tiber in front of Castle San Angelo in Rome
*Doug and I in St Peter's Square after the audience
*Yummy Pizza

Hopefully Doug will post his parting words of wisdom today...I know you have all been on the edge of your seat...

more pictures to come

I'll post a few more pictures tomorrow from the other camera that have the cartwheels (for my Austin family - I think I might be winning the "bet") around the world...

Rome Pictures

The following are pictures from Rome:

The Coloseum, Roman Ruins, Me tossing a coin in to the Trevi Fountain, The Dome of St Peter's, The view from the top of the dome of St Peter's, Doug/Paul/I in St Peter's square, The Bernini canopy over St Peter's grave, Mary Maggiore Church, St Peter's at Night, The Pope on his pope mobile, The Pope praying at the audience, The Pope waving to US!

Paris Pictures

OK...Let's hope this works. Above are pictures from Paris (I'll post Rome pictures tonight).

They are of: Eiffel Tower (yippee!), The King's bed at Versailles (gold bed in velvet anyone?), The view of Versailles from the gardens, The Luxembourg Gardens (central park of Paris), Sacre Couer Basillica, Doug and I with the city of Paris behind us taken from the steps of Sacre Couer, St Chappelle Chapel, The view from the top of Notre Dame, The holy relics of the Crown of Thorns, The Louvre at night, The eiffel Tower at Night, and the D'Orsay Museum.

It was VERY hard to narrow down the pictures and only pic a few...

Hola Texas!

Well...we made it back to Texas. We ended up being awake for 24 hours - after a train ride out to the airport, flight to London, layover in London, and 10 hour flight to Dallas we finally made it back to Texas. We quickly picked up the dogs and they sure were EXCITED to see us! I can honestly say that I missed their slobbery faces! We then went to Anamia's for some much needed Mexican food and Margaritas....and then we came home and crashed...it was a long day, but I think I have slept through the jet lag which is nice!

We are hoping to post pictures later today from the trip...and leave you with a few quotes from the trip. check back later!

last day...

What a great last day!!! I finally got some shopping in and Doug was actually a great shopping companion. We visited the Opera Garnier in Paris that the Phantom of the Opera was based on...beautiful!!! We then headed to the Eiffel Tower and went to the top. It was a great way to end the trip as we could see all of Paris. We grabbed one last meal and wine in Paris and then headed back to the Eiffel Tower to see it lit up at night. With a crepe in hand we watched it twinkle and then headed back to the hotel. We have an EARLY EARLY flight...we will be on the train out to the airport at 4:45am and then we fly to London and then home...It is goign to be a long day! We can`t wait to see the puppy dogs and eat some mexican food!!!

We will post a bunch of pictures and hopefully quotes of the trip from Doug when we get back. Have a good Friday!

Words do not describe...

The day we had! OH MY GOODNESS!!!

First - yesterday was also amazing! We woke up and went to the early mass at St Peter's. Although it was in Italian, we were able to follow along and participate. It was a great way to start the day. We then headed to the Vatican Museums to see all of the paintings (Michelangelo, Raphael, etc) and the Sistine Chapel. The Sistine Chapel was of course the highlight and Michelangelo's judgement painting over the alter is absolutely breathtaking. We enjoyed quite a bit of time in the Sistine chapel before we headed to San Giovanni in Laterno (St John Lateran church). This is the first church that was built for Christianity when it became legal in the 300's. It was GIANT and breathtaking. We then grabbed some gelato (why not?) and went over to the Holy Stairs. These are the stairs that Jesus walked up at Pontius Pilate's Palace the day that he was sentenced to death. INCREDIBLE! We walked up them on our knees with all of the other pilgrims and it was a truly blessed event. We then headed to St Maria Maggore church which is the official church built for the Blessed Mother. We then headed to the Spanish Steps for a great Italian feast before we rushed back to the Vatican to meet Paul for some Gelato (yep twice in one day...when in Rome). I have to say that this was the absolute best Gelato that I have ever had...IT WAS AWESOME! We had to meet Paul because he got us parte especiale tickets for the audience with the Pope today...

THE AUDIENCE WITH THE POPE!!! We got there about an hour and a half before it started to ensure a good seat. The parte especiale tickets guaranteed us that we would be in the section closest to the alter. We were only 12 rows back from Pope Benedict. It was incredible to be that close. He gave a lesson and then there were prayers and interpretation by the Pope of his teaching in 6 languages (Italian, French, English, German, Russian, and Spanish)...followed by the "Papal Shoutout" as Doug likes to call it. It was an amazing event. Words can't describe how amazing and breath taking this event was. There were thousands of people in the square and we were SOOO close! He looked directly at me as he was leaving on his Pope mobile as I was yelling and jumping on my chair viva papa! Honestly one of the most amazing moments in my life!!! We got over 175 pictures as we were so close. We can't wait to post them (more on that in a minute). At the conclusion of the audience we headed to St Paul outside the walls. This church was built on St Paul's grave which was outside the walls of ancient Rome. We grabbed our last pizza and we are now on our way back to Paris. We get in to Paris tomorrow morning.

