EuroDisney & Paris

We've learned that April does not mean Spring is here in Europe. I'm talking COLD and rainy. Supposedly, last year April was the hottest month of the year. So, we were looking forward to some flip flop and light jacket weather. However, we have yet to see sunshine around here!

That being said, we really lucked out on our trips. Matt and I first took the boys to EuroDisney and Paris while my parents stayed behind and kept Jordyn at home for us. Thanks mom and dad! We had a great time and were able to do so much without her. We missed her a ton, even the boys mentioned it several times, but it would have been so much harder with the weather being so cold and the long lines. It was definitely Great Britain's Spring Break as well because we were surrounded by them. It was nice being able to understand them, though :) The Disney characters spoke a lot of French so we didn't always understand them, ha. It was funny listening to Buzz Lightyear trying to be macho with his French accent which sounds so pretty.

We spent 4 days and 3 nights at a Disney hotel. They had it down to a T when we got there and we filed in and out, got our tickets and were off to the parks. If you closed your eyes while you traveled and opened them once you were there, you would think you were in CA at Disneyland. There's downtown Disney (although a smaller version), and flowers made of mickey mouse ears at the entrance. They had two parks - the main one and Walt Disney Studios. We went with two other couples from here and had a ton of fun riding rides, eating at Planet Hollywood, and enjoying shows. We went to the parks for 2 days straight. Hayden was a trooper - we even drug him onto the Tower of Terror! If any of you have ever ridden it you know it is pretty intense. Hindsight, we shouldn't have taken him. I kind of knew that taking him in. He didn't want to go on anymore "dark" rides after that. We ended up buying him a little light to carry in his pocket.

The third day, we went to the train station and hopped onto a train to ride into Paris. It cost us 43 euro for a round trip for 4 of us. That equates to about $70. The train ride took about 35 minutes each way and it really felt like the subway does, only above ground. Once we got to our destination, we made our way to the Eifel Tower and hopped in one of the 4 LONG lines. People were everywhere, but we just jumped in like we knew what we were doing. After standing in line for a good long time - maybe 45 minutes or more, we got up there to buy our tickets. Oops. Did they just see that sign I read up there? I kept denying it. We're in the STAIRS ONLY line with 3 adults and 4 kids. Hmmm.... well, we're not waiting again so here we go, UP THE STAIRS. It really wasn't so bad. I mean, we couldn't breathe by the time we got up there, but we were all in one piece, lol. The kids made it great and I was thankful I have been exercising a lot lately or I just might have died on the Eifel Tower. It was beautiful once we got up there and I felt very secure. I'm a little apprehensive of heights, but I didn't feel like I was going to fall off or anything. We went to the upper mid level, but the line to ride the elevator to the top would have taken another hour at least so we chose to go back down. We gave Landen the choice and he was fine with it. We didn't do much else other than walk down the Champs Elysee and show them Notre Dame. We are going back in July again with company, so I figure they will get to see more next time.


Back to Disneyland for one last day of "fun." By then, we were pretty exhausted but managed to stay until about 3:00pm that day and then we headed home. We were all a little cranky by then, even mom and dad. For 4 days we went from about 6am to 10pm without stopping. I wished I'd had a pedometer on me to see how far we had walked. The boys did great and we all had a blast!



My next post will be about Holland :) I'll try to post it in a couple of days. My parents leave in the morning and I can't believe they have already been here 3 whole weeks! We've had a great time together.