We had great intentions to get to the Eiffel Tower early on our second full day in Paris, but things just never seem to work out the way you planned them and we of course got out of the apartment later than planned . So we ended up spending 2.5 hours in line but it’s just one of those things you “gotta” do when you go to Paris. How do you explain to people that you went to Paris but failed to see the Eiffel Tower because the lines were too long. Oh, boo hoo, so sad for you. Unlike our last trip to the tower we paid for the full experience and went all the way to the top. The view from up there was amazing. It was a cloudy day but the weather was good enough to see the entire city. In the evening we made our way to the Musee de Louvre. We got in on the bargain ticket pricing by going later in the evening. We did have enough time to see all of the main attractions such as the Mona Lisa. Overall it was a great day. You can check out the pictures in our gallery, page 1 or page 2.
We went on holiday this past week to Paris France and Normandy with Jenn’s parents. It was the 2nd time we had visited Paris and Normandy but the 1st time that Jenn’s parents had been there. It was a great time and we of course got a lot of fabulous pictures up in the gallery. We took so many photos that I split them up into 4 different pages; Page 1, Page 2, Page 3, Page 4. Luckily we didn’t lose our camera this time so we are able to share them all with you.
On day 1 we started our journey via car to the Epping tube station where we hopped on the London Underground and made our way to Harrods Store in downtown London where we were to meet Jenn’s parents who were flying in from Denver. We spent a few hours shopping and eating up time until our Eurostar train was scheduled to depart from St. Pancras train station. We mis-judged the time a little bit and ended up just making the train. The Eurstar was great, I clocked it at 187 mph on my gps phone and it only took 20 minutes to transit under the English Channel. From Gar du Norde train station in Paris we hopped on the Metro to our apartment on Avenue de Champs-Elysees. We made it to the apartment about 10pm that evening and were all ready for a good nights sleep.
On day 2 we wasted no time making our way to the “hop-on-hop-off” bus that we used to tour around the city and determine our first place to visit. The tour bus went around to all of the major tourist attractions so we saw the Arc de Triomphe, Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame, Musee de Louvre, and we learned about the places we were passing through the audio system on board the bus. We got off at Notre Dame and seeing the enormous lines decided to walk around the area a bit. We stopped and had some sandwiches at a park that we purchased from a small shop along the way. By the time we got back to Notre Dame the line was no shorter but we decided to brave it none-the-less. It ended up going pretty fast and we were soon inside. After marveling at the inside for a while we made our way back on the bus to Avenue de Champs-Elysees where we walked up to the Arc de Triomphe to eat a snack as we watched the traffic navigate the 12-way round-a-bout and soon afterward found a nice dinner spot. Jenn, Debbie and Isaac made there way to the Eiffel Tower that evening to see it all lit up. It was a great 1st day in Paris.
Here’s a video of Jenn touring the apartment we rented.
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Picasa, the computer program that we use to store and edit all of our photos recently added a feature where you can create a time-lapse movie of a persons face. I figured I would test it out and quickly whipped up the following videos. They are really neat and Picasa does a good job of lining up the faces so that you can see the changes over time.
This first one shows Isaac’s face morphing from birth through age 7.
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This second one shows Olivia from birth to 5 and 1/2 years old.
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The last one is of Jenn, shows how she has remained as beautiful now as she was 12 years ago.
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My mom/Nana is __ years young today. The kids sang happy birthday to her. Wish we were there to celebrate with you.
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Love you very much!
Joel, Jenn, Isaac & Olivia
As part of a school project Olivia made several stick puppets resembling the characters of the 3 Little Pigs story.
There’s three homes, one straw, one stick, and, you guessed it, one brick. There are three little pigs and a wolf as well. Tonight, just before bed she retold the story to us using her puppets. There are a few photos available here, but the main attraction is of course the home video below. It was adorable. Enjoy.
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It started about 5:00 AM when Isaac woke up, came down stairs, surveyed the boxes that Santa had left behind and then promptly went back to bed and slept. We couldn’t believe that he was able to get back to sleep having seen all of the presents under the tree. I don’t know how he did it, I wouldn’t have been able to do it if I were a kid. At 5:30 Jenn woke up to get a start on the Christmas breakfast quiche and cinnamon bread, bless her. She even made a special skillet breakfast for Joel because he’s a pain in the butt and doesn’t like quiche. What a woman. The kids woke up for good at about 6:30 followed shortly after by Joel. The excitement level was amazing and soon we were tearing into the presents. Thank you to all of our friends and family who sent us such wonderful gifts. Be sure to check out the video below of Isaac freaking out.
Olivia and Isaac opening one gift on Christmas Eve.
