Vive la France!

So as promised, here are some more pictures from our trip to France this summer. It was indescribably beautiful, and it was very awesome to celebrate our 10th wedding anniversary with such a great trip. And I got to do Science too!

I feel like Jules Verne should have lived in one of these buildings. This was looking southwest-ish from the first deck of the Eiffel Tower.

Eiffel placed the names of prominent scientists all around the tower.

This is the town square in the small suburb we were in for the conference, Rueil Malmaison

Quintessentially European kitteh...

Notre Dame was basically the coolest place I've ever been. We had to hide out there for quite a while during an afternoon thunderstorm. I can't describe it. The architecture, the history, and just the shear Catholicism of the place left me at a loss for words.

The Louvre

This might be my favorite picture ever, ha!

The Seine...our hotel was only a block off of the river.

So it's been awhile

Who knew that doing research and procrastinating writing my dissertation proposal would not include updating the blog! Well, here are some random pictures from the last six months or so in no particular order or anything. Hope everyone is gearing up for a wonderful holiday season :)Most of these pics are from our Excellent Adventure this summer. I'll post more of Paris later this week. There's always procrastinating to do! Out walking the dogs in the hood...

This is JM watching the Durango-Silverton roll by our campsite this summer. Every campground after this (2 weeks worth of them!) was a disappointment because a train wasn't going by right outside our tent!

Climbing to the lookout of Delicate Arch in Arches National Park

Lily and JM playing at Sand Dune Arch in Arches Nat'l Park (can't you tell this is one of my favorite places in the world?!)

Yellowstone Lake

Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone

Welcome to Yellowstone! It got down to 32 degrees that night, I thought I was going to die! No worries, JM had all the covers so he was just fine:)

Yellowstone was truly amazing...and scary, at least geologically speaking.

Smokey Bear says "only YOU can prevent temper tantrums!"

Glacier National Park...one of my other favorite places in the world.

Falls on Going-to-the-Sun road in Glacier.

The road had just opened up 2 days before we arrived there.

"The Wandering Gringo" was a taco cart right outside the park. By this time in our trip we were dying for real Mexican food...it was awesome!

We celebrated JM's 3rd birthday on the side of the road at a rest stop in Wyoming. We were on our way to Devil's Tower and South Dakota that evening. It was a blast, Lisa outdid herself on the party decorations and festivities :)

Shannon and Lisa's Excellent Adventure

Day 1-5 of the trip. Norman, Ok, to Salt Lake City, Ut. Day 1 we drove to Albuquerque and spent the night with Tom and Ivy, then on to Durango, Colorado. This might be my favorite(and is Lisa's favorite) town anywhere. Let me tell you, it is now John Milo's favorite town too! We camped in this private campground (okay, it's not backcountry, but swimming pools keep the kiddos entertained). Running right through the middle of the campground was the Durango-Silverton Line. Three steamies (steam engines for all you non-Thomas the Tank Engine people) went by when we were there. John Milo was actually shaking with excitement. He cried when we left and is still talking about it. Then on to Moab. I'm a geologist, so I can appreciate all Utah has to offer, but god I hate dust! The campground (okay, it was a tent site at an RV Park in the middle of town) was so dusty and disgusting. But anyway, we went to Arches and Canyonlands National Parks. They are amazing. I'd been to both of these, but it was during field camp ten years ago. Obviously the rocks hadn't changed much, but it was certainly awesome to take Lily and John Milo there.We went on two pretty big hikes (~1 mile) in Arches both yesterday and this morning before leaving Moab. They did great. John Milo ran up one of the trails yelling "I'm a geologist". Made me nearly cry! Then this morning we hung out at Sanddune Arch, it was pretty spectacular. They are travelling pretty well, in case anyone was wondering, bickering away like siblings. JM was a little scared of the whole "camping" thing at first, even though he's been before. But he is pretty good. We are in Salt Lake City at a hotel (ah...comforts!) tonight and then on to Jackson Hole and Grand Teton and Yellowstone. I hope my bear anxiety isn't passed on to my kiddo. He told me he was worried about lions, so I guess it is genetic. Enjoy! Note:I'm having some trouble uploading pictures...as you can imagine the wi-fi in national parks isn't that great...so here's one and I'll add more later!

April...er, June in Paris

Some photos from Paris, where I am going to be presenting some of my research and John is along to celebrate our 10th wedding anniversary as well :)

It's been awhile...

I'm sure my readership will plummet since I pulled the plug on my Facebook, but I've certainly been getting a lot more done! For those of you left that check the blog, here are some more recent pics of the kiddo and such. Also, went to New Mexico (visiting the Harding Pegmatite Mine) for a field trip over spring break, where we had a dust storm that shut down the interstate followed by a blizzard that did the same! Ahhh...springtime!

Birthday party in the gym!

John Milo went to his first birthday party last weekend:) We were very excited because it was at Bart Conner's gym, and we've been talking about maybe taking some gymnastics lessons. As always it took him awhile to warm up to everything, but he eventually did and had a great time!! Especially in the pit, where he and his buddies just jumped all over the place, it was pretty hilarious.