Product Review: Tamrac Velocity 6x Camera Sling Pack
For the benefit of a recent trip to Paris and based on the recommendation of my friend Khan, I purchased a Tamrac Velocity 6x - Compact Sling Pack from amazon. The bag is perfectly sized for my Canon 30D with the 2.8L lens attached (if I ever go full-frame I may have to get something bigger). My 430EX speedlite fits on one side, and my 50mm prime on the other side. There is also a front pocket where I kept the battery charger, extra memory, and some spare change. The sling strap allows you the bag to be worn "backpack style" or it the strap can easily be rotated to bring the bag around to the front, remove the camera, snap a picture, stow the camera, and return it to your back... all without taking the bag off.

Highly recommended travel camera bag. Very handy and compact.

Mid-Winter Break In Paris: Day 7: Returning Home and Postscript
We made our way back to Seattle today by way of Salt Lake. We flew on Delta which wasn't quite as nice as Air France. The extra connection on the way back was not fun either (90 minute delay, 3 gate changes). All in all the experience was well worth it. I think the kids had a great time and (hopefully) it will be an experience that they remember... at least until we return.

Before we went to Disneyland yesterday, we asked each of the kids what their favorite part of the trip has been. For Berkeley it was the Catacombes, for Eliana is was the Eiffel Tower, and for Olivia it was the Opéra. I'm glad we saved the Disneyland visit for the last day. If you ask any of them now their favorite part of the trip, they will all respond "Disneyland" (Olivia is quite specific - the "Peter Pan" ride at Disneyland). Though we half-heartedly attempted to talk the kids out of going to Disneyland, it was a good way to end the trip. The kids did thoroughly enjoy the time spent there.

For anyone that is planning on traveling to Paris with kids, we did learn a few lessons.

1. Fly Air France... direct if possible. The SEA->CDG Air France flight was great; easily justifies a small bump in price.

2. Paris is colder than we thought it would be in February. Kristy prepared us well and packed coats, scarfs, boots, hat, and gloves. If we were to go again, I don't think we would go in February. But if winter travel to Paris is unavoidable, then pack snow pants, ugg boots, and extra gloves (between the 5 of us, we lost 3 pairs of gloves while we were out and about). Bring your own rain ponchos for Disneyland; if you are caught in bad weather inside of Disneyland... be warned, Disneyland prices are exorbitant.

3. Buy the "Paris Visite" Métro pass for the zone that you will be traveling in. There is a formula somewhere on the net that calculates how many times you must take the train to break even on the Métro pass. However, the calculation fails to consider the wait time in lines to buy individual tickets and the convenience of just having a buy-once-use-anywhere Métro ticket for any public mode of transportation (e.g. including the bus). We may have come out ahead from a cost standpoint if we had bought individual Métro tickets, for each different segment we traveled... but you really can't put a price on the convenience and hassle saved from having that Métro pass.

4. Research "kid-friendly" restaurants ahead of time. When the kids got hungry, we just walked around wherever we were until we found something that looked like the kids would like. Even then however, a couple of places turned us away because they would not seat young children. I think we ended up eating at decent places, but there were a couple of misses. Had we planned ahead, we probably could have dined at much better restaurants.

5. Definitely bring along a collapsible umbrella stroller for any child under 5-years-old. There is just so much walking that small legs tire quickly. Expect to carry the stroller (with the possibility of a sleeping child inside the stroller) up and down flights of stairs; not every Métro station is stroller-friendly and the museums are often easier to navigate by stairs rather than circling around looking for elevators. Bring ibuprofen along for your back. It will get sore... especially at my age (40).

6. Prepare your kids for the trip in advance by reading children's books on Paris and seeing children's movies set in or about Paris. Kristy did this and, as a result, the kids knew a lot about the monuments and museums that we were going to visit ahead of time. This helped them get excited about going to sites that they may otherwise have been disinterested in.

7. Travel lightly around town but be prepared. Kristy kept a bag over her shoulder that was well stocked with a water bottle, quick snacks for the kids (we had baguettes with butter), band-aids, umbrella, ponchos, toilet paper, tissues, maps, emergency meds, money, travel books, and a pocket french dictionary. (Kristy kept her passports and credit cards in inside coat pockets.) I carried a Tamrac Velocity 6x that I bought just for the trip. It carried our DSLR camera, two lenses, camera battery charger, extra memory, my wallet, and some euros. Both bags were compact and were tight against our body (beware of pickpockets!) and unobtrusive so that we could still carry the kids in tight quarters when the umbrella stroller was not an option.

