Today, to make a long story short, I took her back to her grandmother.  After months and months of trying to figure out if the birthmother was ever going to surrender her rights, the grandmother decided that she would need to upgrade her custody from temporary to permanent.  The grandmother wanted us to adopt the little girl, but that wasn’t on the birthmother’s agenda.  Our attorney confirmed this through the jailhouse visitor’s window yesterday in a face to face meeting.

My wife is very sad, along with some of my more emotional children.  She couldn’t actually be a part of the transfer, so I had to handle that.  It was hard and I didn’t pull it off without tears.

It’s funny, I’m sure I need to put my self-righteousness aside.  But, I just can’t understand someone who has spent almost no time with their child, has not supported and is not able to support them financially, who has a drug problem, has multiple children with multiple fathers some of who are in prison – I just can’t understand how they could say I’m never going to surrender my rights to this child.  Especially, when the new parents have the means to love, support and educate the child in an environment and in a way that the birthmother never could.  Just don’t get it.  It makes no sense.  None.

But then again, I’m not sitting in jail right now. 

The only caveat to the whole ordeal was that I made all the children pay for their own tickets!  When you have a gaggle like we do, it’s hard to pay full price for tickets and take everyone.  In the interest of fairness, I also allowed them all to buy their own drinks too (we snuck our candy in, and before you go and judge me, you shameless scowl, you know that you do it too)!

So it was Thor and jumbo Coke Icees for everyone.  Good times.  Plus, I actually liked the movie better the second time around.

“The drop in GDP growth to just 1.8% in the first quarter of 2011, from 3.1% in the final quarter of last year, understates the extent of the decline. Two-thirds of that 1.8% went into business inventories rather than sales to consumers or other final buyers. This means that final sales growth was at an annual rate of just 0.6% and the actual quarterly increase was just 0.15%—dangerously close to no rise at all.”

Enjoy.

Maybe it is more like seeing someone and knowing for certain that you have seen them before because they are so familiar.  Yet no matter how hard you try to put your finger on it, you cannot figure out who exactly they are.  You know how that can be.  It can be very stressful on the brain as you search and strain to try to figure out who it is.

Or maybe it is more like catching a glimpse of something in the mirror, something that looks exactly like a place where you have been.  You look back into the mirror and …. poof …. it’s gone.  Like it was never even there, except that you know it was there.  You just saw it, dangit.  You know beyond a shadow of a doubt it is real – but no matter how many times you look away, and then look back in the mirror – it’s gone.

Anyway, I can’t quite place my finger on it.  It’s not a bad groove – it’s sort of a melancholy groove – involving a search for that thing that I’ve done before, or the name of that person I saw on the street, or that image in the mirror that was there and is now gone.

Sometimes, at least for me, a song will so capture the essence of the moment or the place of my mind or heart, that I latch on to it – working it out over and over and over again – until I have sucked out all of the meaning that it has for me.  Most recently, Laura Story has provided that song for me.  As I listen to it and soak it in, my current groove is found in it’s melody, in it’s lonely piano, and in it’s lyric.

“What if Your blessings come through raindrops, what if your healing comes through tears, what if a thousand sleepless nights are what it takes to know You’re near…” – Laura Story, Blessings.

When we arrived at the airport in France, we found the kiosks to be of little to no help.  With sketchy internet the night before, I had spent too much time updating the blog and not enough checking in online.  With no boarding pass in hand, I asked three Air France employees for help and they all pointed me to the same desk.  Air France is a “Sky Team” partner of Delta’s and they were handling the first leg home to Munich.  Once at the desk we were greeted by, um, how do I put this politely, um, we were greeted by the “not nice” counter agent – who quickly informed us that we were in the wrong line and that we were causing terrible trouble for all of the people behind us.  After I politely (and you can ask Kathy, I was polite) offered to go to the correct desk, she hushed up and checked our bags and gave us boarding passes to Munich.

Kathy and I strolled through “security” and headed to the gate.  The security process was minimal, but hey, it’s France, right?  At the gate, I was given 15 minutes of free internet by the airport!  I cranked up the iPhone, where I took this photo of the puddle jumping Airbus (see Sunday’s post) A318 we were flying on to Munich.

