Pictures of France

I've ended the Marjorie blog (Google "Hank's best year ever" if you're interested in my latest rantings), but if you've come here looking for trip pictures as my sister Carol did the other day, please pop me an e-mail. I'm sending out links to albums I've created after sorting through everybody's best photographic efforts. I'm sending out an album a day to keep it from being overwhelming.

Home at Last

Well it took over a year for me to learn how to blog on this site. Has everyone recovered? I have hit the ground running at work and at home. IT is hot and I want to be back riding the bike on the canal. Hank and Teri, I know I said it a lot, but thank you. It was THE trip of a life time.

Don't we look great and well rested? I miss you all. Stay in touch.

Kathy

Flight schedule and last post

Just a reminder that our flight leaves on Wednesday. This Wednesday. Be there or be square.

All but the Gideons will depart from Birmingham at 11:40 a.m. on Continental Flight 2603.

We'll arrive in Houston at 1:30 p.m. and the entire group will fly from Houston to Paris on Continental Flight 10 at 3:05 p.m. Word of warning--depending on which Terminal we arrive and depart from--you may have to go through security a second time in Houston which is a huge, huge pain. Be ready for that.

Please allow plenty of time to make the flight. The Continental website suggests getting to the Birmingham airport two hours early when flying out during our time slot, so govern yourself accordingly. When you get to the airport, go ahead and check in. You all have e-tickets in your own names, so there's no need to wait for the herd to gather. The flight to Houston is on a fairly small plane, so we'll have no trouble finding each other at the gate.

Steve and Mel, you'll need to be there a couple of hours early because you're going straight to an international flight.

Jen, Colleen, Teri and I (and probably Mike) will be coming in together anyway. Jen and the kids arrived on Saturday and Teri made it home safely from Washington on Sunday.

Colleen has surfaced from her woodsy isolation, and we can't wait until she gets here. Drive safely!

If you're interested, our flight from Houston to Paris is 9 hours, 40 minutes and our flight from Paris to Houston is 11 hours, 5 minutes

I beg of you, please don't leave your passports at home! If you forget everything else, you can still go and buy or borrow what you need along the way, but without a passport you're grounded.

I suspect this will be the very last Marjorie post. If you're interested, I'll be kicking off a new "Best Year Ever" diary blog when we get back, and I'll pass on that URL once it's created.

It's been a real joy contributing to this blog. I hope you've enjoyed it and found it helpful at times. It has been my sincere prayer all along that this upcoming adventure creates wonderful memories for us to share for the rest of our lives.

See you in France.

Love,

Hank

Teri brings home hardware

Most of you know that Teri is in Washington DC until Sunday. She's there with her Ad Team from the University of Alabama who were competing in the national finals of the annual advertising competition. This is a huge deal in Teri's discipline, as over 150 colleges and universities compete every year with the top 18 or so teams advancing from district competitions to the national finals.

This year Teri became the advisor (or "coach") of the Bama team after having done this at both Auburn University at Montgomery and Loyola University.

The good news is that the Bama team came in 2nd place in the nation (Syracuse won). This is the culmination of a tremendous amount of work on the parts of the students and Teri, and is a terrific accomplishment. This is something like her 20th year taking a team to the competion. If memory serves, over that period she's been to the national finals seven times, meaning she's won the district competition that many times.

The picture here shows the group in their finery after competing in the district competion in Baton Rouge earlier this spring. Click on it (or any picture on this blog) to get a closer look. They're a terrific bunch of kids.

Of her seven trips to the finals, her teams have placed third, second (twice now) and won it all one year. Teri would know for sure, but I seriously doubt that any other ad team coach has a record anything like that.

The team flew from BHM on early Thursday morning. Six college students stayed at our house on Wednesday, so Teri left me with a lot of housework, especially since I had to turn the house around for the Marjorie guests arriving starting today. My mother and Jen and the kids will get here today. My mom will be house kid/house/pet-sitting for us while we're away.

I couldn't be more proud of my dear wife. Congratulations Teri! You're the best! I can't wait to tell you that in person tomorrow.

How great is this?

A message from our guide in Paris

Looks like we'll have a 12th person at our table for dinner on Friday, which should be very cool indeed.

Bonjour William,

Thank you very much for your kind message, I've found your picture, thanks ! You seems to be good friends and who loves France (I love USA !). I went twice in USA : in west USA in 1998 and in NYC in 1999. My favorite city in the world is New York and San Francisco

No problem for me to make a shorter walking your restaurant is not far away from Montparnasse, it is in St Germain area a little street in front of the St Germain church, so very easy to go before 8pm

Thank you so much to invite me !! Are you sure ? I don't want to be an intruder.. it is so nice, I think I can come with you to the restaurant.


I'm an administrative assistant in a humanitarian organization headoffice, I like my job, I like Paris. I was born in Paris and I grew up there. I'm not very good in history but I know Paris.


Last year, a friend from Portland visit me and I show him Paris during one week and after that, he called me Amelie Poulain (it is a famous french movie) I like to meet some people from all over the world, it is so great.

I'm volunteer guide from only one month, you will be my 2nd walking tour, but I am a guide for my friends from France and my nephews

I send you a picture of me here enclosed to help you to recognize me.

I'm working at the east of Paris and I will do my best to arrive between 5:45pm and 6:00pm

see you soon (A bientot)
friendly
armelle

PS : if you have the email address of George Clooney or Barack Obama, I can be available for them for a walking tour in Paris !!!!

Walking tour update

This is mostly for the subset of us on the walking tour (Beau, Kathy, Steve, Mel, Teri and me). I'm copying the rest of you mostly to make you jealous.

I've heard from our volunteer guide. Her name is Armelle Mercier. Her e-mail to me was very charming and she offered to give us all kinds of advice. She claims to speak only broken English (and said she'd be bringing along her French/English dictionary), but I'm positive that her English is better than my French, and between the two of us there won't be any problems.

She will be taking us on a walking tour of Montparnasse, Odeon and perhaps St. Michel.

The time slot we have is 6-8 p.m. on Friday, which bumps us right up to our group dinner at Le Petit Zinc. Armelle is a volunteer and has a regular job so she's not available before 6. She offered to meet us at the hotel. I asked her if we could be sure to end the tour in time for us to make our dinner date and will let you know how that goes, but you may be going on your walking tour in your dinner clothes.

Also, I invited her to join us for dinner after the tour if she is available (my treat), so the rest of you may meet her as well. I'll let the Maitre D know if that's happening, but I'm sure it won't be a problem for the restaurant.