Joel’s comfy warm slippers.
We love our sweaters in cold, windy England.
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We decided to spend some vacation time in the Christmas haven that is the German Alps. We tested our the cheap airfare leader Ryan Air for the first time. It doesn’t end up being such a great deal once you add the baggage fee, credit card fee, on-line check-in fee etc… etc..
Jenn and Isaac arrived in Baden, Germany [G] one day earlier than Joel and Olivia due to Olivia’s dance recital. You can read about it in the post below and see the pictures here. They spent their day alone visiting some of the historic German Christmas Markets in Baden-Baden and Karlsruhe. On day one with the family all together we traveled from Stuttgart, Germany [F] to Neuschwanstein Castle [C] on the Germany Austria Border. The castle is adjacent to Hohenschwangau Castle which is also the namesake of the town. The castles were beautiful and we had a great time learning about the Bavarian royalty that lived there. Unfortunately Neuschwanstein was under renovation so most of it’s exterior was covered by scaffolding. It’s a shame because it is perhaps the most beautiful castles in the world and was the inspiration for the castle in Walt Disney’s Cinderella.
From Hohenschwangau we traveled the “scenic” route to Salzberg, Austria [D] via Innsbruck. It was a couple of hours longer this way but the views were magnificent. During our entire journey we barely made it above 4,000 feet, which is incredible considering the mountains you can see in the picture below. It is vastly different than traveling in the mountains in Colorado where the ground level starts at a mile up and goes to 12-14,000’. The Austrian Alps start at 2-3,000’ and grow to over 12,000’. The lack of foothills made the mountains seem so much bigger than they actually are.
In Salzberg we traveled 30 minutes south the the Old Salt Works in Berchtesgaden. It was a fun time with a train ride into the mountain and a wooden 3-story slide to get to the lower levels of the mine. We wanted to visit The Eagles Nest but it was closed for the winter. So we traveled just a bit further south to see Lake Konigssee, the deepest lake in Germany which is supposedly quite picturesque, although we couldn’t see most of it because it is only accessible by ferry and they last one had already left for the day.
The next morning we travelled back into Germany to visit the Hellabrunn Zoo in Munich Germany [E]. It was a cold snowy day although the animals didn’t seem to mind much. The penguins and bison seemed particularly at home in such weather.
Our last day was spent shopping at the Christmas Market in Stuttgart, Germany. All of the booths were decorated in a Christmas/winter theme and there was lots of food to eat and cute items on display. It was amazing that we got out of there for under $200. Our flight home was not what I would call a nice end to our great vacation. The plane was delayed over an hour because of technical malfunctions and we had to sit in the plane an extra 15 minutes when it landed in England to allow paramedics on board to tend to a passenger. Olivia had fallen asleep on the flight and had to be carried off the plane and through waiting in line at the passport check.
All-in-all it was a great trip and everyone had a good time. We have come to realize that Germany is definitely one of our favorite places to go, if not our favorite. Be sure to check out the pictures which can be found here and here.
Olivia had her Ballet Recital tonight but it almost didn’t happen. You see, her silly parents booked a trip to Germany for a week forgetting about her recital and planning on departing today. Well, we couldn’t have her go through the whole year of practice and lessons and miss the big show so we spent the 50 pounds to change her ticket and Joel and her attended the recital together while Jenn and Isaac kept their original tickets and headed to Germany.
What a fiasco, but the problem was solved without much trouble and just some extra money down the drain, but, heck, it’s only money. And wasn’t she just the most adorable little ballerina you ever did see. Be sure to click HERE to see the rest of them and scroll down to the bottom to view the video.
Such a poser.
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As a project for his class, Isaac wrote a letter to the queen asking her about life in Buckingham Palace. We were delighted and surprised to find that he got a reply. The response was not actually from the queen but one of her ladies in waiting. Here is a scan of the envelope from Buckingham Palace. The Letter and other documents are below.
A couple of informative pamphlets were included with the letter. One describing pets at the palace and the other discussing Buckingham Palace itself. You can click on the links below to open and read the documents.
Paris France is a mere hop, skip and a jump from the United Kingdom so it’s almost amazing that it took us 10 months to get there but we finally made the journey. The trip started off great with a stay over in Dover, UK, which is on the English Channel coast line. We had a very early ferry to catch the next morning so we decided to leave a day early than get up before the sun in order to drive two hours to the docks. We stayed at a very quaint B&B in Dover, The West Bank Guest House. The owner was very nice and it was a great start to our journey.
The next morning we rose with the sun and made our way to Dover Docks to catch our ferry. The sailing time was about 2 hours and we were in France. 
