Spoiled Rotten...

There's nothing like grandparents to spoil you rotten... And Oliver and I benefitted from that truth a few weeks ago. My parents came to visit over Easter, and we had a wonderful time. I have several more posts to come of our short trips (which were fabulous!), but in the meantime, I have quite a few fun pictures from our days in Paris.

Our first day out and about in the city of lights involved a return trip to the Marais area, where we visited the Carnavalet Museum, Place des Vosges, and historic Jewish quarter.

We finished our walk at the Place de la Bastille, where we sat for several hours at a sidewalk cafe... true Paris life.

From there, we walked to Notre Dame, which was graced by these incredible purple tulips:

And, in honor of Mother's Day, isn't my mom adorable?!?!

The next day, we took a walk through the Champs de Mars, stopping for a photo op in front of Ecole Militaire:

And the Tour itself:

A few days later, we visited St Germain des Pres, Paris's oldest church:

The inside was all painted, like most old churches were originally. It was especially neat to use the images to imagine what other great cathedrals and churches probably looked like.

And then we walked down the street to St Sulpice. I can't believe that I've lived here for more than a year and a half and had never visited either of these churches. This one reminded me of St Peter's in Rome, and it included a Pantheon-style dome (oculus and all):

And we enjoyed the beautiful fountain out front:

Of course, we also made a few stops for Pita Grec; John, this one's for you:

And while visiting the Latin Quarter for Pita Grec, we dropped in at Notre Dame, too. I'm in awe every time I go in... And I go in a lot! I'm going to save the Notre Dame pictures, though, for my post about all 5 gothic cathedrals we visited while my parents were here... Good times.

Oliver is now eating wheat (and, praise the Lord, has had no adverse reactions!). So, a chunk of bread was usually how we made it through the cathedrals without his needing to sing or talk to passersby (which, admittedly, is hard to pass up on since your voice echoes beautifully in cathedrals and everyone who passes him smiles and waves at him...). Anyway, we came out of Notre Dame with him looking like this:

I'm not sure where this scrunch face has come from recently, but it is HILARIOUS. More on that later, too.

As I mentioned above, much of our sightseeing was done outside of Paris, but we did our fair share of wandering around, enjoying the scenery and the beautiful weather, like here in front of Invalides (Napoleon's tomb):

And we definitely did our fair share of visiting boulangeries. :) Like this one, the famous Poilane bakery (which I have been wanting to visit for some time and was so thankful for the excuse!):

The best part of their visit was, though, OF COURSE, just getting to enjoy family. Oliver was especially in heaven. Playing with Grandpa in the park:

And in the apartment:

He did plenty of playing with Nana, too, but I'm saving those pictures for later. I just hope that my parents had as much fun being here as we did having them here. Our last night was particularly special. As per tradition, we returned to the Latin quarter for some Pita Grec, which we took to go so we could sit in the beautiful park in the shadow of Notre Dame.

To be surrounded by good food, beautiful weather, gorgeous scenery, great history, and the best company... Does it get any better than this?