Last night we ate a little local restaurant called The Ziti. It was great food. Rick had a very unique pasta with shrimp. The shrimp had all the legs and heads still on them. Too much for me to pick through, I hate cutting the fat off of a piece of steak, let alone the head of a shrimp. I ordered a calzone….which was great until I got to the middle and as I cut it this yellow liquid oozed out. I realized that I had a raw egg in the middle of my calzone. I nicely cut around the goo and ate the edge of my calzone. Everything else was great, I had the best fried calamari I think I have ever eaten. It was very fresh and tasted very good. Rick had an incredible mushroom cream soup with truffles. It was a great way to end the evening. The Eiffel Tower was lit up in blue again tonight, however it was even more fantastic because it sparkled like a million people were dangling from every part of the Eiffel Tower and were taking pictures with their flash on. It was impressive.

Today we headed to The Louvre Museum. We spent all day admiring the many different pieces of artwork displayed throughout this museum. You really need probably two days to be able to see everything there is to see in The Louvre. I really liked some of the pieces and want to know more about them. I had seen some ancient artwork while in Rome last month, but this was truly incredible. There was some very impressive pieces of history displayed in The Louvre. I really liked the Egyptian art, the sarcophagi where incredible to see in person. The Parisian artwork and of course the Mona Lisa painting were cool. One of my favorite paintings is “Gabrielle d’Estrées and One of Her Sisters” for some reason it really caught my eye

I recommend visiting The Louvre Museum on your weekend in Paris trip. However, you may want to add an extra day to your trip to be able really see the details of this museum. If you really want to enjoy The Louvre, then I suggest that you read up on the paintings, I did some brief reading here at The Louvre Web site. Tomorrow we head back to Utah. We leave at 10:00 a.m. and arrive in Utah around 1:00 p.m. that does include the 11:00 hour flight time. I hope I can get some sleep on the plane tomorrow.

Click on any of the Pictures to see more of My Weekend In Paris

We slept in this morning, I guess the jet lag set in a bit. After getting something to eat we headed over to the Eiffel Tower. We walked along the River Seine amongst beautiful streets filled with trees. The Eiffel Tower is beautiful. We are hoping to get some reservations to the Le Jules Verne restaurant on the second landing. It would be a fun experience to eat dinner and look at at the city from the middle of the Eiffel Tower.

We then walked along the Seine River to the Notre Dame Cathedral. I really wanted to see the stained glass window of this beautiful cathedral. It really was interesting to see and as beautiful as I had imagined. Rick is cussing me out, because I took an altar candle from the Virgin Mary scene. He seems to think the Patron Saints are going to come and take it back now.

As we walked along the Seine River we passed many museums and wonderful buildings, but since we are here for only the weekend we have to see some of the key Paris monuments. Tomorrow we are planning on going to The Louvre Museum tomorrow. I am excited about actually going to a museum for once.

Tonight we are headed to find another little restaurant that the locals love to eat at. I am sure it will be as good as last nights dinner. Then we plan to relax on the patio looking out at the Eiffel Tower and drinking some cold Champagne.

We decided to finally rip out the closet and try and make it as organized as possible to include the 50 pair of black shoes I own!!!! So today we threw all the clothes in the guest bedrooms and began ripping out the closet. I am excited and hopefully I will have more space for my clothes now. It seems that I always am in need of ripping something out and changing it then putting it all back together. I love remodeling things around the house. I guess when I don’t have anything else left to remodel, I will need to move and build a new house…HINT..HINT

Maddie is becoming very independent these days. She is always outside roaming around in the wooded area behind the house or laying over out basking in the sun.

