But my boots don't match!

The girls went back to school today after a very, very long winter break. I woke up at about 6:00 a.m. and looked outside to see about six inches of new snow. This is kind of cool because it is officially our first snowfall (well at least since we got back to Hayastan). So, rather than being happy, excited to go back to school, etc., the girls complained "but my snow boots don't match my outfit!"

It is suppose to snow all week, lets see if it does.....

Army Day, Hatz and more!

So a few updates...

Today we decided to go to Etchmiadzin for church. We really did not realize that today was Army Day (the anniversary of the establishment of Armenia's Army), so we got to church and there were a bunch of military cars and folks around. As we approached the cathedral, we saw a line of solders. We went in and the Defense Minister and a bunch of Generals were at church. HH Karekin II did the short sermon and all in all it was pretty cool. It was snowing and we took some pictures on the grounds of Etchmiadzin. You can see the snow in the girls and Houry's hair. I have to admit it was pretty excellent seeing the protectors of our country come together with the protectors of our faith. On a side note, the girls were clearly a hit among our 18 and 19 year old solders who pretty much followed us around and smiled at the girls the entire time we were at church.

We are pretty much getting ready to move into our new apartment. We spent yesterday there cleaning and getting ready. Hopefully by Wednesday we will be ready to make the move. The developer called me today to see "when we were planning on moving in?" I asked him in return "when are you going to hook up the water, hot water and electricity?" Go figure.

This week before school starts for the girls, we went ice skating at the outdoor ice skating rink with the girls friends from the village of Mkjian. It was fun. Afterwards, we took the kids back to their home. When we got to the first girls house, the parents pretty much had a feast prepared. They had made Khorovadz in the tonur in the ground. It was really, really nice. They told us that they make about 200 loafs of Lavash at one time and cook it all, dry it, then they can store it for about 4 months. It is really, really good. They gave us about four or five loaves essentially making friends with Houry for life.

Yesterday morning (before we cleaned all day...) Houry went to a studio and was connected live via internet to the Etchmiadzin Children Fund's Gala fundraiser in LA. She did a report from Yerevan. She stressed pretty much all night about it, but she really did a terrific job. It was way fun seeing our friends live via the internet. We recognized most folks in the audience and felt almost like we were there.

I ran across a few photos of Paris that I also need to post. We walked down the cool street with all the designer boutiques. Can you figure out which store they liked the best?

From Bridget and Kristen Regarding Our Paris Trip!

Our trip to Paris

OMG!!!!!!!!

Paris was soooooo amazing.

All the stuff people tell you that Paris is dirty or the people are rude are totally untrue. After 11 hours of flying we finally got to Paris. Our hotel was about 5 minutes away from the metro that we took to the center of Paris. The walk to the metro was amazing, the old beautiful buildings, all the cute pastry places and the one gigantic school. This school is the most gorgeous school I have ever seen. It puts Beverly Hills High School to shame. We arrived at night and walked around the champs elysees. Which is pronounced shanze le ze. This is the main streets filled with shops and cafes. The famous arch was at the end of the champs elysees. The next morning we had crepes that were super good. We went to the Notre Dame which is a magnificent church. It had really pretty stain glass windows and old looking architecture. Then we went to the famous museum called the Louve. It had the popular Mona Lisa and amazing ceiling filled with gold. The Mona Lisa was really cool because she smiled and when you looked into her eyes and moved, her eyes followed you. That night we went to the Effiel Tower. It was so windy up on top of the Eiffel Tower we had to hold on to each other and Kristen and I almost fell over! But it was absolutely beautiful. All the lights on it were sparkling; it was really pretty and huge!!!! That night it sort of sucked because it was raining cats and dogs and we got soaked. The next morning we got a late start because of our jet lag. We got on the metro and took it to the galleria La Fette. It was the most amazing mall I have ever seen it was like 6 floors and had EVERYTHING you could think of. Clothes, Shoes , Handbags, Designer clothes, Designer shoes, Designer handbags, perfume, jewelry. Makeup, manicure and pedicure places, electronics, restaurants, wedding dresses, kitchen stuff, furniture, a huge grocery store, lingerie, sunglasses, and everything else you could think of. Plus it was a gorgeous building with like gold and stain glass dome. It was somewhere you have to go before u die. After about 4 hours of shopping we went to a street, I don’t know what it was called, but it had a bunch of shops and was like Rodeo Dr. After another few hours of shopping we had dinner at this really nice restaurant. It was soooooo good. The quiche was Amazing. After dinner we went to the champs elessy and shopped more! While we were shopping we walked past a really expensive hotel and saw a bunch of people crowded around it. We were wondering what was going on because there was a bunch of papazzi around. Then I looked away for a second and saw a bunch of police cars and a limousine. The limousines window was rolled down and we saw…………BEYONCE!

She is just as pretty as she is in the movies. It was really cool.

Then next day we packed up all of our luggages and headed to Armenia. Paris is a place we will never forget!

We, we.......we are in Paris!

After a terrific visit to Los Angeles and Las Vegas to see family and friends, we left to head back to Armenia via Paris. Lots to report and post about our trip home, but since we are in Paris, I thought I would jump ahead and post a few photos of our Paris adventure. Much more to follow when we get back to Yerevan. On an odd note, we saw on CNN that it snowed in Malibu yesterday...what the heck?

See if you can guess which photo the girls took....