We aren't sure if we'll have internet, so we will make sure to post a bunch of pictures and the rest of our trip once we return to Texas Friday night.

We hope everyone is doing well and we can't wait to tell everyone about the trip!

Ciao! Au Revoir!

OH MY GOODNESS!

We are on our way to meet the Pope!!!!!!!!!!!!! (go to the audience, not actually shake his hand or anything, but still amazing!)

We will try to write tonight about our awesome day yesterday and the AMAZING day we will have today!!

We are taking the night train back to Paris tonight. We are sad to leave Rome!

Highlight of the trip (so far)

Erin: What a day!!! We started EARLY this morning...

We went straight to the Vatican this morning for the Scavi Tour. We didn't know how long the security line would be, so we got to the Vatican early and were able to take a quick "peak" through St. Peter's Basillica (for those of you that have been here and witnessed how massive St. Peter's is, you know that you cannot just take a "peak" at St. Peter's). We then headed past the Swiss Guard to the excavations office for the Scavi Tour. The Scavi Tour takes you through the ancient Roman Pagan Burial grounds that were found in 1939 underneath St Peter's basillica. The Tour then takes you to the grave of St Peter and you spend time learning and seeing all of the different monuments that have been built on the site that St Peter was buried. REALLY AMAZING! The Tour climaxes at the end where you can actually see the actual grave of St Peter and the bones that are believed to be St Peter (St Peter's Basillica is built on this grave and the canopy over the main alter is directly above the grave). There are only a couple of thousand people a year that get to go on this tour, so we feel truly blessed to have been able to witness this. I can't explain how incredible it was to see all of the old tombs of the Romans but most of all, the first Pope's burial site. After that, we headed to the other side of St Peter's to ascend the steps to the top of the Dome of St Peter's (Michelangelo's Dome of St Peter's). These steps were not has grueling as Notre Dame. The steps take you first to the top of the Dome inside of the church where you can see the frescoes of Michelangelo up close. You then go up the stairs all the way to the top of the dome outside. Thew view was MAGNIFICENT today as it was a clear (yet windy) day and we could see all of Rome as well as the top of St Peter's square with Bernini's famous columns reaching out to the people of Rome. As if our day was not amazing enough, we then met a friend, Paul, from St Ann's in Coppell in St Peter's Square. Paul is a seminarian from the Diocese in Dallas studying here in Rome. He has been the one that set us up with the Scavi Tour as well as the audience with the Pope that we will attend on Wednesday. He also graciously offered to give us a personal tour of St Peter's. He took us through the entire square and Basillica. It was amazing to learn how planned each frescoe, statue, etc was planned. After a great tour, we headed to the catacombs of St Peter's where 50+ Popes are entombed. We were able to see the site of Pope John Paul II Grave which was very moving (for all of you that know me, you know how amazing seeing this was). We then headed back up to the church to take some quick pictures (I think I took 150 pictures) and walk around again (I can never get enough St Peter's).

We then left St Peter's and walked to the Castle San Angelo and across the river to the Pantheon. The Pantheon is a stark difference from St Peter's, but you can see how it inspired many modern churches today (including St Peter's). We then walked to the PIazza Navona...where I was excited to find some guys selling some fake purses...yowza! After a quick look and purchase, we finally sat down for some dinner and wine. It was a nice dinner on the Piazza and we did some good people watching. We then grabbed some Gelato (Doug's new Fav) and headed home.

Sorry that this isn't very funny and is much more informative, but I am exhausted and Doug is literally sleeping next to me on the couch in the hotel lobby!

We are going to Mass at the Vatican tomorrow and then going to Visit the Vatican Museums and the Sistine Chapel before we visit a few more famous churches here in Rome (there are over 900 churches...)

I hope everyone is doing well back home and that Blakley is waiting to have Brooklynn until her Godparents return! We love you!

Finally to Rome

Doug: Well we finally made it to Rome after a LONG train ride from Paris. So after walking all over the train station and buying our public transportation passes, we hopped on a bus to our hotel. Turns out the hotel is REALLY nice and typically costs about 3 times what we got it for on hotels.com (not a paid advertisment). We started out the day by going to the Colosseum and the Roman Forum along with several other ruins sights. It is pretty amazing to see what those crazy romans were able to do with architechture and infrastructure 2000 years ago. Tomorrow will be a fun filled day at the Vatican with multiple tours.

