Normandy & Paris

Bonjour!
Springtime in Paris! We arrived last night after leaving Normandy. What a beautiful drive across France. Flowers are in bloom and everything is so green. Talk about contented cows! They just lay around in their lush pastures. Yesterday, after checking into our hotel, we took the subway near the Eiffel Tower. It was a breathtaking sight seeing it (SO BIG!) for the first time, and then we toured to the top! What a view! We took lots of pictures, so we will be sending a few soon. By the time we started down from the Tower, the lights had been turned on. What a sight with all the lights! This morning we are visiting museums, and will be pretty much for the next three days. Friday we will be visiting Versailles! The weather is great. Should be 70 degrees today, warm and sunny. We are having such a good time with Jesse & Diane.

We didn't get a chance to email you from Normandy, but it was amazing. We went around with a guide one full day and visited the beaches (D-Day), and we saw a lot of remnants left over from WWII. It was really exciting to be there and to realize what our soldiers did for our freedoms. The American Cemetary is absolutely awesome. 11,000 American soldiers are buried there. It is a plot of soil that was donated by Fance to the Americans, so we were standing on American soil. Very spiritual place.

We send our love and hope that all is well back home. Love to all of you,
AuRevoir,.
Mom (see below)

Thoughts from Dad

I had no idea the D-Day Beaches stretched for 73 miles--it's hard to fathom. Mom did not mention but on the way to Normandy we stopped at a small town called Ypres, Belgium. It was the center of a major four year long battle between the French, British, Belgians and American against the Germans in 1914. There were over 500,000 men killed in an area the size of the Temecula Valley. We saw the remains of some trenches and shelss that are still being found. In one battle over 4,000,000 artillery shells were fired. They find 3-4 bodies every year still and a man was killed last year after he picked up an old shell and threw it in a fire he had started to clear his fields. So the last few days have been a history trip and I hope everyone was not too bored. We love you guys. During the few days I was in the area I tried to think of what was going through the mind of Alvin Dryden as he awaited German attack in the trenches of 1917-18 and what went through uncle Ray Smith's mind as he nearly froze to death on the battlefields near Bastone, Belgium in 1944. It's hard to understand the sacrifcies so many have made for how all of us now live our lives. It's important to remember. Your mom and I will be back to study this more in the years to come. We love you. Love, Dad