Andy Smallman

Five years ago today, Melinda, Chloe, Ella, and I were in Paris, about to complete a week in that lovely little town in France. The girls were on a break from school so we took the train from Nantes to Paris, arriving without a trace of jet lag. We spent the week doing a lot of touristy things and got familiar with the Paris Métro. If you aren’t familiar with it, the Paris Métro is an incredibly complex system for getting around that quaint town.

Five years ago today, I blogged about the truth of the Paris, Métro, that it is actually an elaborately complex system put in place by officials in that cozy hamlet to keep people fit. I think it’s the funniest post I wrote during our year in France, and I want you to know I wrote some very funny posts.

Today’s picture is a screenshot of that blog post from five years ago today. But if you really want to read it in order to get a good laugh or to see how clever I am to have uncovered the secret of French fitness, click here.

Which one is one of the 365 faces of Celeste? This big one with the knife? Or the one that appeared an hour or so later, with the jagged teeth and orange complexion?

I dare you, I mean, I challenge you to find a more adorable Halloween costume photo than this one of Ella from 1997. She was 10 months old and both she and Chloe spent part of each weekday at a place called The Learning Garden.

The night before Halloween, there was a Halloween costume contest at The Learning Garden, one that included adults and families. As you can tell from this photo, Ella was a dalmatian puppy. Chloe was Cruella de Vil, complete with blue eye shadow. And Melinda and I dressed as Cruella’s henchmen.

It probably goes without saying that we won the contest.