I also was able to check my Fly Delta app and find out that my final destination was now Fort Myers, FL – not the ATL.  So – we made a plan to check on the final destination for the baggage when we got to Munich.  By the way, am Flughafen Munchen.  Here’s some photos from Munich.

In Munich, we found out from Delta Customer Service Dude Lawrence (who was freaking AWESOME, by the way) at our Gate that the nice Air France chicky poo had not checked our bags through to ATL, only to Munich – which meant that we had to hoof it back to our arriving gate (a 20 minute walk – one way) and back – and then to check the bags – all in 30 minutes.  Do the math.  Ain’t gonna happen.  Lawrence did all he could to get the bags on the plane – but as of today (5:09 on Friday) we still don’t have any bags. 

But, we have our health.  So, I got that goin’ for me.

The flight home was smooth and fast.  I actually slept (if you can call any type of sleep in the Economy Cabin of an airline sleep) about three hours.  Here’s the only way I could document the trip for you.

Left: this is the east coast of Great Britain.

Right: this is the west coast of Great Britain.

Left: this is the east coast of Ireland.

Right: this is the North Atlantic Ocean.

I was sleeping most of the rest of the trip.  And when we arrived home, I was grrrrrrrrrrrrumpy with lack of sleep, so I slept for sixteen hours straight.  Getting close to back to normal.

Thanks again everyone for joining us on this trip – through the world wide internets.  We had a blast!  Au revoir.

Tonight, Kathy and I enjoyed a beautiful (and tasty) dinner on the first level of the Eiffel Tower overlooking the Seine River.  Even I thought it was romantic and Kathy seemed to love it.  Afterward, we caught a cab (10 Euro with tip, that’s $15 but well worth it at midnight) back to the hotel – where I logged onto the computer to find out that my three days had expired.  Because a half a bottle of white and then a half of bottle of red will substantially chill a person, I calmly ponied up 7 more Euro (curse you Ben Bernanke) for ONE hour of internet.  Therefore, I type and compose quickly.

On a side note, a word about Parisians: in many settings they are rudest human beings on the planet.  I swear I was almost bulldozed ten times today by a bee lined Parisian looking for his next Marlboro fix at the cafe down the street.  And just dang if the dude didn’t give ME a dirty look for not getting out of his way.  There are few things that are worse to me (today) than being in a crowded space with a bunch of Parisians.  Ick.  I’m ready to get home.

Props out to Rachel Pate who corralled the gaggle today and will do so again tomorrow – and to aunt Debber and cuz Leah who are holding down the fort during the wee hours.  Thanks again gang!!

Today, we crawled out of bed early and made our way to the Louvre.  Once there (after the Metro ride – say it with me now: Just 5 bucks!) we made the quick course for the Mona Lisa.  One bad thing, every one of the other 19,328 visitors to the Louvre today made the same trek.  This resulted in a human stampede to rival an 80’s hair metal concert.  Not fun.  People from around the world pushing, like toddlers, to try to get 15 feet from the smiling lady.  Pushing there way in, to the point that Kathy, who had her arms raised for some reason, could not put them down without resting them on the head of some 5’ 1” tourist.  Again, ick.  But, I was able to glean these pictures of the most famous painting in the known universe:

While there, I looked to see if Dan Brown was around, researching his latest cheesy novel where he blames the Catholic church for the nasty plagues of the 20th century like silly putty and pet rocks.  But, I couldn’t find him.  However, along the way, we did come across the Code of Hammurabi, which the kids studied this year in school – so I offer this up to my little ninos:

I could write for hours about the artwork at the Louvre, but I can sum it up in just a few words for you:  the virgin Mary and Jesus (the baby version and the crucified version) and formerly important, now dead, kings, lords, and other folk who TRULY kept the masses under their thumbs.  Over and over again.  Whether in painting, sculpture or other work of art.  Here’s the trove of photos for your viewing pleasure.

** Alert:  the hotel internet is WIGGY tonight, so I will upload these photos at a later time **

Once the Louvre was tackled, we headed on the Metro ($5) over to BHV, which is sort of a Home Depot meets Macy’s and has a Dilliard’s love child (with a hardware section).  Looking for some stuff to carry back to the States.

