The Great American Eclipse

We had heard about the eclipse that was going to occur a couple of months before the actual date of it happening. I didn't think anything of it after I found out that it was going to occur on a Monday. I knew that the kids would be in school and I just figured that Jennifer and I would see it while the kids were in school. Then out of no where the Fayette County Public School system decided to cancel school on the day of the eclipse. This allowed us the opportunity to go back home to western Kentucky to visit with family and watch it where it was closer to a total eclipse. We found out that Jennifer's family was having an eclipse party at her granddad's house. His house was in an area where it was supposed to be 99.5% eclipse so we figured that it would be good enough. That way we wouldn't have to fight the crowds of people in Hopkinsville for the totality.

It just so happened that my Aunt Mildred and her family were visiting during that time from New York. It couldn't have worked out any better for us to see everyone in such a short trip back home to western Kentucky. We met up with Aunt Mildred at their hotel and we visited for a while. Then the kids took a swim in the pool while I napped since I had worked the night before and couldn't sleep on the ride down. We all went out and had dinner at Olive Garden before saying our goodbyes.

Thankfully we were able to stay with Grandma and Grandpa since all the hotels in the surrounding counties were full for the time we were there. It looks as if everyone really did head to western Kentucky to see this eclipse. We didn't get to spend much time at their house, but the kids enjoyed seeing Grandma and Grandpa and playing on the piano. We will have to come back again soon.

We got out to Granddaddy and Memom's house just a little bit before the eclipse started. We enjoyed some of Granddaddy's BBQ while we waited for the eclipse to get to the total point. Trying to take pictures of just the sun with my cell phone just showed a big glowing sun. Then we decided to try and take the pictures with the special glasses. They didn't turn out great, but we enjoyed getting a few shots of the experience.

I had been looking for these solar eclipse glasses for weeks in Lexington with no success. Thankfully MiMi had gotten a set of 12 and had enough for us too. I saw online about making a face shield for the kids in case they accidentally looked around the glasses. I think they turned out pretty good.

We also had a lot of fun exploring Granddaddy and Memom's cabin. They have so many little trinkets of old time memorabilia. I enjoyed hearing all of Granddaddy's stories and all of his stuff. He also has the tombstone of a distant family member who had fought in the Civil War. The kids had a ton of fun running around and exploring too.

Granddaddy and Memom have just the best little county house and property. The Heflin kids are just so used to everything in the big city of Lexington that they didn't know what to do with themselves at their house. Just the small things like a porch swing could have kept them busy for hours. I also picked Memom's brain about all things canning and they showed me all the stuff that they had canned over the past year. The bottom right picture is of most of Jennifer's family looking up and seeing the eclipse in the early stages.

Here were some of the best pictures that we were able to capture during our experience. It was amazing to see it all happen. When it started to go dark and the crickets started chirping it was really weird. It started to get dark and we were waiting for it to get completely dark. However, it never completely got dark and then all of a sudden it started to get lighter and lighter. It got to where you could see just a sliver of the sun from behind the moon. We never got to see totality which was a huge disappointment.

The drive home was horrible! I have never seen so many cars on the Western Kentucky Parkway. It was almost bumper to bumper all the way to Elizabethtown. Thankfully I made the right decision and got off on an earlier exit and drove through downtown Elizabethtown. We left about an hour after MiMi did and we got home 2 hours before her since she got stuck in the traffic trying to get onto I-65. 

We all had a really great time in western Kentucky and it was a lot of fun getting to spend time with family. The eclipse didn't really live up to our expectations, but we are glad that we got to experience it with the kids. On the way home we were already talking about trying to go and see the next one that actually happens in about 8 years. So, next time we will make a bigger effort to try and get to an area with 100% totality. Thanks for reading and God bless!

Garden and Veggies

This year we planted our garden again and we even planted a few new crops. The kids helped me with putting all the seeds in the ground and then they also helped water it some over the summer too. This was probably one of our most successful gardens to date.

It is always so fun to see the early stages of a garden. It seems like you can see it get bigger every day. This year I tried to leave more space in between rows. In previous years I end up getting everything growing in together.

Our first produce of the garden was snap peas. Too bad that nobody in the house really liked them. They were still producing, but I pulled them up early and replanted some tomato plants where they had been.

The next produce that started coming in from the garden was cucumbers, and there were tons of them. Last year I made some pickles and they were delicious. So, this year I decided to invest more into the canning process. The only pickles that I like are bread and butter. So, I initially made 6 quart jars of pickles. We tried them and they were delicious. I shared them with my parents and Mimi. 