8. Bring a couple of grocery tote bags. The supermarkets in France (at least the ones we visited) do not supply bags for transporting food. We used these to carry fresh bread and pastries and food back to our hotel from the local town square merchants.

9. Don't buy pastries in grocery stores, buy them fresh from the locally run patisserie. On our first day, we bought a bag of pain au chocolate from the supermarket. The quality was not even close to the fresh stuff baked daily at the nearby patisserie. Any money saved by buying in bulk is not worth the dramatic drop-off in quality.

10. Potty breaks, potty breaks, potty breaks. Take advantage of clean museum bathrooms when possible; some of the alternatives are a bit scary. For our wait-until-the-last-minute-I-really-gotta-go-Dad-now(!) kids, we were trained early in the week to have the kids stop for potty breaks when the potty was close... instead of waiting for the cues from the kids.

11. Pre-purchase tickets to museums/monuments/parks etc ahead of time to avoid lines.

12. Visit the Paris Opéra in the morning when there is less of a likelihood that the self-guided tour will conflict with a rehearsal.

13. Visit Versailles... it's worth the train ride. Pre-purchase tickets or buy the tickets in town just across the street from the train station. The line to buy tickets at Versailles is very long. Also, view the gardens in the morning when the line to enter the palace is very long. And take the mini bus - the place is huge! In the afternoon, we were able to walk right into the palace as the lines had long since dissipated.

14. Visit Disneyland last... or try and talk your kids out of going. It ain't that great; Disneyland California is far better.

15. Take a river cruise during lunch (or in the afternoon). The lunch cruise was much more appropriate for fidgety kids.

16. Expect to take unscheduled breaks. Kids tire easily. We stopped at cafés for hot chocolate, snacks, potty, etc much more than we thought we would. If you consider the amount of time it takes to de-bundle and re-bundle-up three kids for the weather during these breaks, it can quickly eat up an hour. Really. We planned to do 4 "big" things per day when we were sitting here in our home doing our pre-trip planning. However, when the rubber hit the road... we really could only fit in 2 "big" things per day.

17. If attending an LDS service, the Paris Ward that meets in on 12 rue St Merri in the 4th Arrondissement was an ideal location. Translation in English is available, the location is central, and the sacrament meeting start time is 11:20am (giving ample time to travel).

Mid-Winter Break In Paris: Day 7: Disneyland
Ah, Disneyland... in Paris. Basically the same as Disneyland in California: same rides, long lines, loads of people - but no sunny weather. Well, the sun was out in the morning when we entered the park...

... and here we are in front of the castle:

But not long after, the rain came... and it didn't deter people either. Everyone (including us) just put on their rain ponchos and carried on about our business of walking and waiting. Most of the queues are covered, so staff (as well as patrons) must expect a certain amount of foul weather. In fact, we were chatting with a family waiting in line with in Autopia. They were from Ireland. About the weather, they made the comment: "The weather's better here than it is at home!"

Despite the weather, we had a good time... especially the kids.

Leaving for home tomorrow. I'll write a postscript after we are back in Seattle.

Mid-Winter Break In Paris: Day 6: The Catacombes and The Louvre
This morning we traveled into Paris for the last time on our trip to visit the Catacombes of Paris. To get there we took our RER A line from Paris Disneyland into the Châtelet - Les Halles station where we transferred to the RER B line and took that down to the Denfert-Rochereau station. I love the Paris Métro - it's a wonder. Once at the Catacombes, we had to wait in line for about 45 minutes before we could enter the Catacombes (only 200 persons are allowed in the Catacombes at any given time). While we waited, Kristy found bought us some Petit Fours and other yummy pastries at a nearby bakery/restaurant Paul. Here are a couple of pics taken outside the catacombes:

Once inside, we descended down more than 100 stairs to about 60 feet below ground. Then we walked the tunnels and viewed some of the millions of remains deposited in Paris' famous underground ossuary.

