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I was inspired by my neighbor making sangria recently and tried my hand at a white sangria. I think it turned out pretty well!
Ingredients:
1 bottle of white wine (I used Woodbridge Pinot Grigio)
1 bottle sparkling juice (I used Wegmans apple peach)
1/4 cup raspberry vodka
1 apple
1 mango
5 strawberries
Directions: Mix and chill for at least 5 hours (the more the better IMO).
Makes me want summer!
| We have recently discovered that G has a very unusual TV preference for a toddler. He definitely takes after his daddy in this aspect. At least I now know what they do at night when I'm at work. Take a look... | |
| My son is a funny kid. He has a pretty big imagination and loves dancing and singing....On July 4th weekend, we decided to get out a tricycle that his grandparents got him. He had never ridden a bike before but we figured it would be fun for him. When he got on the trike, he started singing a song from Yo Gabba Gabba (his favorite show). I am pretty sure he was pretending he was in the show... check out this video from the show and then the video I took of G that day. |
Day 4 -This was our last day of our museum pass so we decided to go to the Army Museum and Napoleon's Tomb. The Army Museum was really for Justin; so he could get his history geek on; but I thought it was pretty interesting as well. This museum probably had the most modern exhibits I have seen in Paris so far...very interactive, English and French translations for everything, and these cool video graphics of the major battles projected onto a "terrain" from overhead. Here are some pictures.
 
 Day 5 - Our fifth day in Paris was pretty low key. We went to Notre Dame....   ...We went to the Isle St Louis and ate ice cream at Berthillon.    | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
  Day 6 - We took the day and went shopping at the Galleries Lafayette. I was in search of the perfect Parisian dress but didn't really find anything that suited my taste and my budget. So we bought Sam and G some tres chic Parisian kids clothes! We also ate at a McDo (McDonald's). It was VERY different. That night, we went to dinner at a quaint little family-owned restaurant called Le Petit Troquet. Our hotel recommended it to us and it was probably the BEST food I had in Paris. The cauliflower soup was amazing!  That night, we decided to finally go to the top of the Eiffel tower. It was not nearly as scary as I anticipated!     Day 7 - We took a day trip to Normandy on the train. The train ride was really easy but once we got to Normandy, we realized that NOTHING was close to the train station. We took a cab to the D-Day museum BUT that was the only thing that was around there. once we arrived at the museum, we quickly realized that the beaches were another 45min-1 hour away! And we had no transportation but to take a cab. So, we stayed at the museum saw the exhibits. It was actually pretty interesting. After we were done, we decided to head back to the train station and get back to Paris. We should have taken a cab back but stupid us, we decided to take the bus. We couldn't figure out where our stop was so we ended up just getting off in the middle of the city and walking to the train station. Did I mention, no one in Normandy speaks English? I was able to get by with the French I know so we finally figured out which train we needed to take and got back to Paris. Needless to say, we didn't do anything that night. We went to the pub and called it a night. Day 8/9 - The day we left, our flight was scheduled to leave Paris at 1pm. Well, we got there 3 hours early to find out they were bumping us from our flight! It took them 2 hours to figure out which flight to put us on but in the end, we were put on a flight to Philly where we had to change planes and take a 15min flight to Baltimore! We ended up getting back earlier than we had planned so that was nice. But we definitely got the run around when it came to them changing our flight. We didn't even know what time our Baltimore flight took off until we landed in Philly! Anyway, G was really excited to see us! Overall, I was glad to home but I would definitely go back to Paris and I could totally live there if I was given the opportunity! |
| Ok, so obviously, I did not do such a good job keeping up with the blog while we were in Paris. I am going to try my hardest to complete these postings this weekend! Day 3 - Valentine's Day! We had a 4 day museum pass so we decided to go to the Cluny Museum, which has a ton of stained glass and religious artifacts. It was pretty interesting! After that, we walked to the Marais district (kind of on accident) and ending up eating at this fantastic little crepe place, Creperie Beaubourg. I had never had a crepe before and surprisingly I went for a savory one first! It had cheese, onions, potatoes, tomatoes and mushrooms in it and it was fantastic! This meal was also the first one where I had to order completely in French (and order for Justin) and I managed to pull it off! After lunch, we went to the Pompidou Center (or the Museum of Modern Art). There was so much to see and we only got to 2 floors before we gave up. I just don't get some modern art.....like the whole floor on feminism. Naked women hoola hooping in barbed wire....yeah, I don't get it. We did see the Picaso exhibits and there were some cool works of art on that floor. But overall, modern art = not my thing. We wrapped site seeing up early to go on a Valentine's Day dinner cruise on the Seine! The boat took off from right underneath the Eiffel Tower which was really close to our hotel. When we got on the boat, I was a little disappointed to find that the seating was much like a typical Parisian bistro - very crammed with little personal space. I kind of expected more from such a nice cruise line - we paid in advance for a 5 course meal, 2 bottles of wine and a glass of champagne with dessert. We were seated in the middle of 2 couples - both French - and immediately served a Kir (champagne with cherry juice). But, once the waiter realized we didn't speak fluent French, he definitely started treating us differently then the other couples. For example, he let the French couples taste their wines before he poured it (like you would see at an upscale restaurant). The waiter actually made us share the bottle with one of the couples when there was a perfectly good bottle all for us chilling tableside and didn't let us taste anything. He left our appetizer (foie gras; which we hated btw) in front of us while everyone else on the boat was being served their next course, didn't refill our wine glasses or open up the red wine for us when it came time for that course. Finally, his boss came by and noticed we had no wine and still had our appetizers and things took a turn for the better....hmmm wonder what happened? :) The food (minus the foie gras) was great and the view was awesome! But if you're in the market for a Parisian dinner cruise, I would not recommend Bateaux Parisiens because I think for the price you pay for this type of thing, the service was not up to par. There are definitely other dinner cruises in Paris and I am sure at least one of them is much better! | |||
| On day 2 of our trip, we decided to activate our museum passes! We accidentally slept in until 10am so we had room service for breakfast and then we were off. We chose the Louvre as our first museum destination. We saw a majority of the museum exhibits but we definitely didn't see it all (everything closes around 6pm if it's open at all on Sundays here). My favorite part was the exhibits of Napoleon's apartments. Justin hated it but I thought it was really cool to see all the ridiculous furniture and decor that they used. I also thought the old Louvre ruins and moat were cool. We ate lunch at the Carousel du Louvre (a mall underneath the Louvre) and I had a really good eggplant dish from the Italian place. After the Louvre closed, we walked around a bit and ended up walking back to the Arrondisement (neighborhood) that our hotel is in. We stopped in at O'Brien's pub and stayed there for a while. The people that worked there didn't speak French so it was mostly an English-speaking crowd. After an hour or so we left and walked back to our hotel. On the way, we stopped in at the local Chinese place and ordered dinner to go. It was really good but very different from American chinese food! And it was probably the cheapest meal we've had on the trip yet! We are now in the midst of day 3 of our trip so I'll blog about that later (or in the morning). |
