A wet t-shirt contest with the Wingfields

I have been MIA recently because we have been traveling and entertaining lots. We wrapped up a great trip with Burt and Sherrie Wingfield (Kyle's parents) last Saturday. They were in Europe for 16 days and they definitely saw a lot! They started out in Brussels for a few days, were off to London for four days, slept in Brussels for a night, and then we all headed to Normandy and then Paris. I was definitely 'toured' out by the end.

Normandy was wonderful and I would highly recommend it to everyone. It was especially touching to be there close to the Fourth of July and to be reminded of all the freedoms Americans have fought for, not only for ourselves, but so that the world can enjoy the same freedoms we have.

Paris was incredibly hot, so when I think of that part of the trip, all I think about it sweating. Before we could even start sweating though, Kyle had to drive us through Paris. I knew going in that this part would be stressful, but I don't think I could have imagined how bad it could really be. Kyle deserves a medal for his driving skills, especially when he had to do almost a full circle around the Arc de Triumph's six lane round about. On the first night in our hotel, the bathroom had a leak coming from directly above. It conveniently hit exactly on the front of the toilet seat, and was leaking sewage, so Kyle and I had to do some creative bathroom maneuvers before we had a chance to get to the front desk. While in Paris we saw the Arc de Triomphe, sweated, shopped on the Champs Elysees, sweated some more, saw the Eiffel Tower, drank 3 gallons of water trying to cool off, saw Notre Dame, and each sweated through the shirts we were wearing. I know it is hard to understand if you are living in the South and every person you can think of has air conditioning, but in Paris, NO ONE has AC, so there is just no relief from the heat. This is especially bad when it is 91 and 95 degrees respectively the two days you are there.

From Paris we were back in Brussels for two days. Just enough time to do laundry and repack. Then we drove to Dusseldorf, Germany, where the Wingfields were flying out of. We dropped them off at the airport and then went to the other airport in the city to catch our own flight to Barcelona. We were there for two days visiting with our friends from UGA, Amy (Mulkey) and Trey McGowan. They are moving to Boston because Amy is about to go to business school, so it was nice to see the husband as the "trailing spouse" for once! I had never been to Barcelona before, so it was a real treat for me. It is amazing how much more comfortable I am in a Spanish speaking country, just because I took a few years of it in high school. Kyle took Spanish in both high school and college and I was really impressed with how much came back to him as soon as we stepped off the plane. If only we knew that much French!

I'll post the pictures soon, but in the meantime I am getting ready for my cousin Bennett to visit for a few days. We figured out recently that in the last year and a half we have had 14 sets of visitors. Pretty impressive, but pretty exhausting too :)