After the tour was complete, we ascended back to ground level. We walked so far that ended up two Métro stops away at the Alésia station on Line 4. From there we made our way up to the Paris Opéra to see if we could see the Opéra hall, but alas it was closed for recital again. We had a small bite to eat (at another restaurant Paul in the Opéra train station) and then headed down to the Musée du Louvre:

Once inside, we took a self-guided tour and hit all of the famous spots. Here are a couple of pictures, one of the Mona Lisa and one of the Ruben's room.

We toured the Egyptian part of the Louvre to see the mummies and the sarcophagi as well as the old foundations of the Louvre. We saw the crown jewels, the Napoleon apartments, the Venus de Milo, the Winged Victory of Samothrace, and a host of other artwork. The Louvre is massive. Here are a few more pics:

The kids were done with the Louvre after about 2 hours, but we managed to stretch them out to about 4 hours. From the Louvre, we toured the nearby Carousel du Louvre and snapped a couple of pictures at the inverted pyramid there:

We had dinner at the food court there and Kristy picked up some chocolate eclairs from La Maison du Chocolate. At about $5/each they were super spendy, but were also super yummy:

We exited the Carousel back through the Louvre to have one last look at the pyramid, and our last look at Paris:

Disneyland Paris tomorrow. (Unless we can talk the kids out of it!)

Mid-Winter Break In Paris: Day 5: Versailles
Almost everyone we spoke with before we left to come to Paris insisted that we must see the Palace of Versailles. Versailles is not in Paris, but located about 30 minutes to the south (by train). Since we are staying about 40 minutes to the east of Paris (by train) near Paris Disneyland, we had to travel for a little over an hour to reach Versailles. Once there, we were greeted by King Louis XIV himself... on horseback:

Once inside the gate, we found ourselves in the Royal Courtyard where we snapped a few pictures.

The exterior detail and beauty of the palace is jaw-dropping. The gold leafing extends all the way around the courtyard. And the place is H-U-G-E, huge! The little pamphlet we were given states that the surface area of the roof was 11 hectares or - wait for it - 27 acres! The expansive roofs cover more than 550,000 sq.ft. of floor space! Incredible. There was quite a long queue waiting to enter the Palace, so we walked around to the rear of Versailles and caught a tram to the Grand Trianon, Petit Trianon, and Queen's Hamlet... all located in a secluded section of the the Gardens of Versailles. The Gardens are expansive... covering some 800 hectares, or almost 2000 acres. The scale of this place is absolutely mind-boggling.

We toured the Grand Trianon first, here are just a couple of pictures:

After a small tour of the Petit Trianon, we walked along the winding paths past the "Temple of Love" to the Queen's Hamlet. The hamlet is a small rustic retreat that was built for Marie Antoinette who would, with her attendants, dress up as "common folk" and pretend to lead a more ordinary life. Here are a few pictures of the buildings of the Queen's Hamlet:

After our walking tour of the grounds and the Grand Trianon, Petit Trianon, and the Queen's Hamlet, we returned to the Palace of Versailles itself to have a look and see what all the fuss is about. We started on the chapel side of the Palace and work our way around counter-clockwise. The chapel is stunning. I'm beginning to think that I should convert to Catholicism for the architecture alone.

Room after room inside the Palace is completely and utterly and unbelievably ornate and sumptuous. The ceilings - in each and every room - are amazing. Here are just a few:

After about the first dozen or so rooms like that, I realized that it was pointless to shoot any more pictures. Each room was nearly indistinguishable (yet completely gorgeous) from the next... that is, until we came to the Hall of Mirrors. This is one of those must-see-in-person-to-believe places. I snapped a picture of each of the kids:

All told, I'm not sure how far we walked today... but it was quite a distance I would guess. Olivia was understandably exhausted, and fell asleep in the stroller on the walk from the Palace back to the train station.

On the way back to our hotel we stopped in the 7th arrondissement, walked the streets around the École Militaire looking for a place to take supper. We found a place on Avenue Bosquet called "Le Bosquet" and had a nice dinner to finish off the day (I had the Châteaubriand, Kristy had the lamb). Tomorrow... the Catacombes and the Louvre!

