Michelle Obama

[Rasputin]

The White House has bestowed a surprisingly calming influence on the First Family, according to Michelle Obama – who says the residence has been a particularly positive experience for daughters Malia 10, and Sasha, 7.

When it comes to living in the Executive Mansion, the First Lady tells Time magazine for its latest issue, on sale Friday, "It has been the greatest single benefit of this for us as a family. It means that we see each other every day. And that hasn't happened for most of the kids' lifetime."

As the wife of Illinois's junior senator, Mrs. Obama was once asked if she would consider a move to Washington, D.C. "I was like, no," she remembers. Now, she's enjoying having the man of the house at home.

"It's rare [for most families] to have dad at home for dinner, to see him in the mornings, to have him there when you go to bed at night, just to be able to have the casual conversations that happen about life at dinnertime," says Mrs. Obama. "That's been terrific. It's normal. It's more normal than we've had for a very long time


President Takes 'Michelle Time'
Still, it is the White House. On maintaining their perspective and keeping the family intact, Mrs. Obama says, "We stay 100 percent in their world all the time. And I don't know if you understand that, but their lives are very disconnected from this [place]. You can do that with kids when they are young, because they just don't care."

The Chief Executive agrees. "Among the many wonderful things about being President," Barack Obama tells Time, "the best is that I get to live above the office and see Michelle and the kids every day. I see them in the morning. We have dinner every night. It is the thing that sustains me."

He also takes work breaks for what he terms "Michelle time," when retreats from his office to the residence. Every now and then, his wife shows up in the West Wing with family dog Bo or the kids for what the magazine calls "a brief but lively interruption."

"And if the kids really, really need to see him, they can," she says. "They're free to walk in. They're welcome wherever they want to go around here."

[Rasputin]

With school out, Malia and Sasha Obama have quite a week ahead of them – starting on Friday, when they fly with their mother Michelle to meet their father in Paris, following his historic trips this week to Egypt, to speak on the Mideast, and to Germany, where he visited the Buchenwald concentration camp.

Besides helping mark the 65th anniversary of D-Day on the beaches of Normandy, the Obamas will be enjoying the City of Lights for a few days, especially on Wednesday, which is Sasha's 8th birthday, says The Washington Post's Reliable Source column – which also cites French reports that the first couple have reservations at celebrity chef Alain Ducasse's restaurant atop the Eiffel Tower.

Earlier this month, President Obama met with the French premium TV channel Canal Plus, which asked what he particularly liked about France.

"Well, let's see. We got the food," said Obama, "We've got Paris. We've got the South of France – Provence – the wine."

Reminiscing about a college trip he took to the South of France, Obama, 47, said, "I haven't been back for a long time. And so I need to ... get back there."

Of course, a president never goes anywhere abroad without an interpreter. Even so, when asked about his language skills, the President bluntly responded: "My French is terrible. I studied it in high school, and I just forgot it. Michelle, I think, speaks a little French."

Bon chance.

[Rasputin]

With school over for the summer, First Lady Michelle Obama, her mother Marian Robinson, and daughters Malia, 10, and Sasha, 7, both making their first-ever trip across the Atlantic, flew to meet President Barack Obama on Friday for a weekend of sightseeing and shopping in the City of Light.

On Friday, the First Lady, her mother and daughters to the Eiffel Tower''s panoramic Restaurant Jules Verne for an early evening reception hosted by Paris Mayor Bertrand Delanoe.

Dressed casually in a teal-and-silver scarf and jacket, Michelle escorted a ponytail-sporting Malia, who wore a bright orange coat, and Sasha, in a rose-colored coat, for the brief ride to the tower's second level, where they admired the sunset and watched the tower's twinkling lights begin before heading back to the U.S. embassy to meet up with the president.


A River Ride
While the president and First Lady went to Normandy to host commemoration ceremonies for D-Day's 65th anniversary on Saturday, Malia and Sasha – chaperoned by their grandmother – boarded a 90-minute afternoon river cruise on the Seine through the heart of Paris sailed past the Musee d'Orsay, the Louvre Museum, and the Notre Dame Cathedral.

Later, the presidential parents returned to Paris for a private visit with the family to Notre Dame, where the children's choir and an organist entertained. Afterwards, the First Family was seen gamboling the parapets amid the gargoyles above the main entry.

And it was parents' night out when the First Couple enjoyed a late dinner at tiny 7th arrondisement restaurant La Fontaine de Mars, whose most famous visitors to date were Zac Efron and Vanessa Hudgens last October.


There, they sampled the family-run bistro's specialities: gigot d'agneau (roast lamb) for him, fillet of beef with bearnaise sauce for her, and for dessert, an ile flottant (floating island of meringue) for him and crème brulée for her. "They were very relaxed at the table," their waiter told PEOPLE.


Sights and Fashion
Before the president's noon departure on Sunday, the entire family headed over at 9 a.m. to the city's modern-art museum, the Centre Pompidou. Then Michelle, her mother, Sasha and Malia were guests at the Élysée Palace for an informal French Mother's Day brunch with French First Lady Carla Bruni and President Sarkozy and their family.

And after lunch at the palace came an essential part of a visit to Paris: shopping, including a trip to the Left Bank's Bonpoint flagship store, where "they purchased three outfits for Sasha [for] her birthday," a source tells PEOPLE. (Sasha turns 8 on June 10). "Mrs. Obama was very, very nice. She has a wonderful rapport with her daughters."

