ya think?

for the kids...

I am sure I took more than these, but I can't find them right now. But my kids found them fun to look at anyway!

Life sized Bionicle made from Lego. At Hamley's in London (you shoulda seen Mik's face when he saw this place! Six floors of pure childish pleasure!!).

More Bionicles. Which I will add I am glad to live in Australia where they are so much cheaper than in the UK! They were the same amount in pounds as they are in dollars, before conversion! Crazy prices!!!

And finally, Mik spotted this one. A small road off Rue de Rivoli. Too funny! I had hoped to see platform 9 3/4 when I was in London, but I got my stations mixed up and was at the wrong one! Not enough time to go to the right place and get the shot. Apparently there IS a platform sign there now, just for crazy tourists like me. Maybe next time!

K

more photos...

Slowly getting through my favourites in the 1000+ photos that I took!!! Totally crazy number I know, but lots of fun at the same time!!

This statue moved me, the image of father and child. At Versailles.

Beautiful gardens at Versailles.

They have the most intricate and weird statues at Versailles. I mean, really weird.

I fell in love with the detail on the buildings. If you look at the original photo it looks less 'sketched'. But this is how it really looked to me through my eyes. Like a painting.

One of the things that I HATE about tourists is when they don't take notice of 'no photography' signs, particularly in churches. There were some amazing things that I saw that I would have desperately loved to record, but I refused to break the rules and contribute to the ruining of the atmosphere (not to mention the light damage). This was the one and only church window that I took a photo of, we were standing out on the street at Montmartre and the doors were open to the church. This beautiful window was just stunning, and I am amazed at how clearly the photo came out considering we were out in full sunlight.

I took so many photos at this church, it was so beautiful on the outside. This is of the roof over the entryway, just stunning!

Detail at the front door of Sacre Coeur. I just love this building, so amazing.

Place de la Concorde. I am STILL totally amazed about the obelisk. It is around 3300 years old. I can't even begin to concieve this amount of time. Like seriously! It was moved to France in the 1800s (from memory) from Egypt. When we were at the Louvre we saw photographs of the place where it came from, and where its twin is still situated. I can totally get buildings that are 900 years old. But this? Totally amazing. I know, it really isn't all that old in the grand scheme of things, but... I still find it amazing. I also love this shot. The combination of really old, semi old (the lamp-posts) and new (the wheel), it speaks to me.

And along the same lines of old meets new, this one from London. We were able to duck across to London for a couple of days to catch up with a school friend of Miks. Such a great trip! So glad we went, even if my back went out on day one and the planned shopping tour was somewhat ruined! Oh well, still lots of fun. Anyhoo, didn't get up in the London Eye, the queues were hideous and we decided to use our time to eat a nice meal and chat instead. But man that thing is huge!!!!

Hokay, will leave the pics here for today. Still SOOOO many to work on! I hope I don't bore you!

K

home, happy and recovered...

Phew! I'm home! Actually, been home for a few days now, but been sick with a bug and only just surfacing today!

I had all good intentions whilst we were away of updating my blog each day, post my photos as I could, and share the experience as I went along. Grrr... seems that the French wi-fi services didn't agree with my plan!!!! For the first few days the hotel server was down, then I couldn't upload to my blog. After that I simply gave up! Just enjoyed my time with Mik and decided to forget it until we got home! But of course I now have too much to share! Where to start!?!?!?!

The show in France was once again totally fabulous! I loved it, loved seeing people again, loved being back at a scrapping event after such a long break. It seemed all so familiar, even though I was in a different county where I couldn't speak the language. I loved NOT being the new girl on the block and just being able to spend my time getting to know all of the other fabulous tutors, helpers and students. It was also fun to have Mik there, showing him what I do when I leave him for days at a time!

So, some highlights of the weekend? Seeing Sally M again! How weird that it would take a trip to France to see her in person! So much fun to have another Aussie there and recognise the accent! Kept my accent in check for those few days as well!!! I have a terrible habit of picking up both british and american accents pretty quickly which can get a little embarrassing!

What else... Meeting Ashley and Paul (totally gorgeous, and also vegetarian!), CD (would you believe it took until the LAST night for us to meet?!?!?! Crazy!), Anna (who is just hilarious!), Corinne (also hilarious, does that girl EVER stop!?!?), Mou (she is too funny!), and finally the delightful Margie! It was kinda different this year. Many more of us with partners there, and also being slightly out of town at Versailles, we tended to stick to ourselves a little more and did the sightseeing thing seperately. So didn't get to know the girls as well as I did last year, but still had so much fun regardless! Wishing we had more time to chat and share our stories, maybe I will finally get to the US sometime and will catch up with the girls again. I can hope, dream and plan can't I!?!?!?!

Other highlights of the weekend? My classes! Of course! So much fun to see everyone so happy to learn new things! I think everyone enjoyed my classes and I certainly had fun teaching! I hope that I didn't come across as being tired though! I think I did pretty well, until the last day when I hit a wall and felt AWFUL! I just had to apologise and get through the best I could! By the end of the day all was fine again, but that one class was a hard one!

I also got to do one class over the weekend with Ashley - totally loved it! Loved sitting and painting again, loved just playing for a change. I realised that I haven't just played with art supplies in so very long, rather using product only on my layouts. Missed playing, missed experimenting and missed getting my hands dirty. When I am settled here again I hope to get down and dirty once more, just like I once used to!

And I can't finish up this report without praising Celine and the rest of the girls on their wonderful work over the weekend. The event was so well organised, we were treated so wonderfully and everything was thought of for the whole weekend. I can't fault ANYTHING from the weekend and was so happy to be invovled in such a professional event! Big kisses to you all girls!

And did I get one photo from the event? Nope. Typical! I will use the excuse that Mik had the camera for the weekend, but the reality is that I wouldn't have used it even if I did have it! I am just HOPELESS! I did take 100s of photos elsewhere though, a few to share here, the rest to come over the coming days. I really need to get some housework done!! Coming home and then being sick has NOT been great for my house! Oops! So just a few random shots that I have already played with. Stories to go with some of them, will return later to fill you in!

This is a broken staircase at Marie Antoinette's little village (will tell more of this, such a beautiful place!)

The gorgeous windows you see everywhere in Versailles.

The front gates at the Palace at Versailles.

One of the water fountains at the Versailles gardens. I fell in love with the colours!

And finally a carousel at night, near the Eiffel Tower.

I really hope that you are all well, happy and enjoying the improving weather!

Love heaps!

K