On another note it is nice to finally find a country that appreciates the value of meat. For dinner I ate a nice Fettuccini alla Bolagnase (noodles with meat) and it was awesome. We then went for some gelato at a world famous gelato cafe. Gelato is kind of like ice cream but better. Hard to really explain but i would reccomend it to anyone. Ok, thats it for me. Time to sleep.

Erin: Well - apparently it is different on the night train when there are 4 other people in your car that you do not know. Doug and I were ready for sleep from the moment we got on the train, but we kind of got cheated and were on the bottom bunks. We had to wait until everyone was sleepy before we pulled all of the beds down...let's put it this way - it involved lots of gesturing and finally we were sleeping. Doug covered everything except the night walk we took from the Spanish Steps to the Trevi Fountain. I wish that Doug liked shopping as ALL of the great designers have boutiques around the Spanish Steps and I desperately wanted to "pop" in all of them. I settled for Yves St Lauraintand then Doug was spent so we headed to the Trevi Fountain. We were hoping to find someone to actually take a picture that has both of us in it, but no such luck as we didn't trust the "clientele" of the fountain, if you get my drift. All in all - it was a GREAT day and we are really looking forward to tomorrow which involves the Scavi Tour of the Vatican catacombs and then a personal tour by a seminarian (Yay Paul from St Ann's)...

Hopefully the pictures I'm about to post will come up...they are from Paris!

Ciao!

bion giorno

We survived the night train with no thefts!!! We have internet in the hotel, so we will try to blog and post pictures tonight...for now we are off to the coloseum and the Roman Forum (and to feed Doug of course!)

Ciao!

off to Rome, Au Revoir Paris (for now)

Well, we are off to Rome! We had another great day today. We woke up kind of late, and then had to shove all of our stuff back in our packs (which was somewhate challenging and involved me sitting on my bag to close it). I definitely look like a turtle with the pack on and Doug is afraid that I am going to fall over...we'll see. We were VERY excited to figure out that we did not in fact blow the converter with my blow dryer...so...we can now charge our camera battery! Jackpot!

We headed to The Tuillerie Gardens and then walked up to the Place de la Concorde (where Marie Antoinnette and Louis XVI were beheaded). We had a nice little croissant picnic in the gardens. I definitely liked these gardens the best as you have a great view of the Louvre and down the Champs Elysees to the Arc di Triomphe. We then headed to the D'Orsay Museum to see the impressionists. This was also amazing as they turned the old D'Orsay train station in to the museum. We got to see Van Gogh, Monet, Manet, Degas, and a few Rodin sculptures. I don't think Doug likes the impressionists as much as the pieces we saw yesterday at the Louvre...oh well. I enjoyed it! I love the Degas painting of the ballerinas. It reminds me of being little and in Ms. Evelyn's ballet class with Lindsey.

We then walked up the Seine to Notre Dame and headed back to the hotel to pick up our bags. It is rainy, so there weren't as many vendors out on the Seine, but I still managed to find a few things for the house. We now have our luggage and are resting before we trek it up to the train station to take the night train to Rome. We arrive in Rome tomorrow morning and are REALLY looking forward to the Vatican, ruins, and lots and lots of Italian food.

Au Revoir Paris! Ciao Roma!!!

what a day!!!

we are exhausted so this is going to be short and sweet...

What a day! the highlight was definitely the veneration of the holy relics of the passion of the Christ. We lucked out and were able to attend the ceremony at Notre Dame where they present the crown of thorns, pieces of the cross, and a nail from the passion. Truly amazing. We also visited St Chapelle, climbed to the top of Notre Dame, visited the Louvre (Doug was very excited to see the Mona Lisa), and then met a friend at the Eiffel Tower for some wine and company under the twinkling Eiffel Tower...

We have one more day in Paris and then we are headed to Rome tomorrow night...hopefully we will be able to post pictures from Rome. Au Revoir!

Day 2

Erin: What a day! I think we walked about 10 miles today!!! It was completely worth it though...We started the day with a fresh croissant...I could start every day like that. We then trekked out to Versailles via the commuter train. Versailles was massive and gorgeous as I remembered. It's hard to imagine life as a king or a queen, living in gold guilded rooms and having people witness you waking up and going to bed. We walked all over the grounds and visited Marie Antoinette's Hamlet, which was really amazing. It looks like it did 200 years ago, goats and all. It was a stark contrast to the massive and ornate Versailles Chateau. It was like stepping back in time to an old french village. The walk back takes you through the gardens and fountains of Versailles, which are also amazing. We then made our way back to Paris where we picked up a baguette (the French KNOW how to bake) and had a picnic at the gardens of luxembourg. It reminded me of Central Park with people lounging around and massive trees and walkways all around. It was nice and relaxing. Off we went (as I do not like to sit for a long time) to Montmarte in northern Paris. We visited Sacre-Coeur which is the basilica that overlooks the city of Paris. You can really tell how massive Paris is from the hill of Sacre Coeur. The basilica is beautiful and they have perpetual adoration and thus the church itself is quiet and very somber. After a moment of prayer, we were off to find a place to eat in Montmarte. We found the amazing fondue restaurant that I ate at when I was a student here, but the exchange rate convinced us that we did not want to spend 200 dollars on a meal...so...we fond a very cute restaurant where I got my fondue fix and Doug got his meat (apparently a meal is not a meal if Doug does not get some meat). After dinner we decided to walk to the Moulin Rouge. We were both not prepared for the "adult shows" or other "interests". After our very tourist pictures in front of the Moulin Rouge, we headed home. Off to bed as we have a massive day planned tomorrow as usual. Au Revoir!!!

