Guest Post - Colmar, France

Hello everyone -

Since my name is actually in the title of the Blog, Steph and I thought it was high time for me to actually write a post, instead of my usual job as editor-in-chief. So, here it is, and only after Steph has authored 175 posts. So at this pace, I'll write another in 2011.

For our anniversary trip, we decided to just take a short overnight trip to Colmar, France. Colmar is in the Alsace region of France, near the Rhine River, which forms part of the German border. (And you have my permission to stop reading and go straight to the pictures if I start to sound like Rick Steves and/or a high school history teacher, who doubled as the gym teacher.)

Anyways, Colmar has been called "the most beautiful city in the world." Before you ask by whom, I'll tell you; it was Georges Duhamel. Before you ask who that is, I'll tell you; he was a very famous French author, so he may have been a slight bit biased. Colmar actually dates back to A.D. 823, so it's made it through countless European wars. During World War II, Colmar was spared from bombings because the Americans and British military thought it too beautiful. There is of course a super-long history of the city, and numerous famous people have lived there. The one we thought was really cool was that Frederic Auguste Bartholdi, the designer of the Statue of Liberty, was born there. I hope you enjoyed this short history lesson. I thought it was all very interesting, since my family is French, and my great-grandparents are from the Alsace region.

Thanks for reading, if you were able to make it through this far. I'm a man of few words, and I'm married to a woman with the shortest attention span in recorded history, so I've learned over the past year to be very concise. And of course, Steph had to add her personal touch to this post, with pictures. So now you can enjoy the best part of the post.

If you'd like to see all of our pictures from Colmar,
click here.

I hope you enjoyed our walk through Colmar.

Jon

Last Day of Adventures in Paris

Our last day in Paris, we got up early enough to make it to the Louvre by 9:00. Sadly, it appeared everyone else and THEIR DOG had the same idea, and the Louvre was packed by 9. Overall it wasn't a terrible experience, but with that amount of people there is no way to capture great shots of any of the artwork. Here are some of the pictures that actually turned out.

I love the ceilings in the Louvre, they are unbelievable.

After walking around the Louvre for several hours we decided to hit the road back to Germany. We drove through the french countryside and of course had to stop and take pictures in the fields of yellow flowers.

All in all it was a great time and I am so glad that were able to visit Paris while my brother and his friend Kathleen were here. It meant a lot to them to get to see Paris and I know they had a great time. Hope you guys enjoyed my pictures from our trip!

Thanks so much for all of the wonderful comments and a big thanks for following along and reading my blog. It's so nice to wake up to wonderful comments in the morning! You guys truly are awesome.

Hope you all have a great weekend!

Oh, P.S. I did my first day of Shred last night, walked 6 miles today.... I'm on my way to being "shredded" as Jillian Michaels puts it. (BUT now I can hardly walk, I'm SO SORE!!!) We'll see if I can make it through another twenty minute workout tonight!?! Yesterday I wanted to grab her through the TV and strangle her, only because I'm incredibly out of shape!! What I wouldn't do for some Mexican food right now ;)