Jardin des Tuileries et Musée de l'Orangerie

May 21, 2008

Jesse's tooth had been bothering her, so I put a call into our favorite German dentist to see when he might be able to squeeze us in.

He called this morning and said 3:30 was his only time-we were happy he would see us so we packed another picnic and climbed into the car to spend the rest of the day in Paris.

Unfortunately for Jess he had to use quite a bit of anaesthesia, which meant several shots, but once the magic stuff kicked in-he pulled out her tooth.

As we left the dentist and drove into Paris we drove right along the Seine and had a great view of the Statue of Liberty and the Tour Eiffel.

I found a great parking spot, if I don't say so myself. It was right at the end of the Tuileries at the Place de Concorde-and it was free.

I am beginning to drive like a real Frenchman.

The plan was to spend the afternoon in the Gardens and go into the Orangerie Museum.

Place de Concorde-Jesse's tooth (or no tooth) was really starting to a give her some pain-therefore the sad face. She was a great sport to hang in there with us.

The dentist did tell us the best medicine would be an ice cream cone and they happened to have several ice cream vendors right in the park, I think it made her feel a little better, especially since it was prescribed by the dentist.

The small gallery of Renoir paintings has some of his best.

While we were waiting to get into the Museum, we read a little information on Monet and about his Water Lillies that hang in the museum. I showed the children a few small pictures of what we would see inside.

When we entered the first room of Water Lillies the children actually gasped-it is breath taking. The buildings roof is glass so there is a great amount of natural light and the only thing on the 4 white walls are the huge paintings.
There are two rooms 4 paintings in each. I told the children to pick their favorite painting to have their picture taken by. It was difficult for Logan to choose just one.

Each room has benches in the center, so we took a seat and talked about what each one of the paintings reminded us of.

This one all reminded us of Great Grandma's house because of the weeping willows.

It was the perfect size museum for us today, small enough you can see everything in about 30 minutes and all the art is fabulous.

We found a grassy spot for our picnic and watched the sky turn very mysterious on us. Speaking of the picnic reminds me of a very funny thing that happened today was when we were entering the museum. I took off my backpack to go through security and then I was busy making sure the children went through the detector without a beep. I hear Jesse saying, "Mom, mom" I look over and see the security guard with my big long bread knife between his two hands, with a stern look on his face. "Oh, my goodness, I am so sorry-it is for our picnic." Luckily it was nestled in the bag right next to the tomatoes and avocado so he knew I wasn't pulling a fast one. The kids were all giggling at their goofy mom. He was kind and let us just check it with our bag until we were done in the museum. He did remind me that "normally zis is not allowed".