Mid-Winter Break In Paris: Day 4: The River Seine and The Opera
While we were in Paris two days ago at the Tour Eiffel on Saturday, we booked a cruise on the River Seine for today (Monday) with Bateaux Parisiens for lunch. We took the RER train to the Arc and then hopped on Métro Line 6 to the Trocadéro and walked down to the Seine. Since had to walk past the Palace of Chaillot we snapped another picture of the kids with the Eiffel Tower in the background:

Once aboard our cruise ship, we we seated at our table:

Just before we set sail, we placed our orders from the lunch menu. We picked at least 1 of every option from each course hoping we would find one or more that the kids would eat. For the first course, we ordered the scrambled eggs for Berkeley and Olivia, and the salmon for Eliana. Kristy had the beef tail and cheek terrine, and I had the lentil soup with foie gras mousse. I think the consensus (between Kristy and myself) was that the soup was the best of the bunch. For our main course, we ordered the pollack and rice for Eliana, the chicken for Olivia, the duck for Berkeley and Kristy, and I ordered the pork filet. I had some of each and everything was wonderful. For dessert, we ordered the chocolate (and coffee) cake for Eliana and Berkeley, the lemon tartlet for Olivia, the pear for Kristy, and the crêpes suzette for myself. All were very good, but Kristy's poached pear was the best.

While we dined, we enjoyed the wonderful scenery of Paris as viewed from the River Seine.

The kids were well behaved for the most part, but Olivia got a bit restless after about the main course and engaged in some table-side dancing to the live violin and piano music provided by the cruise:

After the cruise, we walked to the nearby RER train station at Champs de Mars with the intent of transferring to the Opéra National de Paris. We took the RER C Line to Invalides and transferred to Métro Line 8 and rode that to the Opéra. Here is a picture of Kristy and Olivia waiting at a typical Métro platform:

The Paris Métro is absolutely magical. It transported us from the Champs de Mars to a stop immediately opposite the incredibly beautiful Paris Opéra. The sortie from the Opéra train station is a stairwell that faces north and terminates at street level to a point just to the north of the Opéra itself. It was quite stunning to walk from the underground station, up the stairs, and then turn around to see this:

I snapped a picture of Kristy and the kids in front of the Opéra:

Inside the Paris Opéra is even more captivating than the outside. The grand entry staircase is inspiring. I took a few pictures with my 24mm lens (1.6 crop factor makes it about a 38mm) posted below, but even zoomed all the way out... I really couldn't capture the massive cavernous size of the space (but please refer to this one on wikipedia).

Unfortunately (for us), we were not able to see the hall as it was closed for a recital. This also prevented us from visiting Phantom's box. We'll try and return another day as our tickets are good for multiple visits. During the rest of the tour, the kids would stop at various points that we didn't think were of much interest (by comparison to everything else). Kids are funny that way... "Dad, look how big this fireplace is!" or "Dad, look at the round chair!"

The pièce de résistance of the tour was the Opéra's Grand Foyer. Opulent doesn't even begin to describe it:

What a day... and we really didn't do that much. But it felt like a lot. We traveled back to our hotel from the Opéra and restocked our kitchen with fresh bread and pastries from the nearby boulangerie:

Mid-Winter Break In Paris: Day 3: Walking the 4th Arrondissement
It's Valentine's Day, 過年 (Lunar New Year), Mardi Gras, Carnival, etc. It also happens to be Sunday. We made plans to visit the LDS Church in the 4th Arrondissement on rue Saint Merri. And since Sacrament Meeting didn't start until 11:40, we figured it was a good one to shoot for given the distance we have to travel. We made it on time without any problems. We were a bit worried we wouldn't be able to find it, but we walked right to it from the "Châtelet - Les Halles" RER Métro stop.

The LDS ward there is a strange amalgamation of French, English, and Mandarin Chinese speakers. In fact, there were several missionaries there called to the Paris France Mandarin Chinese speaking mission - they had name badges in Chinese characters and everything. The services were translated from French into both English and Mandarin. All of the headphones for the English went rather quickly, so I grabbed a pair of headphones and tuned into the Chinese version of the Sacrament Meeting. Kristy speaks a bit of French, so she listened without the aid of an electronic device. The kids colored. Olivia eventually became bored (typical) so she and I walked around in the enclosed courtyard. The Church building was quite lovely, probably built in the 1700s or so I would guess.