To wrap up their last day in the City of Light, they visited the Louvre Museum, where the historic Cour Carrée entry was closed off for them. They topped off their day with a private dinner at a restaurant in the city's St. Germain district.

Their whirlwind weekend in France will come to a close Monday when the First Lady, her daughters and her mother fly home to the U.S.

[Rasputin]

What better way to celebrate your birthday than a mini-shopping spree in Paris? And that’s just how First Daughter Sasha Obama celebrated her eighth over the weekend. Mom Michelle Obama took a little break from official business in France to get in some mother-daughter time with her two girls.

After a Sunday brunch en famille with French president Nicolas Sarkozy and his wife, Mrs. Obama took the birthday girl and her sister Malia to the Bonpoint flagship store in Paris’s 5th arrondissement, where a source tells us Mrs. Obama “bought three complete outfits for Sasha because it was her birthday.” And while Bonpoint is a favorite of Hollywood parents like the Jolie-Pitts and Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes, Mrs. Obama learned about children’s retailer from another stylish source: fellow First Lady — and former model — Carla Bruni Sarkozy.

[Rasputin]

An evening meal of fish and chips at a pub rounded off an eventful day in London for First Daughters Malia and Sasha Obama.

The youngsters – ages 10 and 7 – dined with mom Michelle Obama at The Audley on Mount Street in Mayfair on Monday evening in a move that caught bar managers by surprise.

The children chose the fish supper while their mother opted for sirloin steak, say the pub's owners, Punch Pub Company.

"We were all speechless when they walked in," said Cintia Pinto, 24, who served the first lady's table. "I couldn't believe it. But they were all very friendly, smiling and laughing.

"They made us feel calm. The girls were so sweet and polite. They thanked us every time we brought them something. It was a real honor."

The group dined in the pub's private dining room upstairs, managers say, and before long a crowd gathered outside, clamoring for a view of the special visitors.

"We've had other famous people coming in," manager John Gohery said, "but nothing on this scale."


Big Ben and Parliament
Earlier in the day, the girls also visited the set of the new Harry Potter movie at North London's Pinewood Studios and the Houses of Parliament, where they checked out the historic clock tower and its Big Ben bell, according to the BBC.

Mrs. Obama also met with Sarah Brown, the wife of Prime Minster Gordon Brown – someone she got to know well during her last visit to London back in April, when she accompanied her husband on a royal visit.

[Rasputin]

There's a new couple in the White House and seemingly overnight our nation's capital – a town known for filibusters, not fun – is suddenly a magnet for Hollywood starlets, reality TV shows and high-profile idealists wanting to get in on a little high-minded action. Here's a look at some of those beguiled by the Beltway:

Dating in the D.C.
After splitting from The Office nice guy John Krasinski, Parks & Recreation star Rashida Jones, 33, has been hanging with President Obama's 28-year-old speechwriter Jon Favreau. "It's not serious," a source reveals, but they are an item. Meanwhile, taking a break from her doctor duties at the Oceanside Wellness Center, Private Practice star Kate Walsh, 41, has been spotted cuddling with another young administration hotshot, Sean Smith. How's this for a title? Smith, 38, is Deputy Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

At Your Service
Swapping his SAG card for a seat in the White House, former House resident Kal Penn will make Washington home when he joins the Office of Public Liaison, working to get the Obama message out in the world of the arts and the Asian-American Pacific Islander. "The opportunity to serve in a capacity like this is an incredible honor." the actor, 32, told Entertainment Weekly.

The Housewives Are Coming
Hoping to mirror success in New York, New Jersey, Atlanta and Orange County, Calif., Bravo is taking its trash-tastic Real Housewives franchise to Washington, casting from a pool of "cultural connoisseurs, fashion sophisticates and philanthropic leaders." Not to be left out, MTV has announced the Real World will be taking up residence "in the heart of where history is made," in the words of the network's president of programming. Production begins later this summer. And come this fall, 20-something social butterflies will be the focus of a CW docu-series titled Blonde Charity Mafia. Think Gossip Girl goes to Georgetown!

[siamak]

New homes are full of questions and possibilities. What color to paint the walls? How to arrange the furniture? What to plant in the garden? The Obama family must have asked a lot of those same questions when they moved into the White House. However, the first lady's dreams of growing an organic vegetable garden have been dragged down by a previous resident that refuses to leave: sludge.

Various sources within the Buzz are reporting that Michelle Obama's "organic" garden has been besieged by icky goo in the ground. As a result, the veggies aren't quite what the first lady had in mind. According to Daily Finance, the National Park Service tested the soil in the vegetable patch and found "highly elevated levels of lead" due to sewage used as fertilizer.

So the question is: Who to blame? While dumping sewage into the ground sounds like a crime worthy of Mr. Burns from "The Simpsons," the actual perpetrators were none other than the Clintons. Yep, back when Bill and Hillary were living it up in the White House, their gardening team used "sewage sludge for fertilizer." The fiends!

Sounds gross, but it's actually fairly common. However, it does mean that the highly touted "organic garden" will never "attain organic status." The certification process doesn't allow "the use of sludge as a fertilizer substitute." And there's another problem: If Malia and Sasha weren't into eating their veggies before, it's going to be that much harder to get 'em to eat 'em now.