Paris Part 1

Imagine boarding a train late in the day and arriving 3.5 hours later in Paris in time for dinner.

Last Thursday night, I left work a little early and we did just that.

It just so happened that my Parents were also in Paris, so they met us at the train station - which was quite confusing for the boys - and for me since I hadn't seem them in weeks, but meet up with them in PARIS? Who are we, the Kennedy's? They helped us get settled in our 10x10 hotel closet/box and took us out to dinner.....IN PARIS. PARIS!

As the sun was setting, we walked through the streets near Notre Dame as we looked for a place to eat. It was breathtaking.

We ended up at one of the very common indoor/outdoor cafes where we all ordered something French enough that we had we had to point to the menu to order correctly. I still ordered wrong....I mistook "Parma" for "Parmesan", but it was in fact "Ham"....it was still good, because for the love of Pete, were were in Paris.

It was difficult to sleep that first night. Mostly because we slept with the patio doors open and the streets below buzzed with mopeds and motorcycles. But mainly because I knew WE WERE IN PARIS. The next morning, I was the first one up with the sun. It was quiet. Just me, and the Parisian sunrise.
Our room. Oh, our room. Like most Hotel rooms in Paris, it was very small and old, or as the French might say, quaint and historic. But when you find yourself asking your 5 year old to "switch places" with you, lets just call it what it was.....freaking small. We knew we were not going to be spending much time in our room, but we actually exceeded those expectations because we were out by 9:00am and didn't return before 10:00 any night we were there.

As if Paris knew exactly what our needs were, our hotel was one block away from the Breakfast In America diner which served American-style breakfast all day/night. Of course, this feels a little ridiculous since we were in PARIS, but it ended up being a huge blessing for our kids. Not known for their adventurous appetites, a belly full of American Pancakes drenched in good ole Aunt Jemima was the best way to start our very long days of sightseeing.

Forever locked in Paris:
My parent purchased a two-day Hop on Hop off bus ticket which they only got to use one day of, so this ended up being the perfect way for us to tour Paris in fast forward.

First stop - Notre Dame. This was the landmark that I was most excited to see in Paris and did not disappoint. It is so difficult to describe. It is beyond enormous. I could not help but touch all of the walls and columns that I passed imagining all of the people that also touched them before me. It was an incredibly spiritual place, obviously...but even more than I expected. Of course, I was quickly snapped back into reality as Charlie continuously screamed throughout the church because he did not want to be in his stroller as we passed sign after sign which read "Quiet Please, Place of Worship". So we toured most of Notre Dame in x4 speed. Nonetheless, it was magnificent.

Back on the bus, we rode on the top level which gave us a perfect view of Paris and all that it has to offer. I couldn't photograph fast enough.

A Patisserie:
Charlie listening to the tour:

Next stop - The Opera House. The Opera House made me unexpectedly emotional. The only word I can think to describe it is REGAL. Built in 1875, it served as Paris' primary opera house until the mid 80's and I later learned was the inspiration for Phantom of the Opera. Stepping from the hall into one of the many private mezzanine booths, it opened up into the 2200 seat opera house. It. Was. Amazing. History flashes before your eyes and I had chills even imagining what it must be like to watch the ballet or symphony in the opera house, but most of all, what it would have been like to play there. It was almost too much.

The boys loved the balcony...thinking its purpose was to race from end to end.

Next stop - Arc de Triomphe. As we traveled down the long and beautiful Champs-Elysees, I remember seeing the enormous arch and thinking "oh, there's the Arc de Triomphe" in sort of a non-chalant way.

And then was like: OH MY GAD....you know your life is good when stumbling upon the Arc de Triomphe is like stumbling upon Washington Square in Tigard, Oregon. At some point, the sights start becoming very surreal. It was much bigger than I thought it would be, but the coolest part of the sight was the perfectly executed symphony of cars, buses and motorcycles that circle the Arc de Triomphe bumper to bumper, moving from outer lane to inner lane back out to outer lane to exit. There is a known flow around the 4 lanes that circle it. As a foreigner, the traffic around the Arc is down right scary, but the French know exactly what they are doing and it was kind of fun to watch.

Next stop - lunch. We were starving and the kids were starting to go from a 7 on the crab-scale to a 9 on the crab-scale. So, why not dine at the nicest Brasserie overlooking the Eiffel Tower? We love living on the edge.

