Preparing for Paris

Today is my grandma's 90th birthday party and I'm going to miss it. Instead of celebrating with all of my aunts, uncles, brothers, cousins, dad and others I will be packing for my trip to France. I feel bad to be missing the big 9-0 in '09 it is really my grandma's fault that I'm going in the first place. Being born on her birhday comes with a lot of pressure to keep up. On last count she has been to over 50 countries in her 90 years and I'm not even close. I'm only at 16 (20 if I include countries that I've spent less than a day) right now and have a lot of traveling to do to catch up. The good news is she has assured me that she is done traveling over oceans which means her number is finally static.

This trip to France (and Switzerland - one night counts, right?) will get me a little closer to grandma's count. And it all came about thanks to Lisa Roth's birthday. Colleen and I were sitting across the table from eachother and I indicated that it would be fun to go to some other country over New Year's to go snowboarding. Colleen suggested France and before we could second-guess the idea, she booked us a hotel in Paris and we bought airline tickets. It didn't take much convincing to talk Lisa O. into joining us (although it did take some work for her to convince her boss). We will be spending a few very chilly days in Paris before hopping on a train for Chamonix. I will do my best to keep everyone that's interested entertained while I'm gone.