Doug: Like the Pink Floyd song says, "How can you have any pudding if you don't eat your meat?" Well I'm not a huge fan of pudding, but finding a meal with meat included can be tricky especially if you don't know the French word for meat. I'm sure the proverbial meat struggle will continue until we get to Italy. On another note, I have to say that I'm glad that I don't have to drive French cars or date their women, because quite frankly neither one are that nice to look at. But seriously, today was alot of fun and historically enlightening. Tomorrow should be another fun filled day of tourism and sightseeing.

ps we can't figure out how to post pictures from this crazy french computer...sorry...will try tomorrow...

viva la france

Doug: First off, I would like to give a shout out to Boeing for not putting any sort of climate control on their 767 so that I could freeze my giblets off for 9 hours.

Erin: apparently that is all Doug has right now. We made it to Paris and after a scary 15 minutes of no baggage, ours finally showed up and we began to make the trek to the train to downtown Paris. Although it has been almost 5 years since I`ve been here, navigating the metros came back like it was yesterday. We checked in to our ¨glorious¨ ¨hotel¨ and began the site seeing day! we of course headed to the eiffel tower first and to feed doug as he was STARVING at this point. We had some crepes for dessert and then headed to the arc de triomphe and took a leisurely stroll down the champs elysees - of course we had to make a few ¨pit stops¨at some shops...then it was off to notre dame - which was amazing and Dougs favorite part of the day. We are going to have to go back though as it started raining and we quickly jumped in to a very nice italian restaurant for some dinner and my first of many glasses of wine of the trip...

well...sorry this isn't that interesting, but we haven't slept in a LONG TIME - maybe 36 hours, so we aren't that witty right now. below are a few quick pics from today. yes - all of the pics with both of us will have Doug's arm in them as we don't want to end up like the grisswolds and get our camera jacked. we hope everyone is doing well!

ps - I'm writing this with the crazy jacked up french keyboard...so...sorry for any mistakes and the lack of punctuation.

It's finally here

So after all this waiting, the day is finally here for us to leave for Europe. In order for me to fully "immerse" myself in the european culture, as Erin would say, this morning I took my last shower since i won't be needing those for the next 10 days while we are gone. After all, I don't want to wash any of that culture off of me. The french sure don't...so i've heard. I guess i also won't be needing deoderant, tooth brush, tooth paste, razor, soap, shampoo or any other basic instruments of personal hygeine that we americans have mastered. It sure will make going through security at the airport easy without having those pesky liquids in my carry on.

Ok, so maybe i'll shower once or twice while we're there, especially since i don't think the hotel room will have a lot of floor space for me to sleep on when Erin kicks me out of the bed. Personal hygeine or not, it should be a great time and i'm looking forward to it.

T minus 6 days!!!

Well - we leave for Europe (Paris & Rome) in 6 days!!!! We are busy trying to learn our new Nikon SLR camera in preparation for all of the great shots we will be taking in Europe. For now, we've been trying it out on the dogs. =) We have stocked up on travel size toiletries, shout wipes (lets face it - Doug can't eat without wearing it), locks for our bags (to prevent any train theft), travel books, etc.

For those of you that don't know - we are going to be flying to Paris, France on April 1st. We will then spend 4 days in Paris before we take the night train to Rome, Italy. We will be in Rome for 4 days before we hop on the night train back to Paris for 1 more day in Paris. We fly back on April 11th. We are looking forward to this trip as this will be the first real vacation we have taken together since our honeymoon. As most of you know, the honeymoon was great, except for the fact that I utilized the air sick bags every day and then spent 3 months in the hospital following our return. Pray for no need for air sick bags on this vacation.

We will try to blog every day and post pictures so that you can hear all of our great stories. Hopefully Doug will write most of the posts as he is much wittier than I am. Be sure to comment on the posts so that we can see who all is reading the blog!

One more thing - Thanks Mom! Thanks Mom for taking care of our 2 crazy dogs while we are away.