Paris trip

Dave and I are sneaky :) Once we found out the Lehmannfest was going to be in July, making it possible for us to attend, we started planning a side trip over to Paris. The Eurostar train goes through the English Channel tunnel now (Chunnel) and the trip only takes 2 hours from London to Paris. Dave had never been to Paris so I took the lead with planning since I had been once in college. I booked us a hotel for one night in the Eiffel Tower district and got us tickets to the summit of the Eiffel Tower close to sunset that night. We compiled our stuff for the 2 1/2 day trip into one carry-on size bag and brought the stroller. Gigi and Dada let us store the rest of our luggage in their room in London (thank you!!!!).

Theo rode free on the Eurostar since he was under 4 so we squeezed the two boys in one seat next to me. We played games and colored to pass the time. We hit the ground running once we arrived in Paris. We had to exchange money since they use the Euro (exchange rate was nearly 2:1) and figure out how to get to our hotel from the main train station in Paris. That involved standing in a long line, having people cut (remember, France follows their own rules when it comes to queues), paying to use the toilet, and keeping a wary eye out for gypsies!! It was hectic but Dave navigated us perfectly. We lugged our stuff up and down stairs in Metro stations since we had several changes. Theo and Jack became experts and hurrying up to get on and off trains quickly. Metro lines don't mess around and have very little time in between stops! When we finally got to our hotel and stored our stuff, we walked around and grabbed lunch at an outdoor cafe. I must compliment the kids by saying that they ate very well over in Europe. Things are just different...... they split a chicken burger and we treated them with gelato. We milled around a bit before checking in to our room(s). We learned instead of a quadruple room (must book rooms by occupant over in Europe.... even kids count), we were put in rooms next door to each other. So Dave took Jack and I had Theo. We all laid down for a nap since we knew we'd be in for a late night.

Once we woke up, we made our way to the Eiffel Tower for pictures and let the boys play in a children's park. We then took a Seine River boat tour to see most of the sites in the least amount of time. We saw Notre Dame Cathedral (though Dave didn't get to go inside.... which is breathtaking) and the Louvre. Dave enjoyed the tour the most. Jack listened to the handheld guide a bit but Theo could really have care less (picking up a theme from other days?). Ha! He spotted a painted cat on the top of a building and that was his favorite part! The kids also loved a large sand sculpture on the banks of the Seine. Sand was brought in for the summer to turn it in to a "beach". Scores of kids were building sand castles and others were laying out. Looked so neat and we would have loved to done that too if we had more time! We were starving by the time the tour wrapped up and opted to eat huge hot dogs on french bread for dinner from a stand by the bank of the Seine. Not very Parisian but c'est le vie!

We made our way to the tower, waited for our time slot to go to the summit and skipped all of the lines. Buying in advance and printing out your tickets is the only way to go! The queue just to go to the middle deck was 1 1/2 hours and tickets to the summit had been sold out online for weeks. We hopped on the elevators and were up at the top in just minutes. There were gobs of people in a very narrow space but we managed to get a little spot just for us. Dave got us a flute of champagne and we toasted our 9th anniversary :) We all soaked in the amazing views, which extended for miles around us. I had never seen the Arc De Triomphe and was so thrilled to see if from afar. It was getting close to sunset so we got in the queue for the lift going down. I knew the tower was going to light up at 10 pm so we ate more gelato and dodge tons of people peddling everything from statues to roses until the lights commenced. It was breathtaking! We soaked it all in and walked back to our hotel...... we had a surprise for the kids :)

***Dave and I just aren't Disney "lovers" and always knew we'd have to suffer though a trip to Disney for our kids, but that one would be enough for us! What better way to "get it out of the way" than to do just a one day trip? This is why we kept it a total surprise for the kids. We wanted to give them all of the magic that we could so their one day would be the best it could be.***

We had told them all along we'd tour Paris one day and then take a train out to the countryside. We told sat them down and told them that we had bad news, we weren't going to the countryside. We asked them to come in to my room (next door) and they could see for themselves where we were going instead. They walked in the door (fresh from baths) and stared at their pajamas and outfits. Theo "got" it immediately and was jumping up and down. Jack was slower to realize what this was all about but quickly got super excited! We dressed them in their pjs and then let them open the little Mickey Mouse containers (filled with skittles and containing a Disney croc-dot). I don't think I slept a wink that night since I was so excited for what was to come.