After Church, we walked over to a restaurant called "Cavalier Bleu" located across the plaza from the nearby George Pompidou Centre. I had the quiche lorraine, Kristy had a baguette ham sandwich. My food was quite good; Olivia ate a lot of it and was quite fond of the quiche. While we were eating in the cafe, we were struck by how charming the neighborhood was... lots of locally run shops that included plenty of options to eat, small bakeries, cheese shops, fruit stands, and the like.

After our lunch we visited the museum inside the Centre Pompidou where an exposition of modern art by Pierre Soulages was being shown. Berkeley enjoyed the abstract art very much. The girls were not as impressed (they loved riding up the escalators though). After we toured the exhibit, we stopped by the kids area and made some crafts. Unfortunately, because of the cold weather the whimsical Stravinsky Fountain (and pretty much all other outdoor activities usually held in the plaza) were closed.

We left the theater and intended to walk over to the Notre Dame. We took a round-about way (unintentionally) but we were able to see a few interesting sights along the way, such as the Saint-Jacques Tower and the Palais de Justice.

After a nice little walk, we turned a corner and found the unmistakable towers of the Notre Dame cathedral in Paris. Wow. If I was ever to convert to another religion, I would convert to Catholicism for the architecture (not the jokes). To say that the Notre Dame is impressive is an understatement.

After milling about in the courtyard for a bit and considering the length of the line to enter the church (that stretched across the courtyard lengthwise... which is about the size of a football field), we eventually got in line to take the free tour of the interior. After a short wait we were at the front of the line; where the two towers of the Notre Dame hovered over us. Once inside, we took the lovely self-guided tour and snapped a few pics:

After our tour of Notre Dame, we walked north along rue d'Arcole up past the Hôtel de Ville:

In front of the Hôtel de Ville was a double-decker carousel, we stopped and let the kids rest and take a couple of rides.

Just as the kids finished their carousel rides, a combination Carnival/Lunar New Year parade (which terminated at the Hôtel de Ville along rue du Renard) showed up. So we took a spot on the sidewalk curb and watched a Lunar New Year dragon as well as a host of Brazilian Carnival dancers, bands, and revelers walk past. Serendipity.

After the parade, we walked back up rue due Renard to the intersection of rue Saint Merri and had dinner near the Centre Pompidou at a little place called the "Paris Beauborg" (I had the sea bass). When we eventually finished our dinner, it was already past 8pm. Quite a day.

Oh... Happy Valentine's Day Kristy! Including our time dating, this is our 19th Valentine's Day together. This one will be hard to beat.

Product Review: Albert Ménès Marmelade d'Orange et Citron
I found my new favorite marmelade and I only had to travel to France to find it. Before I proceed, first recall how much acclaim and praise I gave the Bon Maman Orange Marmelade that is widely available in the States. Yesterday I bought a can of Marmelade d'Orange et Citron Écorces fines manufactured by Albert Ménès at the nearby market. When I saw the bottle, my first impression was that the marmelade appears in texture and color to be the very same stuff served at Le Pichet back in Seattle. One taste and it was confirmed. This is marvelous stuff. Everything I said about the Bon Maman marmelade, take that and multiply it by 10. And as I noted in my Le Pichet review - Kristy likes it too. The stuff is expensive though. The French market sold the Bon Maman stuff for about 3 € (or $4.50) per bottle, which is about what it sells for in the States. The price of the Bon Maman brand is at the high end of the US supermarket grocery prices for jams and jellies. Now consider that the Albert Ménès jam sells at this French market for about twice that of the Bon Maman, or around 6 € ($7.40) per bottle. Very steep indeed! But the stuff is so heavenly, it is well worth the price. I'm smuggling as many bottles of this as I can back home to the States.

Mid-Winter Break In Paris: Day 2: Arc de Triomphe and Tour Eiffel
Our second day in Paris started early for Eliana, Olivia, and myself. They awoke at around 2:30am Paris time and asked for some breakfast. After a small snack, I cajoled them back into bed.

Everyone except Kristy slept in until about 10am (Paris time). By the time 11am rolled around we were finally ready for some breakfast.

After breakfast, we took our first Métro ride into Paris on the RER A (red line) from the "Parcs Disneyland" stop (Marne-la-Vallée) to the "Charles de Gaulle - Étoile" stop. It took about an hour total of travel time from our doorstep to the Arc.

Once under the road, we snapped a few pics on and around the Arc. Good times.