This was one of our largest hauls. The produce that came in was banana peppers, zucchini, and yellow squash. 

The only reason at all that I plant carrots is so the kids can pull them out of the ground. This year the carrots did so well and the kids had a blast harvesting them. They kept calling themselves carrot farmers. Looks like I will plant another couple of rows next year too!

There was so much stuff coming in the garden that I couldn't keep up with it at times. I finally decided to make more pickles which meant that I had to go buy more jars. This time I decided to try making dill pickles, and everyone that tried them said they were good. I will just have to take their word on that.

Zucchinif tastes so good when you make it into zucchini bread. This stuff is absolutely delicious.

If you look closely you will notice some green of the zucchini peel in the spaghetti. Jennifer bought a vegetable noodle peeler. I would have never thought zucchini noodles would be good, but they were great!  I was sad when our zucchini plants died because it meant that we could no longer have fresh zucchini bread or zucchini noodles.

Later in the summer we added some new vegetables: okra, corn, and tomatoes. Having fresh produce around the house is nice. 

Next our sunflowers bloomed and they are just so beautiful. I planted some out in the front yard so that all the neighbors could see them this year. I loved this picture with the American flag in the background. 

As most of the other plants were dying, the tomato plants were just starting to produce fruit. 

The kids were wanting their picture made with our mammoth sunflowers in the backyard. These are second generation Heflin sunflowers because I planted these seeds with ones that I harvested last year. These got to about 12 feet tall and all the neighbors kept asking me what in the world I was feeding them. 

My little garden helper. This is the first year that Brinley has taken a bigger interest in helping in the garden. Landon is usually my helper, but Brinley has enjoyed picking red tomatoes all summer long. The bottom right picture was her trying to take a selfie with her tomatoes she picked.

I stopped taking pictures for some reason of all the tomatoes that were coming in. Probably because I was carrying them in by the bag full. We took canning to the next level this year. I made at least 6 batches of salsa, a batch of pizza sauce, and 4 batches of chili base. I even had a co-worker who showed me how to decorate the lids up a little bit with some labels. This is only about half of the cans that we made. We were actually running out of room to put all of the jars.

I was afraid that all the animals were going to start eating my sunflower seeds so I cut off this sunflower head and put it up to dry in the garage so that I could save all of the seeds. This thing is huge!

I was finally able to harvest the seeds. I soaked them in salt water and then baked them until they were ready to eat. I didn't quite get the saltiness that I wanted, so next time I will probably let them soak longer.

I know that summer isn't officially over yet, but I went ahead and sat out some of the fall decorations that I got from the garden. I used the dried up corn stalks and the pumpkins to get the neighborhood ready for fall. I was sightly disappointed with the pumpkins from the garden. The vines looked really healthy and had quite a few blossoms, but these were the only ones that actually turned into pumpkins. Not quite sure what happened, but we will have to pick up from one of the local orchards so that the kids can decorate some.

It is also nice to be able to put food on your table from the garden. For dinner one night half of our meal came from the garden. Cooked carrots, fried okra, bread and butter pickles, and the tomato slice all came from our garden. To me that is a success.

My tomato plants, okra, and bell peppers are still going strong so we will continue to harvest until the first frost of the year. I am so excited that we finally figured out canning so that we will be able to enjoy this harvest well into the winter and hopefully spring of next year. Maybe one day I will completely figure out the perfect combination in our garden. I even signed up to help start a garden at Brinley's new school so that kids can learn about growing plants. I just think it is so much fun to see the whole process of garden to table. If you ever want to try anything just let me know. I am more that happy to share anything that I get out of the garden. I know my family and friends enjoy getting some of the produce. Thanks for reading and God bless!

Paris

Paris is the part of our anniversary trip that scared us a little because neither one of us speaks French, at all. When we arrived at the train depot we got off and were able to find the Metro station. What ended up being a huge lifesaver to us was that we bought the unlimited 4 day Metro pass. This allowed us to go anywhere, including all the destinations we were planning to go outside of the city limits. Thankfully I could read the signs in the Metro and determine which way we needed to go.

We arrived close to our hotel and decided to make the short walk instead of transferring so that we could get our first glance at the Eiffel Tower.

After checking in to the hotel and dropping off all our bags we headed out to start seeing as much as we could. Our first stop was the Louvre. We went into the Louvre only knowing of a few major pieces of art that we wanted to see. Of course, first on the list was the Mona Lisa. I anticipated that it would be a popular piece, but I had no idea how many people would actually be trying to see it all at once. I finally fought my way to the front so that I could get our picture, but then I was ready to get away from the crowded mess!

