i'm sorry i've been gone so long

since katie and i got back from france, she's been very busy and hasn't been able to spend as much time helping me as she would like. but now we are working on my website. i wanted to encourage children to read and learn more, so katie agreed to help me build a website. it's at http://www.petethebear.com/ and will have games and book reviews and contests for kids and pre-teens! i hope you will come see me there!

your pal,
pete

lily ponds and butterflies

katie and her friend marie-pierre took me and elle to giverny on sunday. that's where mr. monet painted his waterlily paintings. katie was really excited, because mr. monet is her favorite painter. this is his pond.



the garden was really pretty. it was full of brightly colored flowers and butterflies like this one.



isn't it pretty? we had a really nice day.

happy birthday, joe!

it's my friend joe's birthday today!

he's turning 6 and having a sponge bob birthday party. elle and i hope he has a great, fun day!



happy birthday, joe!

your pal,
pete

it's okay to be scared

katie and i went to the eiffel tower yesterday. it was really neat. it looks like it's made out of lace, but katie says it's really made of iron and weighs over 11,000 tons. that's as much as 1,850 African elephants! it takes nine elephants worth of paint just to paint it every seven years, and it's about 99 elephants tall, the tallest "building" in paris. you can climb the stairs up to the second level (there are three), but you have to take an elevator to go all the way up to the top. katie is afraid of heights, so i held her hand when we went up to the top. i think she was very brave to go. even i was a little scared; it was a long way up for such a little bear and his best friend to go. but we could see all of paris when we got to the top, so i'm glad we went!

feed the ducks

it was such a beautiful day, katie and i went for a walk in the tuileries. that's a big garden where people used to walk and drive their carriages when they wanted to see other people. there are big round ponds with fountains, and you can feed the ducks or rent little sailboats from a man with a cart in summer. i met a nice little girl named susie who shared her boat with me. it had pink sails, and she pushed it with a stick to make it go. it was fun.



there's a little amusement park for kids, too, near the louvre. you can bounce and ride swings, and there's a little park with slides and merry-go-rounds, too. katie was afraid i would get hurt, so she didn't let me ride any of the rides, but we swung on the swings and rode the carousel together. then when we were walking home, we stopped to look at drawings a man was selling on the steps.



afterward, we had ice cream and went home. i like spending time with katie. :)

some obelisks are very tall

this is the obelisk in place de la concorde. over 3,300 years ago, it belonged to ramses the great, who was a pharoah in egypt, but 150 years ago, in 1836, the king of egypt gave it to the king of france. there's another one just like it in egypt, at the temple of luxor. this one used to be there, too. the little pictures at the top are called hieroglyphs. they say ramses was very brave and strong.



there are also gold drawings on the base that show how they took the obelisk down and brought it by boat to paris. that took almost five years! the obelisk is so tall, it was hard to see the top when i was standing close to it. and even though it's made out of a rock called red granite, it's grey. isn't that funny?

your pal,
pete

you can never have too many friends

katie was worried i would be lonely spending so long away from my friends at home, so she got me a new friend. her name is elle. she's really shy, and when we go out, she likes to stay inside katie's bag. i think it's because she's so small. the world is a really big place, especially when you're little.

she doesn't speak a lot of english, but i learned some french the last time i was here, so i teach her english, and she helps me learn french. it's fun making new friends!



pete

try not to lose your head

katie took me to place de la concorde to see the fountains again. there's a 3,300 year old obelisk there. it was a gift from egypt to france in 1833. it's 107 feet tall, and they moved it in one piece. they had to build special boats to move it all the way to paris from egypt, and there are pictures on the side of the base to explain how they did it. it's pretty neat, but katie and i like the fountains best. sometimes you can even see rainbows in them and make a wish. katie says if you believe in your wish with all your heart and don't tell anyone what it is, it will come true. i don't think that's always so, but i like to make wishes, anyway!



katie thinks this might be her favorite picture of me, yet. she thinks i look perfect, but all i was doing was sitting there, listening to her tell me to be careful not to lean back and fall into the water. sometimes katie forgets i know how to behave, but i know she only worries about me because she loves me.

pete