We did not find what we were looking for, and it was getting right up about eating time, so we headed across the Seine to the Latin Quarter (on foot) to grab a bite to eat and do some final shopping.  Here’s a picture of me, my lady and the Seine.

Lunch consisted of a three course meal (a 10 euro menu, very affordable considering…).  Kathy started with the French Onion Soup, I had a salad.  Then we each had a ham and cheese crepe which was awesome, along with a fair quantity of Heineken.   All in all, a tasty lunch.

After some more shopping, my feet were give out and I was tired and grumpy.  Kathy bore with me and we headed back to the hotel for a little rest before we headed out to dinner.  Our dinner reservation was at 9 p.m. (which is 3 p.m. for those of you in Georgia).  Before we could go up the tower, we had to purchase a lift ticket and check in for dinner.  The line was slow, as most French lines are – but one that really chapped Kathy’s chippy was this priest who literally walked to the front of the line – forced his way in – and paid for his tickets and reservation while the rest of us stood there.  Most likely, he offered the ticket seller a special place in heaven for the privilege of paying before all of the other patiently waiting customers.   Ten brownie points for the reference to what this might be called.  Here’s a picture of the holy one – who really earned some disdain from the folks behind him.  But that’s okay, right?  He’s only representing Jesus.

For dinner at the 58 restaurant, we had lots of wine and some champagne, some duck foie gras (please, somebody tell me what this is), some seared scallops, some roasted guinea hen, and a nice chocolate raspberry dessert.  At this point, I had consumed a little vin – so I wasn’t as diligent with the photos, but this is what you get:

Overall, it was a lovely evening.   A great view (in more ways than one):

And a fabulous way to celebrate 20 years with my wife, Kathy.  How about that?  We made it 20 years!  There were some times it definitely looked like we wouldn’t.  But God has given each of us a resilience and willingness to do everything we can to honor Him through our marriage and our family – even when it isn’t easy (and Kathy will tell you, it ain’t easy being married to me!). 

I’ll be logging off now.  Tomorrow morning we fly to Munich, Germany to connect straight into the ATL.  Keep us in your thoughts and prayers – well, at least after you wake up!  Bon soir et au revoir de Paris.

That, mes amis, is a chocolate eclair, which bears a striking resemblance in this photo to doo doo.  But, let me assure you, it tasted like pure heaven.  So much so, that tomorrow, this Parisian vacationer plans on consuming the large version of this exact treat.  Yum.  And yes, I know all of you know about Kathy’s gluten challenges, but she threw caution to the wind and chucked down one of these puppies herself.  Sometimes, a girl has just got to live!

Afterwards, we decided to straggle to a cafe for some, well….. cafe.  Since it as almost lunchtime (see my first paragraph about sleeping, people), we decided to augment our cafe with some food.  I had a toasted ham and cheese sandwich, which was 45% cheese (awesome!), 45% bread, and 10% ham.  Kathy enjoyed an omelet and we decided to skip the French Fries (don’t laugh, they call them that here) and had salad as our side item.

On Monday, we went for the Eiffel Tower and Invalides, primarily an historical venture.  Today, we decided to go for more of a Parisian Touristy flavor.  We took the Metro ($5) over to the Cite Island, the location of Notre Dame.    The Cite Island is surrounded by the Seine River on both sides.  Here’s a picture of the Sun Goddess (French reference anyone, five brownie points for the linkage) by the Seine. 

Then we strolled on over to Notre Dame. Un. Be. Leave. Able.  That church is awesome.  Let me just say that the Catholics had it going on (when it came to architecture) in the middle ages.  Originally, the plan was just to take photos of the outside, but we decided to move on to the inside after taking a few exterior photos.  Here’s a gander of the outside and the inside.

The picture to the right shows some of the gargoyles hanging over the edge of the cathedral.  Seven brownie points if you comment on the purpose of the gargoyles.

Once inside, the beauty and majesty of the construction was clearly evident.  Given a modern man’s exposure to things of engineering marvel, one can only imagine what it would have been like to step in this cathedral as a person from the middle ages.