We spotted the Venus de Milo as well as some other paintings that we like. Upper right corner was David with the head of Goliath. The bottom right picture was one that caught my eye because the man on the left side of the picture looked like the man from the Saw movies. If you can't tell I am not a big connoisseur of artwork.

Pictures with the famous entrance to the Louvre. This is also where I began trying to capture pictures of me holding inanimate objects, which also happened to be famous landmarks.

Next we headed over to Notre Dame Cathedral. We were waiting in line to climb up to the top to see all the gargoyles, when I spotted something that caught my eye.

This was one of the most delicious things that I ate on our trip, a nutella crepe. I think we averaged about one crepe a day on our trip, but we learned that most of the vendors had pre-made crepes that they just would warm up and then spread your topping on it. So, my recommendation would to always ask for a freshly made crepe, and it is delicious. Also if you like bananas then tell them to throw them in too!

Notre Dame was one of Jennifer's favorite places that we visited. Here we hiked up 387 steps for awesome views of the city. The only downfall was that they had netting up all over the place which wasn't very functional for picture taking. We made it work by putting are camera lens in all the holes in the net. My favorite part of Notre Dame was the gargoyles. They were so well preserved and were absolutely amazing.

We decided to then go see the Arc de Triomphe. We got some pictures outside of it, but then decided that we were really hungry. We found a little cafe where we could see the Arc during our dinner. This is where Jennifer decided that she didn't like French food. She tried to play it safe and ordered a burger patty topped with egg that came with a salad and fries. Only problem was that they barely even seared the outside of her meat. We are not the kind of people to complain and Jennifer really didn't want me to say anything. We are always afraid of what they will do to our food. So, our first real meal in Paris was a bust and we headed back to the hotel with Jennifer hungry.

The next morning we got up early to head outside of the city to the Palace of Versailles. This place was huge, amazing, and actually unbelievable. King Louis XIV definitely knew how to live in the lap of luxury. There was nothing that he was unwilling to spend money on. It is also pretty amazing that this palace and grounds have withstood for all of these years.

We happened to be there on a Tuesday which meant that the garden was open and the fountains were running. These fountains were works of art in themselves. It is hard to believe that these were created so long ago and are still functioning. If you ever make the trip out to the Palace, then you need to make sure that you go on a day when the fountains are running. The gardens were huge and we really enjoyed our stroll through it all. We even had lunch at the little cafe in the garden.

We were finished with looking around at the gardens and ready to head back to the train when it started to rain. That didn't stop us from grabbing a couple of macaroons and the richest, most decadent hot chocolate that I have ever tasted.The macaroons were awesome, but the hot chocolate actually tasted like they melted down some semi sweet chocolate and put in into a cup. We then headed back to the train but stopped for a picture out front with the golden gates.

When we headed back into Paris we made the journey over to Sacre-Coeur. This is a church that sets up on a hill and has some of the best views of the city. We climbed up to the top of the dome, which was 300 stairs, and it was amazing. We spent some time up at the top finding all of the major landmarks and took tons of pictures. The middle picture above is one of the gutter drains, which is crazy because they put so much detail into something that serves such a basic purpose. The bottom right picture was an amazing painting on the ceiling of the church. This wasn't something originally we had planned on going to, but we had lots of friends tell us that we needed to go see it. We are glad that we did!

Pictures from the outside of the church. This is where we became a little more nervous and heightened our awareness of what was going on around us. When we came out of the front doors we noticed the military police with the assault rifles and the police walking around. We didn't know if something was happening or if they were just being more present with what all had happened in London a few days before and we just didn't notice them on the way in. Later that day we found that a man had attacked a police officer out in front of Notre Dame. Why can't people all just get along?

We stopped inside this sweets shop at the bottom of Sacre-Coeur and it was awesome! They had chocolate sculpture replicas of some of the famous landmarks in Paris. We couldn't believe all the details that went into each piece. I also thought it was hilarious at the size of their meringues. They are usually the size of a cookie and these were more like the size of a small football!  

We also had some friends recommend a visit to the Catacombs. All we knew was that it was a bunch of bones that were under the streets of Paris. We had no idea what we were getting into. We had to wait in line for about 90 minutes to get in the entrance and we barely made it in before closing time. We were not prepared for what we were about to see!

After walking for about a half mile under ground we finally arrived at the bones. It was interesting at first, and as we kept seeing more and more it became increasingly disturbing. We figured out- that they put over 6 million bodies here in old stone mines to help support areas so that they wouldn't collapse. That made sense, but then these people back in the 17th century went so far as to arrange them in designs like hearts made out of skulls, rows and rows of femurs and skulls, and even what looked like a big pot of bones out in the middle of a room. Jennifer and I both thought that who ever did all this was probably sick in the head.

