France!

Of course we were up early the next day and drove over to the Paris temple that is actually in Versailles. We parked there and did baptisms. Baptisms took a lot longer than we thought. The coordinator had lots of instructions and then had us doing a lot of baptisms that were for someone else--we had brought our own names. Lee finally had to tell them that we had to go. We had a timed entry into Versailles Palace and didn't want to waste our tickets. We walked from the Temple to Versailles. Too bad we were so rushed. The Paris Temple was gorgous though!  So peaceful and filled with true riches of eternity. 

Walking through the pretty residential streets. We ended up not going to the correct entrance at Versailles. We soon found the right one and made it in time. 

So opulent! 

We made it inside. 

The first and last time I was at Versailles was late August, early September. It was not this pretty! The gardens were gorgeous. 

Can't imagine being on display to others while waking up. Apparently that's what happened. Something like that....

The Hall of Mirrors!

It was funny....we were saying we had to leave, and Clark and Shanna wanted to leave too, but they stopped and kept taking photos. And the rest of us as well.  

We walked out of the back corner entrance/exit and headed back to the temple. 

The Paris Temple!  We took some pictures, changed and headed off to Paris! 

This trip was go go go. Wish we could have spent more time there. But we had a fun taste. Would love to go back!

Stopped at an Aldi right across the street basically from the temple to grab lunch. We were there a bit longer than necessary. But it was fun!

We found a downtown parking garage then walked to the rental to drop off our luggage. We were about 6 minutes from the Eiffel Tower!

The renter was funny to get into. The building key was in a lock box on a bike rack outside. Then we got into the building and then had to use my phone to unlock the door. Third floor apartment!  It was really cool and old. 

Quite the staircase!

On the way to the Eiffel Tower. 

I missed the window to get tickets to go to the very top. I could have gotten tickets to go to the middle-ish section but decided to wait and get some tickets in person. Of course I didn't think through that it's tourist season and TONS of people would be in line to get tickets. We wasted about an hour there trying to decided to go up in the tower, and then that hour led into trying to figure out how to get to Notre Dame. I should have researched that better.  After our big time wasting, we decided to rent bikes and ride to Notre Dame. 

I LOVED riding bikes in Paris. The happy accident that turned out to be a highlight for me. 

The huge disappointment....we arrive about 5 minutes too late to enter Notre Dame. This was one of the few things Lee wanted to see.  We walked around and got some pictures. 

A fun sandy place by the Seine river. 

Arc de Triomphe!!!  

This was one restaurant that I did find out about and we hit up. We were sitting inside at first, and then they had us sit outside. Kind of wish we had stayed inside because people were smoking outside.  Super yummy food and expensive haha.

The Eiffel Tower was close by!

I got French onion soup. So good! We also got their famous hot chocolate. 

Some of us had bikes still and some not, so we were trying to find good places to see the Eiffel Tower. Too bad we didn't just stay together. We didn't want to miss it twinkling at 10pm. I was with the girls and Lee with the guys. Thankfully we found everyone just fine. 

The crepe place that I had remembered wasn't there anymore, so we stopped at a little one. The crepe with Nutella and cookie butter was sooo yummy!

One of my favorite pictures!

Back at the ranch....we didn't have a good view of anthing from the 3rd floor rental. On the way back we stopped at a couple gift shops. We saw the tower twinkle again, but we were a couple blocks over so only saw the top. 

Some of the kids stayed up and watched Rataouille.  I've got to say, pretty cool watching it IN PARIS!

A few more from earlier in the day. 

Paris, we loved you!!!