On our way in to the cathedral a couple of curious things happened.  First, the couple in front of us were turned away from access to the cathedral because the woman was wearing a top that left her shoulders uncovered.  She did not have a sweater or other covering and thus was not allowed to enter.  Evidently, Jesus is offended by shoulders.  Who knew!  Also, the couple in front of us had this bag that had a butterfly on it.  I’m sure that the butterfly was completely unrelated to their inability to enter Notre Dame, but Kathy told me to take the picture anyway.

Once Notre Dame was scratched off of the list, we decided to stroll around and look at souvenir options for all the folks back home.  The area of town that we were in is known as the Latin Quarter.  Not sure why that is, but maybe it has something to do with the priests of the church who spoke Latin.  Or maybe it has something to do with Ricky Martin.  Just not sure.  But what we did find is that this area is definitely where the Americans spend much of their time.  Check this out:

Claire’s.

Subway (eat fresh)

Starbucks.

The Golden Arches.

And there were more…. lots more.   KFC, Benetton, The Gap, Sephora…. like a little outdoor Parisian USA Mall.  So up and down the road we went.  The atmosphere was very quaint, and well, French.  But, after a while, we needed a break.  We found a small pizzeria where we could get us a pint, apiece.

Kathy wanted to play quarter Euros, but I told her there were plenty of times for drinking games, we had much touristing left to accomplish.  She eventually agreed and we proceeded on to our next adventure – the Sorbonne. 

One of Kathy’s (and evidently, many people’s) visions of France is all about the food and the chocolate.  So, we set out to find a specific chocolatier.   And no, it’s not Willy Wonka.  On the way, we found another Starbucks.

We also ran across a theatre (excuse moi, Cinema) where Kathy and I (mostly I) pondered the translation of Tim McGraw into French.

And, just in case you were wondering, it is official!!!  Whew!!  Glad the French have given us their approval!

We eventually found our chocolatier, and bad boy that I am didn’t take any pictures.   About this time, I decided to get us back on the Metro (another $5) and head on up to Montmartre for a look at Sacre Coeur – another old Catholic Church.

We headed north on the number four line.  During our trip up north on the number four line I discovered that the 4 Days in Paris guidebook that we purchased actually had the Metro stations on each different tourist section.  It was at this point I realized that we were probably in for a small hike up Montmartre – but I had no idea.  Once we exited the Metro station, we made our way to the west, through several small side streets to arrive at a massive set of concrete stairs between two buildings.  Literally, one hundred vertical feet of stairs.  Kathy was trooper and only complained a little as we hoofed it up the stairs to come up on the back side of Sacre Coeur.  Translate Sacre Coeur and you get two brownie points.

This staircase to the left is not the one mentioned before.  It is the second – much smaller – set of stairs.  To the right: Sacre Coeur.

All of a sudden, to our amazement, a French commando unit (machine guns and all) come jogging around the church toward us.  Stunned – Kathy said to one of them “Bon Jour” – to which the commando replied:  “Bon Jour”.

We followed from whence they came, and we found the tourist side of the church.  We sat on the steps and marveled at the Parisian skyline for awhile – and then moseyed on down the hill and sat in the grass for awhile (at this point, our feet were tired).  Here’s some photos of the amazing view.

I think it’s important for all of you to know that we had a less strenuous alternative, a tram, which would have carried us up the side of the hill:

But, it cost $5.  Can you believe that??  $5!!!  So, we saved the money and hoofed it up the stairs.

On the way back to the crib, a little Parisian randomness:

Left: kids playing airsoft in the streets, without regard to anyone else around.

Right: Yellow, old-fashioned punch buggy.  Massive points.   I got the cheese squeeze.

Left: KFC. In Paris. Because this is a rated G blog, I’ll only say: just wow.

Right: Hello Kitty is extremely popular here.

Back near the crib, I made the executive decision (after evaluating the situation, circumstances and general vibe I was getting from my company) that we’d head to the room and take a nap.  After a brief rest, we capped the night off with Pizza and a bottle of wine.  Notice there is no “after” picture for Kathy.  With the eclair and the pizza, she is rolling the dice on the gluten, but like I said, a girl’s gotta live!