Today we all decided to venture on down to Old Puerto Vallarta. There are a few shops, but it really isn’t anything like Cancun. You can’t come to Puerto Vallarta and expect to do some great shopping. Puerto Vallarta has the usual little trinket shops, which are great, but there is no Louis Vuitton or really cool watch stores. The one thing that Downtown Puerto Vallarta has is…..BARS!!!! Not that we hadn’t had anything to drink all week or anything, so we decided to try out Senor Frogs. It was so hot and humid here…we all know that I don’t do humid and hot. Not only was my ass crack sweating, but it looked like I had just ran a marathon. My brothers and I all looked like we were coming in from doing day labor, talk about a sweaty mess. So when I saw on the menu that they had the Extreme Margarita I knew exactly what I was having. They best thing about the Margarita is that it came with its own bottle of tequila, you could put in as much tequila as you wanted.

For some reason, when we checked into the hotel the guy checking us in thought that my mother and father were there on a honeymoon. So they were upgraded to the honeymoon suite and had to wear pink honeymoon bracelets all week. It seems that everyone knows what these pink bracelets mean. At Senor Frogs, my mother had to sit under a sign that read…..”Virgin…..NOT!!!” My mother from little Mantua, Utah, that grew up on the farm and was as pure as the baby sheep she used to raise has now been exposed to the real world. She no longer runs through the pasture with manure squishing up through her toes, she has been thrust into this world of Non-Virgins and Tequila drinkers! She says it is a result of having 4 boys. I take responsibility for the Tequila, but I have no part in her no title as a “Virgin…..NOT!!!”

Tonight the show was a circus show. It once again was only tolerable if you had enough of the special liquid that flows from every bar here at the hotel. For some reason, I seemed to be running low on that special liquid this evening. That meant that circus show was not that entertaining. There was a contortionist, a young lady that spun around on a hoop suspended from the ceiling, another lady that hung from her feet from fabric hung from another part of the ceiling. Then there was an act that I really am not sure what it was, but the young kid kept falling off the stage and this other girl would pick him up and put him back on the stage. I wasn’t sure if that was the routine or if the young kid had secretly been taking my “Special Liquid” from the bar. Check out my video of the best routine though……..

I think I have a new project to work on now with T-ko and Maddie when I get home!!!!!

Today we took it easy again today. We started the morning out with Champagne and Orange juice….don’t we all wish we could start out every morning that way. Soon we were all out working on our tans again, ok that really means beer pong and shots of Don Julio, Reposado Tequila. Damn that is good stuff. After bobbing around in the pool for awhile, we decided we weren’t going to drown there so we all took off out to the ocean and thought we would test our luck there. We decided to do a little body surfing. The water isn’t as clear and bright blue as it is in Cancun, but it was just as warm and salty. The beach here in this part of Puerto Vallarta, often referenced as Nuevo Vallarta was very nice. The sand is great and extends out in the ocean for a good distance before getting deeper. It made for great body surfing.

After surviving the ocean we thought we would see if we could eat our body weight in Nachos and French Fries and then top it off with Ice Cream. That didn’t work either so we started back with the Tequila and just for fun mixing it up with different drinks on the menu. There was the Chunky Monkey, a very island taste of coconut, rum and banana. There were the favorites like Miami Vice, Blue Surf ( I don’t like the taste I only like the BLUE COLOR), Long Island, Margarita, Daiquiri, Piña Colada, Mai Tai, White Russian and numerous others that for some odd reason I do not remember the name of.

That was exhausting so I had to go inside and cool down and take a nap. Two hours later we decided it was time for dinner. What the life, hell we are on vacation. Tonight we ate at the Italian Restaurant. It is an open air restaurant right on the beach. The sunset was amazing and just because we are in Mexico they had a belly dancer that danced around during dinner….Go Figure!!! Italian Food must equal Belly Dancer in Spanish. Every night the resort puts on a different theme activity. They have Latin Dancing night, Circus Shows and other productions that are really only funny while intoxicated. Tonight was Karaoke night. Oh how I wish Stacey and Sharadee were here to sing with me. (Looks like I found the place for our next Karaoke Tournament girls!!!!). It was hilarious watching these people get up and sing Karaoke. You thought Karaoke at my house was bad, you should have seen us in Mexico. I am really beginning to think that my mother might be YMCA Dyslexic!!!!