Get me to the church on time

Well, as we hoped, today was a better day. Dave and I were up late trying to figure out London. I am having troubles sleeping because of my allergies – bummer. So, we did not make it church until second hour again.! Oh well.. We had a nice time at church, but were wishing that we could make some kind of connection there. Most everyone we meet is just here for the week. Mali lost a tooth right in the middle of sacrament meeting! It was pretty funny. This is the second tooth she has lost on the trip so far. The tooth fairy is paying in Euros these days.
We all walked home together this week. It was beautiful outside. We had a nice lunch together, and then sat the kids down to talk about London. We had called to see how much canceling the trip all together would cost. It was going to only cost 50.00/ticket to cancel and the hotels we were finding were going to be 700-1000/night. So! We decided to just cancel our trip. We were all disappointed, but it seemed the most realistic option. We started to plan what we could do locally – Normandy, Nice, etc.
After lunch, Dave, Hayley, Dillon and I went to tour Victor Hugo’s house. His home is in the Place de Vosges, which is about 1.5 blocks from our home. It is free and made a nice Sunday afternoon activity. There were several cool things that we saw there. They had a couple of the rooms set up to represent other homes he had lived in, such as the place he lived while in exile. They even had the bed which he died on display. I loved seeing the family photos and the sweet cards and notes.
After dinner, Dave, Dillon and I headed out to go biking. On Sundays, the city closes the streets along canal St. Martin to cars, so it’s a great place to bike. We tried charging Velib bikes to our Navigo passes, but our credit cards would not work. We need cards with microchips rather than magnetic strips. So, we decided to check out a running path that I had researched on-line. It is called the promenade plantée and it is totally awesome!!! It’s an elevated walking path/garden that runs through the 12th district. It’s a few blocks from our apartment. It runs along an old railway. It’s hard to explain, but you would never know it was there if you were just walking along the road. It has trellises and beautiful roses and several other flowers. There are benches as well. Just a cool place to walk or run. I am so glad that we discovered it!
I made some homemade hot chocolate after dinner. We decided to give London one more try before officially canceling. We emailed the owners of the apartment we were considering and offered them what we thought was reasonable/affordable. Well, they got back with us and said they would take our offer! Yeah! The only thing is, they are just a tad sketchy, so we decided to sleep on it and see what we think in the morning. Also, they only have availability for Tuesday and Wednesday nights, so we will have to hunt down a hotel that has room on Monday night. We booked our Venice apartment tonight, though. It took all of 5 minutes! We figure between the two of us, Dave and I have spent over 30 hours trying to work out London. We really want to go while we are so close and we are not sure when else we would fit it in the next three weeks. BUT, we don’t want to be sleeping on the streets either. :) So, we shall see tomorrow!!
 Victor Hugo’s home

Promenade Plantee and views from the promeneade