A long awaited update!

So I have definitely ignored this blog for two months now....oops, sorry. But a lot has happened since then!

School has ended and I am vigorously working on my planning for next year (as you can tell by my break here =P ) but I've definitely taken some breaks here and there....

Here's a recap (in pictures) of the last two months!

First off, before school ended, I went on a field trip with my kindergardeners to the zoo. It was nice, but it was definitely nothing compared to the Miami zoo =P

(Since I should post pictures of the kids, here's a hippo eating =P)

We took a mini trip to New York. It was mainly composed of food and shopping =P

Yummy NY Bagel

1000 year old egg and pork congee along with roasted duck and roast pork rice (yumm!!)

BBQ at Blue Smoke....the sweet potato wedges were heavenly!

And Shanghai Cafe. We also had fried dumplings, but forgot the picture =P

 And of course, we visited the 911 memorial site and the Freedom Tower.

Surprising peaceful

The Freedom Tower

 And lastly, the street we stayed on and Central Park

Ah...the old brownstone apartments

Central Park with a view

 Germain and I also passed 1,000 days since we got married!

Flowers ^_^

And we took a mini mini quiet getaway about an hour from Cannes...It was on a golf course so it was quite peaceful. Something Germain needed after all the long exams.

Then last weekend one of our friends came in town for a visit. He has never gone to Monaco, so we took a day trip.

The museum on the cliff

Eduoard and Germain

I like this spot in the garden...very pretty

View of the racetrack

Defense!

Monte Carlo Casino

And all the pretty pretty cars

Check out this yacht! As in, look at the size compared to the normal yacht next to it....and the freakin helicopter on the back!

Next stop...Miami!

The Feschets are in town!

The other day, friends of ours came to Paris for a visit. Pierre is french so he was in the country visiting his family and they decided to take their 13 month old daughter for her first visit to Paris. Luckily it was a beautiful day and we were able to spend it acting like tourist.

First we took a nice stroll down the parks on the Champs-Élysées all the way to the Louvre.

The Louvre

Then we hopped onto a metro and made our way to Hotel de Ville to grab lunch. After lunch, we walked to Isle Saint Louis for some yummy Berthillon ice-cream. From there, we approached the Notre Dame from the back.....which I actually think is the more intresting side of the cathedral. 

The Feschets: Pierre, Anna and Chloe

 We rested for a little in the park behind the Notre Dame so little Chloe could eat. I always wanted to stop by that park, but never took the time. It's actually very pretty, and this time of the year, it's full of flowers too!

I'm pretty sure this is a rose, but it looks almost like a peony

Chloe. She's always smiling!

Our final toursitic activity of the day was to take a tour on the Seine by bateau mouche (the boat). It's an open top boat where they play a recording of facts for all the landmarks we passed. It was interesting prespective of the city and it was a lovely day to be outside too.

A rose window of the Notre Dame peeking through the trees

The view of the back of the Notre Dame

The Eiffel Tower

It was tiring, but kind of fun to be a tourist again, especially since we're leaving the city soon. It gave us an opportunity to revisit all the main areas of Paris.

Last two weeks

I've been super lazy about updating. Frankly, there's not much new going on. So, other than pictures of my apartment, here's my last two weeks in a nutshell.

Pink Magnolias

A raven hunting

I see butts!!

Black swans

Little ducky family

Cherry Blossoms

Pretty

Don't know what these are, but they're pretty

Late blooming Sakura tree

Germain figured I would like this more than flowers, He was right....un Fraiser

Fontainebleau (More pictures!)

The other day we decided to take a break from the craziness of the city and take a mini trip right outside the city. We took the train right outside the city to the castle of Fontainbleau. Kings would go to the castle in the summer to go hunting in the woods. It's a place we've been to already, so we didn't visit inside the castle, but we walked around in the gardens and in the woods. The sky was rainy and gray, but we were lucky....we didn't get rained on, really, while out in the woods.

Enjoy!

In the gardens of the castle

"quak"

Swan taking off

Arch created by the flowers

The castle of Fontainebleau

In the gardens

It's a swan nesting!

In the woods of the Fontainebleau

Even in the woods......haha

Beetle

View over the lake

Garden (Lots of pictures!)

Yesterday was a beautiful day! We had relatively warm weather and the sun was shining bright. We took advantage of that and visited a garden right outside of Paris. I've been wanting to go to this garden for a while. According to reviews, it is a nice walk and it has one of the nicest views of cherry blossoms. As I mentioned in the last post, it's been pretty cold so there hasn't been a lot of blooms, and the garden wasn't as flowery as it normally is, but it was still a very nice walk and we were still able to see some pretty scenery.

This garden (Jardin Albert Kahn) was strongly influenced by the Japanese style. They had several Japanese inspired (if not really from there) sculptures, bridges and buildings. Many of the shrubbery reminded me of something you would see in a Japanese garden.

field of wild flowers

Pretty

Cherry Blossoms