From the Dunkirk Port we drove 2.5 hours to Paris and checked into the Mercure Paris Gare Montparnasse. The hotel ended up being in a great location. There’s only so much you can tell from the hotel website and by checking out Google maps to try to determine if you are staying in a nice area or a heaping pile of dung. Luckily we chose wisely and the hotel was convenient for walking to certain attractions as well as convenient to the subway for the rest of the city. After checking in we ventured out to Luxembourg Gardens which was within walking distance of the hotel. After watching some elderly gentlemen lawn bowling in the park we continued on walking to the left bank to check out the sites.
On day 2 we took the tube to the Eiffel Tower and got a bit of exercise walking up to the 2nd level. We didn’t go all the way to the top, the view from level 2 was great. From there we walked across the Sien River, up Avenue de Champs-Elysees to Arc de Triomphe. We visited many of the fancy shops along the Avenue de Champs-Elysees but didn’t have pockets deep enough to purchase anything. We stopped along the way for lunch at a nice little establishment and paid a pretty penny but had a great time.
On day 3 we visited the Musee de Louvre where we made our way to many of the historic masterpieces held within. The crowds were a bit crazy, especially around the Mona Lisa. After the kids had enough of looking at art we made our way north to Basilique du Sacre-Coeur where we spent some time playing on the grass out front. The interior was amazing as most cathedrals/basilicas usually are. We’ve found that the catholic ones take the cake in terms of ornate decorations and extravagance goes. After viewing the basilica, we made our way to artist square which is located just a short walk from the basilica. There are many tourists and artists all bargaining with each other about the price of a painting or a portrait. We seriously considered making a purchase as we like to buy at least one painting from each place we visit, but the prices were overly inflated and our instinct would prove correct as we found excellently priced art outside of Notre Dame the next day. On our way back to the subway station we stopped to watch some street performers swindle tourists out of their money. Double your money if you can guess the location of of the white card under three coasters. Although Joel followed the card without fail on 5 of 5 plays, our timidity prevented us from gambling actual money. It actually seemed as one of the “tourists” was in on the act, coaxing people into playing by making it seem easy. The whole situation seemed a bit sketchy. After that we walked to the Luxembourg Gardens to let the kids play but the play area was closed. We bummed around for a bit but the park closed shortly after we got there so we just made our way back to the hotel.
On day 4 we traveled south to the Palace of Versailles. We made a day of walking the grounds and viewing the rooms inside the palace. I’m sure it would have been much more impressive to view the grounds when the flowers are in bloom, it was still amazing. We rented bicycles and used them to get around the gardens and to travel to some of the estate buildings on the grounds. Isaac and Olivia enjoyed the bike riding and the water fountain show set to music. Luckily we got through the majority of the outside gardens before it started raining on us. The palace interior was packed with people and the mobs made the experience much less enjoyable than it might have been.
Day 5 was the coldest one yet. We started off at Notre Dame and although looking around the inside was no problem, the kids weren’t keen on hanging around outside or climbing up to the top because of the cold weather. After Notre Dame we attempted to make our way to the Musee d’Orsay only to find that it was closed due to a strike. Instead of an afternoon of culture we made our way to Le Bon Marche, the biggest store in Paris, to do some shopping. I have a feeling the kids enjoyed this stop of all the places in Paris we visited because they walked away with some nice toys.
Days 6 and 7 were spent at Disneyland Paris, which is about 1/2 hour outside of the city center. Although our hotel wasn’t inside the park it might as well have been since it was only a quick 5 minute drive via the free shuttle. It was amazing how similar the park was to Disney World in Orlando, even the layout was the same, although the castle was slightly different, in fact many of the rides, although they were the same, were slightly different. The whole family had a blast until we ran into the dreadful teacup ride on day two. We left our digital camera behind in the teacup on the seat and realized it 5 minutes later as we were sitting down to have a special dinner with the princesses. Jenn ran back to try to find it but it was gone, someone had took it and didn’t turn it in. Although we still had fun the rest of the day, it definitely put a damper on the day. There were over 700 pictures on the camera, some great shots of the sights and the kids. It definitely is a bummer. But, life goes on and since we loved that camera so much we’ve already replaced it with the same model. Luckily we brought Isaac’s camera on the trip so the shots we do have were taken from his camera. We didn’t bring it to all of the attractions but we have some pictures to remember our trip and we’ll always have our memories. You can check out the rest of Isaac’s pictures at this link1 or this link2. I’m sure we’ll be back to Paris some time in the next two years that we will be in England so I’m sure we’ll be able to go back to some of the places we visited. If you wish to see a map of all of the sites we visited in Paris you can do so here.
Photo of the Day
