Paris, White Bear lake, MN

PARIS, WHITE BEAR LAKE, MN

On Thursday March 24, Dan and Rebecca presented us with a travel package to Paris! It was complete with Passport, airline tickets, and itinerary for one day in Paris. We excitedly anticipated Saturday!

On Saturday morning (March 26, 2011) we leisurely slept in. Then we were told that our breakfast was ready. Wow! What an excellent breakfast was cooked for us by the famous French cook, known by all as just "Dan", and his two faithful kitchen hands! What a way to start our day...it was truly the feeling of a vacation!

These are REAL crepes! (Which I learned later in the day is pronounced "crep", not "crape" as I had always thought.

After breakfast we headed down to the French Alliance(I think that is what it is called) in an old building in the warehouse district of Minneapolis. This is where people can go to take French classes and stay connected with French-speaking people. They were having an open house. We saw a French woman teaching a little American child how to speak French and a French cook named Chez who in this past year set up his own restaurant in Minneapolis serving authentic food. He was selling some of his creations, and there was also fresh imported bread and cheese to sample. Chez gave a demonstration on making "madeleines" which was fun to watch. We didn't eat much at all, as we were very satisfied from our delicious breakfast, and didn't want to ruin our appetite for the wonderful supper that our itinerary indicated!

On our return home Dad and I rested while every other family member was buzzing around to many tasks. There were rooms we were not allowed to enter. We were told initially to dress up, so we put on fancy clothing (Dad wore his suit that he wore for our wedding!), and at about 8 p.m. we were ushered downstairs to Le Cafe Molitor where we enjoyed the most wonderful of suppers created again mostly by that famous cook (known by all as just "Dan"). The next two hours we enjoyed a three course meal, sparkling champagne, and live entertainment. We even danced! The environment created for us had beautiful French music in the background, pictures from Paris projected on the wall, and even a Mona Lisa created that very day by our own artist, Daniel Molitor, on another wall!

It is hard to explain how much we enjoyed everything that took so much thought, planning, and effort to do for this special day. I hope the pictures portray some of it!

The one on the left, Jean, was the French photographer who untiringly took ALL these wonderful pictures.

And all of them stayed in French character from the beginning to the end! It was absolutely amazing!! Thank you Dan, Rebecca, John, Joseph, Daniel and Timothy!!