Paris!

I will just start by saying, Paris is amazing!! I absolutely loved it!!! If you have not been, you need to go:) The reason we first picked Paris was because it was a good halfway point between America and Malaysia for us to stop on our way back and the girls have always wanted to go there mainly because of Fancy Nancy. We are huge Fancy Nancy fans and have been reading the books for the last 5 years. According to Fancy Nancy, everything in French sounds fancy, so my girls have always wanted to learn French and see France! With Lily starting French this year, we thought why not?? I really wasn't too sure about taking kids to Paris. I don't know about y'all, but I always think of Paris as a romantic escape for 2...not 2 exhausted parents with 3 sleep deprived very loud kids. But, what do you know?!? One of our favorite vacations ever! Brent and I loved it, the kids loved it...all around great vacation for our family! I mean seriously...bread is everywhere, not to mention the pastries and coffee and cafes every other step...what is not to love??:)

So, when I first started researching our trip I quickly discovered that an apartment was the way to go. Some friends here told me that was what they had done as well, and I am so glad I took their advice! The hotels looked very nice, but very small. So, I found a really nice apartment just about 1 1/2 miles from the Eiffel Tower. It was perfect for us! The kids had a room with a bed for each of them, so we could put them to bed and then Brent and I had the rest of the space to enjoy instead of hiding out in the bathroom:) We were also able to have a quick breakfast for those who woke up earlier while others slept. We actually did some nice sleeping too! We were recovering from the jet lag, so we let the kids sleep in a couple of mornings till almost 11!! Anyway, here are a few pictures of where we stayed:

We were only on the 2nd floor, but we took the elevator all the time because it was just cool!:) It was convenient for getting all of our summer luggage up too!

There was a beautiful church right outside our apartment. It was almost like a mini Notre Dame! And of course a cafe:) 

A pastry and fresh juice picnic one morning! Ella was still sleeping:)

Like I said, the apartment was wonderful! It was perfect for us! One of the beds in the kid's room was a trundle, so a bed for everyone! Only thing...do you notice how everything is white?? Even the kitchen table chairs! Hence, the chocolate donuts and chocolate croissants being eaten on the floor! We made the mistake of letting the kids eat cherries at the table on the 1st day. We had lots of picnics after that:)


After we got all settled and took a little rest, we headed to the Eiffel Tower! We figured that was a good thing to do on our first day in Paris:)

The walk ended up being a little longer than we expected, but we got to see some cool things on the way! And of course we stopped for a pastry!!












We finally made it there, but couldn't find our tour! So, while Brent went to find out where in the world we were supposed to be, the kids and I rolled around in the grass and did cartwheels:)

Brent found where we were supposed to be and we headed on up! Those of you who know me well, know that I am not a big fan of heights and I really am not a big fan of elevators, especially full elevators. It really was cool though!! You could see the whole city! And they had ice cream at the middle point. And yes, even though we had pastries on the walk over we still got ice cream:) It was a long walk! And luckily my kids were content at the middle point and didn't want to wait in the line to go all the way up to the top:)

We then headed to the carousel and down to the river before walking to dinner.

We were planning on making it to bed kinda early that first night, since we were all trying to recover from jet lag, but it didn't work out that way. We stopped and had a really nice dinner at a restaurant on the walk back. The waiter was so sweet and let the kids ask how to say all kinds of words in French. I have always heard that Parisians are not very friendly. This wasn't our experience at all! Everyone was so friendly and stopped to talk to the kids. They were all very quick to give up their seats on the subway too:) Anyway, (sorry I kinda got off topic:)) on the way back to the apartment, we had to stop for all these police trucks to pass...like 20. Guys, these were the serious police vehicles. Like SWAT team stuff. All the cops were dressed in the heavy duty armor and vest things with massive guns. There were sirens everywhere and the streets were empty. I was kinda freaked out. There we were in a foreign city with 3 kids and cops everywhere! They were putting up those barricades all around like they do in riots too. Then to top it off, some nice man taking pictures came up to me and Brent, nodded at the kids and whispered to us, "You need to get out of here. There's about to be a demonstration and it's going to be graphic." Yeah, at this point I wasn't liking Paris too much. The great part, all the streets heading towards are apartment were blocked off. Then we starting hearing demonstrators coming, yelling and the sirens were getting louder. At this point another man came up and said you need to get out of here. I really don't know what they think we were trying to do?? So, as quickly, but as calmly as we could we started walking the other direction. It took us a while to get away from it. It was lovely. So, what did we do to kill the time?? Dessert at a cafe of course! Yes, that was 3 desserts in one evening, but we figured since there was some kind of "graphic demonstration" going on right around the corner, we deserved it:) Anyway, an hour later we were able to get a taxi to drive us back and we were finally able to go to sleep. Needless to say, we all slept in the next morning! We woke the kids up at 11:00!!
We decided to head to Versailles Chateau! Oh my goodness...so cool!! I am going to say that a lot in this post btw:) Sorry! It really was awesome though! The kids were so excited to take the subway to get there. Brent was so good at figuring out the subway system and we took advantage of it the rest of our time there. He's so smart and handy:)

Jake's face cracks me up here! He was so still the first time we took it! It was so fast and going backwards. He didn't really know what to think! But after the first time, he kept asking to ride more trains:) He loved it when we would go somewhere where we would have to take like 3 different trains!



