Paris Vacation

This was my birthday, Jeannette's birthday, and my retirement vacation rolled into one. Jeannette had wanted to go to Paris as long as I have known her. So this was the time. We spent a week in a hotel on the Left Bank within walking distance of the Lourve.

Pictures to come as soon as I figure out how to get them out of my iPad and into the blog.

Jim

Our backyard friends

Yellow-Rumped Warbler

Dark-Eyed Junco

House Finch

Red-Bellied Woodpecker, female

Downy Woodpecker, female

Yellow Bellied Sap Sucker, male

Blue Jay

Cardinal, male

Cardinal, female



Dallas was hit with snow and ice all week. Jeannette and I have been home Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday due to our companies being closed due to the bad weather. Since I have lived in Dallas, we have never had 4 days of closed schools. Thursday night we got 4-5 inches of snow. Here are some of the birds I saw on Friday at our bird feeders.

Annual Honeymoon 2010 in London

Tower of London

Shakespeare's birthplace at Stratford upon Avon

Having afternoon tea at Harrods

Stonehenge

Abbey Road

Last October Jeannette and I went to London on our Annual Honeymoon. It was a wonderful and exciting visit. Our hotel was a short walk from the Tube station in the northern part of central London. It made getting around quite easy. The first day we took a hop-on/hop-off double decker tour bus. It gave us a great view of the city and help us decide where we wanted to get off and see. One day we took a motorcoach tour into the countryside west of London and saw Stonehenge, Bath and Stratford upon Avon where Shakespeare was born. On the last day we ventured out on our own to find Abbey Road. I wrote down the tube, bus and tram connections to get there. In the beginning of the trek, I realized I had lost the directions. So we figured it out and we got there, although by a different route. That afternoon we toured the re-constructed Shakespeare's Globe Theater on the bank of the Thames River. We truly enjoyed taking the Thames river cruise to Greenwich. I loved every moment and would love to go back in a heart beat.

Mike's visit to Austin

Mike drove to Austin last week. He got to visit with 2 of his cousins on Jeannette's side of the family. The picture was taken from Mount Bonnell, the highest point in Austin, overlooking Lake Travis.

They called me "The Dude"

White Christmas

This is the first White Christmas in Dallas since 1926. The snow started falling in the early aftrnoon on Christmas Eve Day. It was very windy day. Jeannette and I got our errands done early and came home to watch the snow fall from in the house. They weren't the big beautiful snow flakes but we were happy with what we got. Mike came over in the morning to open presents. Santa gave Mike a new electric acustic guitar. Mike's old acustic guitar had a broken neck. It also came with a hard case to protect it. He loves it.

"The trouble with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people's money" - Margaret Thatcher