Leaving the Arc, we took Paris Métro Line 6 down to the Eiffel Tower, walked around, took the tour up to the top and generally were very impressed.... but really, really cold! Yikes!

After the Tour Eiffel we warmed up at "Le Coq", a restaurant located at Place du Trocadéro. Kristy had the filet mignon and I enjoyed some stewed meat and vegetables. By the time we were done with dinner, it was time to return to the hotel. Eliana dozed off during the train ride back... 2nd night in a row.

Mid-Winter Break In Paris: Day 1: Our Hotel (and Vicinity)
We jumped ahead 9 hours flying from Seattle to Paris... noon here today feels like 3am. Understandably, we rested for much of today to get adjusted to the new timezone and stayed near the hotel. Speaking of which, we are staying at Marriott's Village d'lle-de-France near Disneyland Paris. We have a huge three-bedroom 3½-bath 1400 sq. ft. townhouse to stay in. It includes a full kitchen, dining room (with a dining room table that seats eight), living room, and laundry room. There are two pull-out sofas. Essentially, this place sleeps 10... comfortably. The trade-off for having so much room is the relative remoteness of the hotel. We are 30 miles and 40 minutes away from Paris (by train) which means we will spend (at minimum) 90 minutes on the Metro every day we are here and are visiting Paris. The resort is just a few miles away from Paris Disneyland, but we are only planning on hitting Disneyland for one day (if that!).

Here are a few shots of the exterior of the townhouse:

As can clearly be seen, it's cold here - really stiff cold kind of cold. It snowed here yesterday but is supposed to warm up as the week progresses. The townhouse is two level. The kitchen, laundry room, dining room, living room, and master bedroom are on the main level. The kids will sleep upstairs in the two bedrooms there. A few pics taken downstairs:

And upstairs:

In the afternoon, we walked off the hotel property (which includes a golf course) over to the nearest neighborhood. The little enclave is about a 10-minute-walk away but includes several shops worth visiting, including: a market, a bakery and pastry shop, several restaurants, a produce stand, and a butcher. We made our first stop at the boulangerie/pâtisserie ("Laird Dominique") and grabbed a couple of treats for the kids. Eliana sunk her teeth into a chocolate eclair; Berkeley and Olivia each had a pain au chocolate. Delicious stuff.

The restaurants were all closed (for siesta?) so we visited the market, bought a bunch of food for the week, and walked back home. We then rested a bit and returned to eat at a crêperie called "Grain de Sel". We all had dinner crêpes as our main course. My selection was the best... a crêpe topped with biftek haché (hamburger patty) and a cream sauce ("à la Russe"). It was good. Kristy ordered up a ham, cheese, and egg crêpe which she did not like because it was "too salty". We ordered up some dessert crêpes, but Eliana fell asleep at the table before they arrived:

Mid-Winter Break In Paris: Travel Day
Next week is mid-winter break around these parts and the kids have the entire week off from school. We decided to take the time to visit Paris, France. We got the kids out of school a bit early and boarded a Air France plane in Seattle at 1:45pm. Almost 10 hours later, we arrived in Paris at 11:30pm Pacific time Thursday night... or 8:30am Paris time Friday morning.

The direct flight via Air France was a great choice; no worries about connections or lost luggage. They served us dinner, which actually was a pretty decent meal. It included all the mini-baguettes you could eat as the flight attendants roamed the two aisles carrying baskets filled with bread. Each seat on the flight had a built-in entertainment system that featured plenty of diversions for the kids. Kristy watched a couple of movies as did I. Berkeley kept himself busy using the in-seat entertainment system for the entire flight. Kristy and the girls were able to catch some sleep, but Berkeley and I stayed awake. Berkeley crashed hard during the taxi ride from the airport to our hotel though.

Time for me to take a "nap" (since it's the middle of the day here) and get a few hours in before it's, um, dinner time again.

Olivia's Mad Face
This morning during breakfast someone (probably me) said something to Olivia that she didn't care to hear. The result:

Berkeley's 2nd Grade Space Camp
We spent the evening at Sunny Hills looking at all of the crafts and activities Berkeley has been doing as part of his 2nd grade class' recent learning module about space. They made some solar system dioramas, a powerpoint presentation about their favorite planet, and each class member built a space vehicle of their choice (rocket, satellite, space station, etc). Berkeley made a spy satellite.

