School is back in session!! Ty is a freshman in high school and Lily is a Middle Schooler – 6th grade. Ty had to change to the larger campus – FIS Oberursel, and is settling in well, making new friends, and playing Rugby. Lily remains at FIS Wiesbaden and is loving the extra benefits of being in Middle School. She also decided to try playing fußball (soccer). Both are still playing club baseball and softball.

My little soccer player!!! She’s having a lot of fun. 🙂

One of the best things about Germany is that there is almost always a festival somewhere to go check out. We went to Sommernacht Fest in Bad Soden with some friends. This was HUGE, and was shockingly set up for 1 day only. There were at least 3 music stages, tons of food and drink stands, people walking on stilts, craft booths. Sehr gut!

Fun times at Bad Soden Sommernacht Fest! I think Jay needs to have an artist sculpt a statue of us.
We found Dirk and his mom – missing Tally!

Paris for the weekend? Sounds great to me! We were given the BEST advice to visit the city in between the Olympics and the Para Olympics. Many local Parisians left the city during the Olympics, and most of the tourists were going to be there for the actual Olympics. This timing was ideal because it was basically empty of crowds. The Metro (subway) was at most half-full, we didn’t have to wait for restaurants or attractions. We were able to fully enjoy the beauty of the city without all of the people.

The first day we wandered around on our own and found the Eiffel Tower. Day 2 we hired a tour guide to hit all of the Must See spots, then took a super quick walk through the Louvre to find the Mona Lisa. Day 3 was an early lunch before catching the train back to Frankfurt.

We hopped on a 4.5 hour ICE train from Frankfurt to Paris. ICE just means that it only stops at big cities – only 3 on this journey.
Because it doesn’t make many stops, it can really pick up speed. I saw it get as high as 319 km/hr – just shy of 200 mph!!!
Our hotel had the most adorable atrium restaurant. We ate one meal on the swings. 🙂
Lily’s dream car
The city was still set up from the Olympics, and it was fun to see all of the event sites
view from the top of the Eiffel Tower


So fun to see the stadium that was used for Sand Volleyball (soccer for ParaOlympics)
A beautiful library
Louis Vitton is building a hotel on Champs Elysee. The scoffolding looks like a trunk. I could have spent all day shopping on Champs Elsee.
Lily could have spent all day shopping at Sephora. Girl is obsessed…
Arc de Triomphe – maybe next time we would climb the stairs to the top
Fancy shopping mall – Galleries Lafayette
View from the roof of Galleries Lafayette
While we couldn’t go inside the Notre Dame Cathedral, we could grab a quick selfie on the outside.
We found the Louvre!
Quick run through the Louvre
Crown from King Louis XV (I think?? we literally sprinted by everything)
There she is! The Mona Lisa
Statue of Venus – apparently a “perfect woman”

Food. I am ashamed to admit that our foodie game was lacking this trip. Lily and I were pretty well exhausted both nights when we got back to the hotel. The first night we ordered room service. I skipped dinner the second night and the boys found a good steakhouse. I cannot believe I didn’t even have butter! On our walking tour day, the guide took us to a random sushi restaurant that had some fried/cooked sushi. We ate it but weren’t really big fans of it. So we kind of had a food fail. Although Lily would give the Ham & Cheese Croques 5 stars. She basically ate it every meal. And the parmesan french fries (not called french fries there, because obviously we were in France) were amazing.

Lily’s breakfast
Once again, Kaycee was spoiled rotten by Vivalda while we were away!

It was a fantastic weekend in Paris. I would 100% go back and do a couple things differently. I would make dinner reservations and force myself to get dressed up and go. And I would shop. Now I feel confident navigating the Metro.
C’était un week-end fantastique!!