Christmas at Jenna's House - December 22, 2006

I took these pictures with Julie's camera because I didn't want to travel with mine :) Though Jenna had moved into her house in March, this was my first time visiting. Her house was beautiful and decorated for the holidays. She invited a fun group of girls over for yummy food, wine, and good times.





Here are the sugar cookies that Julie baked (Betty Crocker recipe circa 1961!)

Madeline and Isabel - December 16, 2006

Here is baby Madeline, 6 months.



I couldn't decide on color or black and white for this next picture. Any suggestions?


Isabel, the sweetest little girl I've ever met, almost 3 years.

My Christmas Tree

Chatel-Guyon - December 4-7, 2006

Chatel-Guyon is a tiny spa town in central France. This is where we had our scientific conference. It's a beautiful town, but it shuts down in the winter, so there was nothing to do. Just as well, the conference kept me plenty busy. Some facts about the area:

The water is extremely high in magnesium. This did not agree with my hair.
The soil is super dark and very fertile.
There is a Michelin factory.

Here is a view of the street where our hotel was located.



The view from our hotel room window



The conference organized a tourist excursion to Issoire where we visited this church. I have no idea what it is called. I only know that it is Roman. One feature of Roman churches that you will notice is that they are very colorful. It was getting dark at this point and I couldn't get many pictures.

Then we had dinner at a medieval castle that Catherine de Medici owned.

Sunrise from our hotel room window (8:00am)

Paris - December 1-3, 2006

It is unseasonably mild in France this winter, but cloudy and rainy as usual. Because the daylight hours are short and I refused to wake up early, I didn't get to see very much. Here are some pictures from Notre Dame de Paris and the Musee du Louvre. My little Sony camera only goes up to ISO 400 so it was nearly impossible to take any non-flash pictures inside the cathedral.

The Seine River right next to Notre Dame

Prayer candles
I climbed up 255 steps to the top of the cathedral to get these views of Paris. Unfortunately, it was getting dark and I don't know if it was worth it because I couldn't get great pictures and I was unable to walk properly for the next few days.

In the evening, the Tour Eiffel is lit up by twinkling lights

It was a dark and rainy day when Joanna and I went to the Louvre. Nonetheless, the queue to get inside was enormously long. We saw the Mona Lisa which seemed like the only painting in the building that anyone wanted to see. It's actually quite small and encased in bullet-proof glass. Then we went on a mad search for the Da Vinci painting from The Da Vinci Code. That proved to be difficult considering we didn't know what it was called or what it looked like. After exhausting ourselves, we decided to look through some souvenir guidebooks. It was not in most of the guidebooks, but Joanna finally found it in one book. It's called Madonna on the Rocks and guess what? It was right in front of the Mona Lisa. The painting is actually quite dark so you don't notice it even though it's fairly large.


I'm sure you all recognize this from the Da Vinci Code. It's actually underground and surrounded by a giant shopping mall.

Outside the Louvre, we saw the Tour Eiffel

Snow - November 30, 2006

This was Lubbock's first snow of the year. My flight to Paris (via Dallas) was one of the few flights that made it off the ground. I wanted to take more pictures, but it was way too cold and windy.

Hair - November 27, 2006

I've been growing my hair long for a long time now. Partly due to the wedding, and partly due to laziness. About 6 months ago, I was going to get it cut about 5 inches, but then a friend of mine started treatment for breast cancer and lost all of her hair. At that point, I decided that I would let my hair grow a few more inches and donate it to charity. "A few more inches" was a lot harder than it sounds and my hair ended up shorter than intended. It's okay, hair grows back, and the long hair was getting really annoying. Go to www.beautifullengths.com for more information on hair donations to create wigs for cancer patients.

Coming Soon

I haven't posted in a while. I've been really busy with school and life in general. I'm leaving tomorrow for a conference in France so I can't post for another couple of weeks. Check back for pictures!

New Camera

I received my new Canon 30D last week! I haven't had any time to really play around with it yet, but I did want to check to make sure that it did work. I had to beg, but I finally found some family members who were willing to model for me.