The kids were super excited to see where Marie Antoinette had once lived! They only know about Marie Antoinette from the movie Sherman and Mr. Peabody;) Such a funny movie btw! Anyway, they were not disappointed! Walking up, all you see everywhere is gold. One of the best parts of having kids is seeing the wonder and awe in their eyes. Walking up to a palace where real kings and queens had lived...it was so great to see their amazement! And it really was truly amazing!

After exploring inside, we headed out to the gardens. It was beautiful! And huge!! You could actually take a little train all around, but we were getting a little hot, tired and hungry so we opted to just walk/run around a little and probably only saw about a tenth of it. What we saw was great though!

Ella loved all the colorful flowers!
Especially the pink ones!!

Being silly and posing like the statues:)

Brent and Lily racing...she had a little bit of a head start:)

We then took a taxi over to Notre Dame. So impressive!! It was actually pretty late at this point, since we had gotten kind of a late start with sleeping in, so we weren't actually able to go in. The outside was amazing though! Just so ornate!

And we ran into a clown!!

 So, when we were planning our trip, a sweet friend of ours told us about this cool thing they are now doing on the bridges in Paris. You buy a padlock and write your name on it, lock it on a bridge and throw the key into the river. It is actually something that lovers are supposed to do together and then return years later to find it. We were so excited to find the bridges and see all the locks! We just had to find some locks now:)

There was no sleeping in the next day because we headed to Disneyland Paris!!! The kids were way excited about this day! Who am I kidding?? We were all excited about this day!! We had a fantastic time! It had 2 parks and we got tickets for both. One was similar to Magic Kingdom and the other Hollywood Studios. They had the majority of the same rides as Disneyworld. I will be honest, as great as it was and as much fun as we had, it is not Disneyworld. It kinda lacked the magic, if you know what I mean. When we went to Florida, there were Princesses and all kinds of Disney characters just walking around waving at you. From Mickey Mouse opening up the park to all the parades...it's just magical. I would say Disneyland Paris is a REALLY good theme park, but it's just not Disneyworld. We did have a blast though! The girls were a little disappointed they didn't see "anyone famous", but they quickly got over it:) From what I understand, at the Disneyland in Paris you make an appointment to see all the characters at once instead of standing in different lines to see each one. Anyway, like I said the day was great!!
The weather was perfect and the rides did not disappoint! We also discovered that we have a roller coaster lover!!! Lily's favorite ride all day was Rockin' Roller Coaster! I cannot tell you how excited this made me! Jake and Ella loved all the smaller rides too! Ella's favorite was the Aladdin ride and Jake the Car's ride;)

Ratatouille Ride...um...AWESOME!!! Worth every second of the wait! Jake and Ella weren't the biggest fans though;) Just a little too realistic:) 

Yawning because it is so late!! Don't
let the sky foul you...it's about 9 pm here:)

After the train ride back, it was around 11 pm. All the kids fell asleep on the ride:) We had to get a couple of shots of the Eiffel tower at night!











Next day was The Louvre! Brent and I were shocked at how easy it was to get around! We were kinda nervous taking 3 kids to the world's busiest art museum, but it actually went really well:) We weren't there for more than 45 minutes probably, but we saw a lot!! And most importantly, we found the Mona Lisa!  It was a lot smaller than we expected:)

And yes, we are those people that laugh inappropriately at the art and pretend to tickle it and make weird poses next to it...what can I say??

Who cares about all that art?? There's a revolving door!!!

 

The kids acting like art! Such special art:)

After The Louvre, we took a tuk tuk to the huge ferris wheel and park with all kinds of carnival rides. I think this might have been my favorite day there! We pretty much spent the afternoon just playing:)

We found another carousel!

Brent and the girls rode the ferris wheel
while Jake and I hung out on the ground;)

They were so excited to ride this little car ride!

Ella soon discovered she wasn't a fan of Jake's driving;) Lily spent the whole ride reaching over trying to comfort her:)

Lily loved saying bonjour to everyone!

Our guide! Our really cute guide;)

These guys were everywhere selling little trinkets like mini Eiffel Towers. They would lay down these big blankets and whenever cops would come they would scoop up the whole blanket and run. Apparently it was illegal?? Anyway, we got to witness a bicycle cop chase that ended in tackling. It was quite a sight;)

We then took a boat down the river and
found a bridge and some locks!

Now we have to come back someday so we can see our locks!

Our last morning there we took a bus tour around the city. It was a really cool way to see everything. A lot of the routes were actually blocked that day though. Brent was like, "I think there's some bike race or something going on." Yeah, you could say that. Apparently we were there on the last day of Tour de France and didn't even realize it!! Unfortunately, we didn't get to see anything because our flight was too early. Still pretty cool though! 

Anyway, the bus ride was really nice. We had headsets and got to hear some pretty cool facts about different sights around the city. The buildings and statues were just so pretty!

We then made a quick stop at the park just down the street from our apartment before heading to the airport.

Nobody was quite ready to leave yet, but it was nice to get home:) We made the most of our 4 days in Paris and look forward to hopefully going back someday! Next time, Brent and I might just do the whole romantic getaway for two:) We really enjoyed Paris with these little crazies though!!