This was the range of emotions that we had during our time in the catacombs. We were happy and all smiles at first, then that turned all to disturbing looks from us. Lastly, by the end we were ready to get out of there and were completely numb to all that we were seeing. It was definitely interesting, but I would not recommend it unless seeing millions and millions of human remains is your kind of thing.

Our last full day in Paris was spent in full relaxation mode and all things Eiffel Tower. After we woke up we grabbed breakfast from a pastry shop near our hotel and then we made the 5 minute walk over to the tower from our hotel. I had snagged the blanket that I didn't use on the plane from the flight and we used it for our picnic. The baguette, eclair, and chocolate croissant were delicious, but I enjoyed the peaceful time with my wife even more. The only problem was that there were people coming around periodically begging for money or asking if we wanted to buy stuff from them. Otherwise, it was the most perfect picnic.

We had booked a tour of the Eiffel Tower, which included bypassing the lines and entry to the summit, as well as a Seine River Cruise. Our guide was very nice and informative and even got these pictures of us before heading up to the top.

Views from the journey up to the top.

The top of the Eiffel Tower was amazing. We stopped for pictures at all three levels and each one gave a different perspective of everything around Paris. This was the highlight of the trip for me. I believe this to be one of the most iconic landmarks in all of the world and we were actually there! It was really surreal being on the top.

Since I couldn't get Jennifer to climb the stairs all the way to the top I at least talked her into walking down them. It was a relatively easy walk down to the lowest level. On the lowest level they had glass bottom walkways like we had walked over at the Tower Bridge. For some reason this completely freaked me out. I think it was because we were over top of a giant pad of concrete here instead of water. I finally conquered my fears, but it was not something that I would like to do all the time. Every time we spotted one of these signs that said it was a place to kiss then I made no hesitation to steal a smooch from the wifey.

We were just walking around seeing all the things including the gift shop when we noticed the restaurant. They said they were about to close so that they could get ready for the dinner service. They said that if we could order in five minutes then we could stay. Easy enough for us! They even had a photographer that came around and made you do "silly" professional shots so that they could get more money. The bottom left picture is of Jennifer posing for one of these. This was actually a really good meal that we both enjoyed.

After our meal we finished up the remaining descent to the bottom. Jennifer was thankful that I only made her go down the over 600 stairs instead of climbing up them!

After our tour we headed on over to the river cruise. This was another very relaxing boat tour interspersed with local tourist information and sightseeing. Paris really knows how to fancy up some artwork too! Just throw some gold on it and it will look great.

Our tour guide at the Eiffel Tower mentioned to us that there was a smaller scale of the Statue of Liberty that the USA gave to France as a thank you. Jennifer and I decided to see this for ourselves. The thing was tiny! It was on a platform about 2 stories tall and the statue wasn't much bigger than that. Pretty pitiful excuse of a thank you from the USA for probably the most well known landmark in the states. We also noticed that this was a great place for some pictures of us holding the Eiffel Tower.

We enjoyed our picnic that morning so much that we decided to have another one for dinner. We stopped at a local grocery store and picked up some snacks to eat while we just sat and enjoyed each other and the sights of the tower. We discovered that a baguette is a pretty nice staple to have at any meal. At twilight the lights come on and sparkle and it is amazing to see in person. Again the only downfall about our picnic were the people walking around trying to sell souvenirs and alcohol. We did meet a nice couple from California that we talked to for quite some time as well.

After the Eiffel Tower did the sparkle show we decided to make a quick trip over to the Arc de Triomphe. Unfortunately, we found out after we got there that it closed for the night thirty minutes earlier. So, going up to the top of the Arc is the only thing that we didn't get to do during our time in Paris. We got off on the metro a few stops before our hotel on the way back so that we could see the Eiffel Tower all lit up from a different view. 

This was our last full day in Paris, since in the morning we would be getting up bright and early in order to head out of town to Disneyland Paris. We had an amazing time in Paris, but it seemed like it went by way too fast. Jennifer said that she enjoyed Paris more than London. I do know for sure that my favorite day was the day we spent doing very little except exploring the Eiffel Tower and having two picnics. I guess I should learn from this that sometimes we should just slow down and enjoy. I usually try and get as many things done as humanly possible in a day. I do know for sure though that there is no other person that I would want to explore this world with other than my beautiful wife. She is my favorite person in this world and I love going on adventures with her.