As we sat in the upscale restaurant, weary, hungry and doing what we could to keep our kids from punching holes in the walls, breaking wine glasses and throwing food, I looked around. It must have been filled with famous French business men and women and movie stars. These were somebodies. And these somebodies all wore sunglasses regardless of whether the sun was shining. Honestly, I couldn't believe they let us gutter rats into such a place, but they did. This was the first time I learned that to be a beautiful French woman, you must appear to be very annoyed, constantly. Or maybe they were annoyed that we were sitting within ear shot. Caesar salads and 9 euro Coke Lights - very tasty, but absurdly expensive.

Maybe we were paying for the view, in which case, a 9 euro Coke Light is worth it:

My little French rock stars:
The lines at the Eiffel Tower were exactly as every person before us had describe.....really, really long. As in like several hours long. It was very windy and threatening rain that day, so we convinced Henry, who had up to this point said he "wants to go up in the Eiffel Tower" about 5 billion times, that we would return the next morning first thing so that we didn't have to wait in lines. Instead, we played in the park and cooed over the tiny, well-dressed French girls who somehow seemed smarter since they were speaking French. And we only had to put up with one more night of the nails-on-the-chalkboard "I wanna go up on the Eiffel Tower!!!".

We did in fact return to the Eiffel Tower Saturday morning, but we were late (we navigated the underground Metro - which started out as an intimidating venture, but in the end, we LOVED) and had to stand in line for about 1.5 hours. Except when we finally got up to the ticket window, saw that the "TOP CLOSED". It was somewhat of a Wally World moment and Nate was fully channeling Clark W. Griswold.

The second level was well worth the 1.5 wait.

If not for the view, for the amazing ice cream that they served.


I'll just mention here that traveling abroad with two little kids is one of the hardest things I have ever done. Going on only 6 hours of sleep, sleeping in a small french matchbox, eating non-standard, non-child-friendly food, and napping upright in a stroller can take a toll on a 5 and 2 year old. We pushed our kids to their limits, no, beyond their limits, but....I think we learned that sometimes, even though the Eiffel Tower was crowded like a Central Train Station, it is worth just stopping, sitting down in the middle of everything and everyone and enjoying unbelievable ice cream can remind you of where you really are and who is really important. And while I am sure we looked completely ridiculous huddled in a small circle sitting on backpacks and umbrella strollers eating ice cream, it was one of the happiest moments of our Paris weekend.

Bonjour! Paris....Day 1

We are back from a long weekend in France. It was absolutely amazing and everything that I'd hope it would be. I'm certain we did 2 WEEKS of sightseeing in 2.5 DAYS and our feet and bodies are proof. We are exhausted, but still light from the beauty that we saw. Here are pictures from our first day and the morning of our second day.
Stories will follow shortly. And oh, are there stories. You just can't take a 5 and 2 year old to Paris and not have stories. Enjoy!

Zandvoort aan zee!!

During the week, we expect the boys to be on their

"not worst" behavior. Therefore, on the weekends, you know

when we are playing with a one-on-one defense, we look for

things to do where its ok that they run and scream like they are

bat-shit crazy, ritalin-needing American boys.

This past week, we took them to Zandvoort, which is a coastal

town in North Holland.

The only thing I knew about Zandvoort was what the internet

told me in Dunglish (Dutch/English) (basically, food, nude beaches and discos...I mean if that doesn't scream 5 and 2 year olds, I don't know what fun is!)

or what my coworkers told me which was "The Coney Island of Holland".

Sign us up!

A short hour-long train ride later

we landed here:

Choosing a hotel is like throwing a dart without a tip.

We know nothing about anything here, but Nate's killer

daddy instincts went with the hotel that included "pool and water slides"

in the description. There were no photos on the internet, so it was a

a gamble from the get-go.

But, hot damn were we pleasantly pleased when we found that

not only was our hotel "family friendly", it was 100% completely built

for and around children.
This is the Kid Zone Play Area:

Arts and Crafts:
Climbing Castle:
Wii room:
Play Kitchen:
Ropes course:



And an eating area for parents so that you could oversee your youngsters

which included a 10 page menu;

1 page of appetizers and 9 pages of

frozen cocktails.

And that, my friends, is where this went from a kid-friendly to

a family-friendly hotel.

I was just waiting for the in-house nannies to tap us on the shoulder because it was time

for our couples massage and champagne and that they would make paper airplanes with our kids while we were away. It was that good.

BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE.

Our nightly rate included a weekend pass to the

WATER PARK.

And that is when Henry fainted. Not really, but it

is when he couldn't stop bouncing up and down.

