Weeks 68-70 in France

These past few weeks have been special for us as we celebrated 50 years of marriage. Janet is sitting in the sun behind our heart filled table cloth right across from our heart collection on the opposite wall.

We thank the Lord for these years He has given us together on Earth.  We  are grateful to each other for honoring the vows we made kneeling across an altar in the Salt Lake Temple on February 6, 1970.To celebrate, we had dinner at a fancy restaurant in the Waldorf Astoria Hotel right next to the Versailles Chateau gardens.  We dressed up and had a wonderful evening together.  We were even served a complimentary chocolate treat.

At the entrance of the Waldorf Astoria

Dining in the Veranda Room

We even had an anniversary cheesecake.  Each of the 5 candles represented a decade.

Continuing our weekend celebration, we went to the French National Archaeological Museum in Saint Germain-en-Laye, just a 40 minute bus ride north of where we live.  It's sobering to realize how much farther back in time French history goes compared to U.S. history.

 

The pre-history of France had an amazing number of artifacts, including exhibitions showing the differences between Cro-Magnon and Neanderthal artifacts and remains.

Cro-Magnon skull and stone tools

Cro-Magnon skull on the left, Neanderthall skull on the right.

The museum had many artifacts from before the time of  the Roman conquest, but the sheer number of Roman artifacts was amazing.  The most poignant moment for us, however, was the statue of Vercingetorix, a Gaulish leader who fought the Roman conquerors but was ultimately defeated by Julius Caesar and taken captive to Rome where he was put to death 6 years later.

One of the many displays showing gold ornaments dating from as far back as 4000 years.


This past week has been unusual for us because the Paris Temple recorder was on vacation, so  Wayne had to be in the temple from opening to closing.  His long hours serving at the temple gave Janet lots of time to read, relax, go for walks and study French. She even got to try out her French at the Leader Price grocery store down the street. Thankfully, this coming week should be back to normal.  We send our love to everyone following our blog, and pray God's peace on each of you.

Weeks 65 - 67 in France

Needless to say, but I always say it anyway: "The past weeks have flown by".  With the Paris Temple being closed for two weeks for scheduled cleaning and maintenance, we've been able to do and see things we normally don't have time to do.  We've visited Paris together, we've visited Paris and Chartres with our daughter, Janet, and her son, Brandt, and visited dear friends in Rouen again.  This blog will, therefore, be long on pictures and short on text.  So here goes:  The first pictures are of Wayne celebrating his birthday at the Buffalo Grill restaurant in Versailles with two other senior missionary couples.

During the first week of January Janet and I visited the Louvre.  We are "Friends of the Louvre" for a year, and wanted to go see the special exhibit on Leonardo DaVinci.  When we got there, however, we found out that even though it was free to us, you had to have made reservations, and there were no openings.  As we walked away, however, we were approached by a man who asked, "Do you need tickets"?  We don't even know how he knew we spoke English, but we graciously offered to pay him for them, since they were not free to him.  He said we could just have them and that would be doing him a favor.  What a kind gift!  We thoroughly enjoyed the exhibit.  Here a a few of the pictures we took:

   

The above picture of the Last Supper is a full color recreation of the painting as it originally appeared.  The original has largely been destroyed by weather and time.  The last picture above is an ultraviolet study of the Mona Lisa showing some of its underlying features and changes.

We spent two days with Boris and Catherine Barnjak in Rouen on January 17th and 18th.  We visited the Martainville Chateau, the Fine Arts Museum, and the nearby sculpture forest. The chateau is one of only a few where there are still actual original finishings and furnishings. The forest was filled with interesting and fun art mostly designed for kids, but just as fun for adults. Here are several pictures we took there.

Painting of an artist gathering showing many famous French painters and sculptors

Painting of the martyrdom of Saint Agnes (I think)

Fee Fi Fo Fum!

Fun mirror spiral

Coming out of the mouth of the snake

100 foot long snake made from rubber tire scraps

A Martian

Yup!  Upside down tree houses!

Sculpture of a fallen power line tower.  Go figure!

A walking bird house.

The protruding sticks slide in to leave an outline of what was there.

Janet inside the Martian.

We also had time to have the missionaries over for breakfast.  Elder Thomas, on the right, was returning home the next day, and they already had a dinner appointment, so we just invited them over for breakfast.

For the past three months we have been having senior couple missionary dinners on a rotating basis.  It's fun to get to know the other couples we don't get to serve with.  Elder and Sister Turner, on the left, serve in the visitor center.  Elder and Sister Baird serve on the other team at the temple.

The final week of our "vacation" was a wonderful visit from our daughter, Janet, and her son, Brandt. Because of their visit, Janet and I got to go to places we had never been to or hadn't been to in a long time.  Here are only a VERY few of the many pictures we took while doing the "tourist routine":

Dinner with Grandma and Grandpa

The Arc de Triomphe

Notre Dame

French pastries

View from level 2 of the Eiffel Tower.  The top level was closed for maintenance.

Raspberry and Strawberry tartlettes

This doen't really need a caption, does it!

The underground catacombes.

This was Brandt's favorite place to visit, I think.

The workers who restacked the bones from other graveyards in Paris must have had a sense of humor.

Chartres stained glass

Chartres Cathedral towers barely visible in the fog.

Chartres Cathedral barely visible in the fog, again.

The Fine Arts museum in Chartres still had their Creche up.

Creche closeup

By going to the Louvre in the evening, the crowds were much smaller.

A French crown

Looking right up the middle of the Eirffel Tower

Versailles Hall of Mirrors

Versailles front

Leaving the Versailles Palace

Sacre Coeur

 

 

Thorvaldsen's Christus at the Paris Temple

Janet wanted you to see these roses that are blooming just outside of our apartment window.  Spring can't be too far away.

Well, that's all for now, folks.  It's actually comforting to be back serving in the Paris Temple which reopened on the 28th.  We love the feeling of peace and joy that comes from serving our fellow children of God.