We had hoped to go out of the box with a wine and food tasting tour, but were unable to secure the reservation.  Tomorrow, we plan to head to the Louvre for a few hours – then maybe cruise over to the Bastille section.  Once we wrap that up, we’ll rest up for dinner at the Eiffel Tower.  Whew!  It’s been lots of fun.

Thanks so much to my sister Joy who transitioned with the children at our house from yesterday to tonight and to my aunt Debra who is making sure they make it through the night – and of course, to Rachel – who has duty from tomorrow morning until our arrival home on Thursday night.  Bon soir, mes amis.

Second thing, Parisian streets are made out of the hardest substance known on the planet.  Personally, I      am of the opinion that in many, many decades, once man has made his exploration to the nearest reaches of the universe we will discover a substance a million times harder than the hardest substance known today.  We will compare that, through various scientific outlets, and determine much to our collective surprise that the Parisian streets are made out of a harder substance.   All of that to say, that my freaking feet are killing me.  We walked at least five miles today, I wouldn’t be surprised if it was more – and my feet are, well, in pain.  Blisters, once formed, are not improved by merely wearing tennis shoes.  That’s a tidbit for all of you to pop in your hip pocket.

So, once we finally got our jet lagged booties out of the bed, we headed down to the Metro, bought a couple of tickets (for a combined $5 bucks, score one for the budget) and headed over to the Eiffel Tower.  Just outside the Metro station by the Tower we decided to have lunch.  An Italian restaurant – where the food was good – and the prices were out of this world.  Literally, $105 for lunch.  No seriously.  I had a calzone and a beer, Kathy had eggplant parmesian and bottled water.  BAM!  $105.  Like I said…. the food was good.  Here’s some photos for you:

The kid behind the bottled water was there with his parents – from the sound of it (via my eavesdropping) they were Irish.

Then, we took a leisurely half mile stroll over to the Eiffel Tower, which, I must say, is far more impressive than pictures or movies present.  It is massive.  We scrambled up some photos and considered riding a lift up to a higher level, but the TOP level was closed – and we knew that we are planning a anniversary dinner in the Eiffel Tower on Wednesday night, so we decided to save 20 euros and just stick with the photos.  Here are some of the highlights:

We had originally planned on visiting the Louvre on Monday, but since we got a late start, we decided instead to try out the Hotel des Invalides (translated: a big, massive, beautiful church and compound that had houses Napoleon’s tomb).  It was probably about a mile or a mile and half walk.  It seemed like we were walking across Nepal.  But when we got there, it did not disappoint.

This is the actual tomb of Napoleon Bonaparte, taken from two different levels of the dome church.

Here are some photos of the interior of the dome church, they really do not come anywhere close to doing the architecture justice.  It was just beautiful.    

The pic to the right is a granite design in the floor of the lower level of the church.

The photo to the left is in homage to Napoleon the “King of Rome” from 1811 to 1831.

The photo to the right is a crucifix.

We continued to tour the grounds of Invalides for the next hour and a half where we took quite a few photos, ran into some typical school children, and continued to endure foot pain brought on by the hardest surfaces on the planet.  Here are some of the photos:

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After Invalides, we limped to a Metro station (again, $5 bucks for tix to the hotel.  “Winning”.) and headed back to the hotel, where we crashed (read: slept.  deep sleep.  the kind where you don’t move.) for three hours.  We capped off the night with dinner at a Moroccan restaurant just around the corner from the hotel.  It was awesome!  Cue the food pictures:

Couscous to the left, with some sort of broth, a couple of kinds of beans… omg…. tasty.

Who doesn’t like a good Bordeaux, right?  I think I drank 2/3 of the bottle.  Nice.

Kathy’s dinner, which we hope had very little gluten to the right.

Kathy  wanted me to point out with a photograph, that she didn’t clean her plate:

And finally, we capped it off with Creme Brew Lay (I don’t know how to spell it, but I know you get it):

At home today, the children are making the transition from the Richards’ palace of kid fun – back to the real world of our home and aunt Joy.  Thanks, aunt Joy!! 

All in all, a great day in Paris.  Now, we sleep.  Tomorrow, we are thinking out of the box.  Bon Soir.