The water park was mostly indoors.

There was also an atrium of restuarants (which we won't talk about)

A water feature with turtles

and Shopping.

But they didn't care about any of that stuff..

They just wanted to get to the good stuff:

One of the many indoor pools (below) that

showed movies all day:

The urine pool (below):

We thought we'd died and gone to Heaven:

Until Henry's face broke out in a puffy red rash.

Not sure why, the only thing he ate was waffle that was

mostly globs of sugar and some orange juice.

This seemed citrus related to me which just confirms Henry's theory

that he is allergic to EVERYTHING except chicken nuggets or PB&J.
Fine. You win, Henry.

This is the wave pool and the big water slide.

When it comes to big slides, especially water slides, we go through the exact same exercise every time. They scare the holy beejezus out of Henry...until he tries it. Once we are over the intial volcano, and I'm not exagerating when I use the term "volcano", he is fine, and has a ball.

We started talking Henry up.....you can do it buddy! Its not fast. You don't even go underwater. Charlie liked it?! You'll love it, Henry. I promise you'll love it! And my personal favorite of Nate's "Buddy, I wouldn't steer you wrong!" To which Henry responds with a blank stare. And then finally, we bust out the reverse psychology with "It's ok, you don't have to do it. It's probably too big for you."

But finally, after an exhaustive pep talk, a dabble of reverse psychology and a pinch of bribery, Henry decided he'd try it with me. Mind you, this was at the bottom of the stairs. I still had to make it all the way up the stairs and continue to pep talk him. I was certain that once we reached the top - which was quite high - he'd want to come back down...the stairs, not the slide. Nate sat in the wave pool below us with Charlie and a silly grin on his face and the thumbs up sign permanently posted. He knew the challenge that lay ahead of me.

Up, up, up we climbed. Henry's eyes darting side to side. His fingers in his mouth and knees trying to keep the pee in. He was very stressed. But then, as I continued my talking, he stopped jittering, looked at me and said, "Mommy, I can do this now because I am FIVE!". And that was that.

He laughed the whole way down. At least I think he did, but may have easily confused my own laughter for his. We landed in the pool at the bottom and he climbed out, put his hands on his hips and said "I'm going to do it again".

200+ times later, he was a completely different kid. No fear. In fact, he wanted to do the slide by himself - as in he didn't even want Nate or I to walk him up the stairs. Ok, then.

Charlie has no, nor has ever had fear. Big Slide? no biggie. By the end of the weekend, we were tossing Charlie down the fast slides....alone even letting him stand in line for a slide sandwiched by German Teenage Boys. If only we could have bottled the laughter up to bring home to you all....what a souvenior that would be.

Sunday, we played a round of "Diaper Roulette" with Charlie. We couldn't, and yes, we tried, to find a swim diaper, to no avail. So I spent all 5+ hours of pool time with a heightened sense of poop alertness. Constantly asking Charlie if he need to go sit on the potty, to which he answered every single time "yes". I would often test him with: do you want ice cream? Yes. Do you want nuggets? Yes. Do you want to take a nap? Yes. Do you need to poop? Yes. He was really no help at all. In the end, we walked away from Casino Poopoo as the Big Winners. Nobody wants to be "that" parent.

Here is video of one of the hundreds of landings Henry had on the big slide:

The best part of the trip was when we sadly had to give the boys a "last call" for the weekend. It was time to head home. Nate and I were just as disappointed, it had been a great two days. Henry chose to go down the big slide one last time.



No water wings.



Alone.



The final slide.



Cue the inspirational music.



Nate waited at the bottom of the slide and said Henry shot out of the slide...ON HIS BACK!

Before this time, Henry always sat up because it would slow you down a little. Lying on your back made the slide like a rocket launcher.

Each time Henry finished the slide, he did the exact same thing. Put his hands on his hips, looked back up at the wild beast he had just tamed and walked out of the pool owning that slide.



BECAUSE HE IS FIVE.



We spent a couple hours on Sunday afternoon walking around Zandvoort. The beach was beautiful. I'm sure it is very cold, but it looked lovely. That is a red roach coach being pulled by a beach tractor.

After a weekend which included over 9 total hours of swimming, sliding and laughing, it only took minutes for the boys to drift off.
Like every weekend we've had here, we ended our Sunday with a "That was the best family weekend we've had here!" It's pretty awesome that we've been able to say that every weekend.

And the best part? We are saving the very, very best for our last weekend here.

Stay tuned!!!