Summer 2011: PARIS! (Part 1) Disneyland!

After a heart-wrenching and tearful goodbyes to our families, The kids and I were off to Paris to meet up with Charles.  Before I move on to our wonderful vacay, I need to explain how DIFFICULT it is to tell your family, “see you next year.” UGH.  A punch in the gut, a lump in the throat and sadness that can sprout tears without warning.   This goodbye was a bit harder than the first for me.  Oh, great, now I’m crying. We have to move on to happier thoughts… I think you can only imagine how hard the farewell was, but this mama had to keep as much of a “happy face” on as I could for my two munchkins.  We left the Lake Charles airport close to Noon and then headed to Dallas.  We had a few (4 1/2) hours layover and filled it with playgrounds, coloring, exploring, and eating.  We were seasoned travelers after our trip there.  They kids and I knew just what to do, where to behave, and so on.  It was easy peasy.

The kids literally slept the entire flight, Will fell asleep during take off 6:30 p.m., Audrey was more like 7:30ish and they woke up as we were about to start decent.  The flight was around 9 hours so the kids got a really decent nights sleep and when we landed it was morning in Paris, so they really never really missed a beat or had much jet lag – AT ALL.  Victory, indeed.  Now, with all that being all wonderful well and good, the American Airlines airplane we flew on was so 1990’s.  It had a big box tv up in the ceiling of the plane for several isles to share..(no headrest tv’s) which was just out of my view (since I’m short), my headphones were out of reach and I had two sleeping babes on my lap.  We lifted up arm rests and their heads were on my lap and legs stretched onto their seats (if you were wondering how they sleep on the plane – I get asked this a lot).  Soooo that means, I did not move, stretch, watch TV or pee for NINE HOURS! But still I would prefer the leg cramps over kids crying and fussing any day.  My all-nighter was hard on me, but good for jet lag recovery.  Once we landed in Paris, went thru passport control, got alllll those bags of luggage we found Charles {which was SO FUN to watch the kids reunite with him} and hopped in the shuttle to our hotel. 

Our hotel has to be the most kid friendly place in the world. The big pirate ship on the left was amazing and so was the huge slide that went outside and dumped you off in the pool.  the kids had a BALL.

This was in the area where Charles and I would grab coffee late in the afternoon and let the kids play

This was next to the Café’s and restaurants in the hotel.  It was amazing.

Is it just me, or do you get a flash forward with this picture of Audrey?  When I glance at it I can see a 16 year old in her. booo!

The only issue with jet lag that we had was that we all wanted to sleep in. Oh DARN!  and.. since we all slept so late each day there were no naps.. Oh SHUCKS!… It was too perfect.  Sleeping late, playing all day without having to decide who will go back to the hotel with Will to nap and to top it all off we all wanted to go to bed early.. that is my kind of vacay!  Charles and I made it all about the kids for the first 3 days..

Day 1: Play at the hotel and travel recovery

Day 2 and 3…. DISNEYLAND!

Day 4: Sight-seeing in Paris *next post*

^this was a stunt show with cars.. very cool and LIGHTENING MCQUEEN even came out!  Will was beyond thrilled and shortly after, he sputtered out for a quick cat nap.

We got to see a great parade – the REALLY great parade was at night, but we were not going to put ourselves thru that.  Each night the kids and (and especially us) were WHOOPED.. they didn’t know what they were missing…and we didn’t overextend ourselves:  the joy of taking kids that can’t really read.

Audrey watching the parade from daddy’s shoulders since kids were pushing and shoving their way to the front.. I was floored by how rude some of the kids and especially the parents were as they were shoving their kids in front of ours.. I ‘pretty much’ contained mama bear as much as I possibly could.  There were a couple of situations over the two days that I just had to unleash her.. but they were very very mild… Some of those people were ruthless and needed a loud “EXCUSE ME!” from time to time. LOL.

This was the “mickey mouse clubhouse” show.. it was geared for the little ones and Will absolutely LOVED it.  He enjoys watching Mickey Mouse even more now!  He says “NOUSE” instead of MOUSE.. its so cute.

Will wasn’t a fan of the big giant animals, actually they terrified him.  Audrey loved it though! Can you find her in the picture above!? 

He didn’t care for the big gorillas, but he enjoyed playing the bongos! Must take after his aunt Angela!?

TOO MUCH FUN!

Most of our trip was consumed by waiting in long lines.  Especially for these ladies ^^ PRECIOUS PRECIOUS PRECIOUS!! Audrey brought an autograph book and got each of their signatures.. She certainly thought she was ALL that! and she was right! We all had so much fun!!

Each one of them took at least an hour (some almost 2)… but SO worth it when We got to see Audrey’s face!  One of us would wait in line with her and the other would go do something with Will.  We brought walkie talkies so we could communicate about lines and kids and it worked out REALLY well.

For all of you wondering if Disney Paris somewhat compares to the USA – no way jose.

It was IDEAL for our little ones since the park was relatively small (I’m comparing to Disneyland, Calif. and Disney World, Orlando)  but from a grown up point of view, we felt that it was over-crowded, not 'that’ many rides, expensive and SUPER long lines.…but the good news is, it wasn’t about us – it was about them and they thought it was WONDERFUL so we did too!

next post: Sight seeing in Paris..!