Valentine's Tattoos
We spent the evening after dinner making Valentine's Day cards with the kids for school. Because the schools (in general) frown on including candy with the cards, the kids are including some temporary tattoos and stickers with their Valentine's greetings. Olivia and I used a couple during some of our spare time while the others kept busy:

My Other New Toy: Canon 85mm f/1.8 USM Prime Lens
Last weekend I received a Canon 85mm f/1.8 USM Prime Lens that I ordered from amazon.com. The first time I used it was for Berkeley's first basketball game. It worked wonderfully and captured the fast action from across the gym. Today I used the same lens to snap some still portraits of the girls. The lens produced some very good results:

Eliana's Tea Party Invitation Pictures
Last night Kristy put the girls in curlers. Kristy wanted Eliana to look extra fancy for her upcoming tea party invitation picture. There wasn't much effect of the curlers on Eliana's straight hair, but we went ahead and snapped her invite pictures anyway. Here is the best one... before and after my lame antiquing skills were applied:

Bedtime Curlers
Eliana and Olivia both went to bed with curlers in their hair tonight. Eliana's hair is so straight and Olivia's hair is so fine that I doubt the curlers will have much effect. But the girls still enjoyed the process.

Berkeley's First Basketball Game
We signed Berkeley up for basketball this year. He is on a team with just about all of his friends from school.

Eliana attended the game and was Berkeley's cheerleader ("Let's go Berkeley!") throughout the game.

After the game was over, Eliana ran across the floor and just about tackled Berkeley in an over-zealous embrace. (You can see my the first picture that it caught Berkeley by surprise.)

Early Valentine's Day Gifts
A friend of the family, Sheryl, left some early Valentine's Day gifts on the porch this morning for our kids. The gifts included some plush toys and lots of candy. They loved everything.

Thanks Sheryl!

Movie Review: Tortilla Soup

My Newest Toy: Canon 24-70mm f/2.8L USM Zoom Lens
After probably over a year of contemplating buying the Canon 24-70mm f/2.8L USM zoom lens to replace my stock zoom lens, I finally took the plunge and spent the thousand-plus dollars and got it... just in time for an impending trip to Paris with the family. I hope it's worth it.

Friendship Festival 2010
The annual friendship festival at Sammamish Learning Center was held tonight. This is our 4th year. Here is a scan of the family photo taken:

This is first time we attended for the purpose of watching our dear little Olivia sing a few songs. The first time we attended an SLC friendship festival, Olivia was just 6 months old. Olivia hammed it up during the songs, she loves to perform. Here are a few pics:

Olivia's First Valentines
Olivia made a Valentine card for Mimi. I thought I should scan it in. It's super cute!

A Never Ending Source of Humor: Mispronounced Words
Olivia is at that age where she mispronounces a lot of words, in a cute way. Eliana still has a few she consistenly mispronounces. Here are just a few that make me smile when used:

even -> "eben". Olivia uses "eben" to string together two phrases, even when they the use is not required. Example:

"Daddy, Time to go to school, eben I want you to bike me there."

throw -> "frow". This is an Eliana-ism. I love it. Example:

"Dad, I don't feel very well... I think I'm going to frow up."

pancake -> "panpape". This is classic Olivia. Example:

"Dad, are we having panpapes for breakfast, eben I love panpapes."

camera -> "cramera". Both Olivia and Eliana mispronounce camera. I have no idea why.

"Take a picture of this with your cramera Daddy."

nothing -> "nuffeen". Another Eliana-ism; it doesn't get old:

"Dad, I don't want nuffeen for breakfast. I'm mad at you."

(I'll probably add more to this later.)

January 2010 Photos
The January 2010 photo galleries for Berkeley, Eliana, and Olivia are now closed. January flew by and I can scarcely recall where it went. I spent a lot of time cooking this month (and snapping pictures of food) and not as much time snapping pictures of the kids. Ah well. I'll make up for it next month. Nonetheless, the galleries can be reviewed at Berkeley's web site, Eliana's web site, and Olivia's web site. Or just access the galleries directly using the following links:

Berkeley's January 2010 Gallery ... (7½ years old)
Eliana's January 2010 Gallery ... (5 years, 10 months old)
Olivia's January 2010 Gallery ... (3½ years old)