Nick visits

Some photos from Nick's most recent visit. We drove up to the top of Mount Evans.

















































(Nick and Connor at the blue people-dots at the top of the mountain above.)

From left, Matt, Mandy, Connor, Ches and Aaron celebrate outside the Rialto Theater in Loveland Saturday night after Connor and his actors and co-writer Aaron picked up awards for three movies they made, including the top action/suspense film, the top abstract/artistic film and second place in the best-in-show categroy for a comedy at the Silver Spoon Film Festival. This is the third year Connor has entered films. Below is one of the zombies from "The Darkness."

Road trip

It's always fun to go out for a road trip, something we Andersons have done for a very long time. Last weekend we drove down with two of Connor's friends and Kristen's parents to New Mexico.

We hit visit Roswell's International UFO Museum and Research Center and then drove over to Alamogordo for the White Sands Film Festival, where Connor had two films showing, and a quick visit to White Sands National Monument and the International Space Museum (to balance out our visit to Roswell's UFO crash museum, I guess). His films took first place in the high school student competition. We came home on Sunday with a pleasant 600 mile drive from southern New Mexico home to northern Colorado. Whew!

Aliens on display in Roswell:

Arizona

Eric returns from a work trip to Arizona, the highlight of which were two trips to spring-training games.

HoHoKam Park, Mesa, Ariz.

Hi Corbett Field in Tucson, Ariz., where Todd Helton signs some autographs, and where a sign reminds of last year's run.

More from Mesa:

Happy new year!

Better late than never:

Merry Christmas

December

Here we are picking our Christmas tree -- well, actually we're drinking hot chocolate.

Nutcracker

Reade danced this year in the Colorado Dance Academy's production of The Nutcracker. Months of practice, and three shows.

Birthday boy

Recreating the annual blowing out of the birthday candles. There's 17 of them this time.

Weekend in Paris

So, check it out: Because we couldn't go to Scotland in June as planned, but because we had to use our airplane tickets before December, we went to Paris last weekend. We left Denver at noon on Thursday, bounced through Houston and ended up in Paris about 11 a.m. on Friday. Took the Metro to our downtown luxury (!) hotel, and spent the afternoon walking through the Louvre gardens over to the Paris Opera Ballet House, then had dinner and amazing hot chocolate at Angelina Tea House.

Saturday, we got up early, walked over to the Louvre and wandered for about three hours seeing some amazing works of art by the masters, then we walked though Les Halles to the Pompidou center, where we watched the street action and had crepes/lunch in an outdoor cafe. From there we walked over to Ilse de Le Cite to meet my nephew Nick in front of Norte Dame, then we toured Sainte Chappelle and then marched over to the Latin Quarter for cafe and chocolate. From there we walked along the Seine back through the Louvre to dinner on Champs Elysees then back to the hotel with some amazing views of Le Tour Eiffel all lit up. At our hotel, we watched the World Rugby Cup final taking place across down.

Sunday? We got an early start and walked over to the Eiffel Tower through some amazing neighborhoods, then rode the Metro to Bercy to see a Frank Gehry-designed building, then rode the Metro to Pere-Lachaise Cemetary to see the famous graveyard and the tombs of people like Bizet, Moliere, Balzac, Oscar Wilde, Chopin, Moddiglani and Jim Morrison, then had lunch in a neighborhood cafe. From there, we rode the Metro down to Arc deTriomphe, climbed up to the top for amazing views, then walked the length of the Champs Elysees before more hot chocolate at Angelina. We went back to the hotel for a bit, then took in a late, last dinner and a final walk around to see the lights.

Monday, we flew home. Below are some photos and short videos of our amazing three-day adventure in Paris.

Champs Elysees

Arc de Triomphe

Metro

Le Metro

Live, on train accordianist...

Chopin's tomb

Gehry and Reade

Eiffel Tower

Sainte Chapelle

Notre Dame

Street music at Palais Royal

Mona Lisa

Approaching the Louvre

City of Lights

La Tour Eiffel

Grand Palais

Street video

Angelina Tea House

Street scene

Place Vendome video

Place Vendome

Andersons stand on bridge

Fight Song (video test)

The Crucible

In the U High school play, Connor was Rev. John Hale.

Making movies

Connor and his friends make a silent movie.

Summer