A Tale of Two Cities. The Highlights. Part 3.

Woke up to a text from my sister Jay-Bird in Abu Dhabi. She wanted to know what the boys DID love about two of her favorite cities on earth. Fair question. I realize my last two posts weren't the happiest representation of our trip.

Now for some of the many HAPPY MEMORIES!!! The stuff you think about after you've forgotten the fights over cell-phone usage!

Our hotel was super modern and had an awesome foosball table.
Fun to see the boys playing together happily.

This modern egg thing is super cool...

...until your brother comes and spins it against your will.

First views of Paris from Max and Sam's room.
They had their own room the first leg.

Our first night in France, we found a restaurant specializing in food from central France. Many items were served with "Aligot". Max ordered the Duck Breast with Aligot. They brought out the duck, and then dumped a whole sauce pan full of Aligot on top. Turns out, Aligot is sorta like cheese fondue mixed with mashed potatoes. Max doesn't like fondue or mashed potatoes. So he ate the delicious duck breast, and Doug and I happily ate the Aligot with bread. Soooooo yummy!!! Win/win.

Bravely trying, and loving, French Onion Soup.

Looked good. Tasted great.

Max bravely tried Duck Breast with Aligot. 

No one can resist a teeter-totter but we may have scared some children

Handsome devil!

Are we really here? Is this really happening??

Visting the Eiffel Tower on our first night was pretty surreal. We were all a little jet-lagged and astounded that we were actually in France, eating French food, watching French people French kiss, and looking up at the Eiffel Tower together. It was really cool.

Sam found this PDA hilarious and outrageous.
Max found the dudes shoes hilarious and outrageous.

The first platform 

On a side note, it's also possible that some paper air planes were thrown from the top of said Eiffel Tower, but I can neither confirm nor deny.

The top has a wire cage around it which is why I can handle my kids being at the top without puking.

"Look at that aerodynamic piece of paper spiraling down to the ground." 

FIRST CREPE!

Sharing was not going to happen. We all got our own.

More PDA. More speculation about whether they were actually French Kissing.

Monday Schedule:
Our first full day started with the breakfast buffet at the hotel. Racks of fresh pastries with Nutella made everyone very happy. (The second morning we discovered the hot milk and French Nesquik which is way better than American Nesquik. So, so good. Wish I brought a pound or two home.)

The first day we ate everything and then slowly tapered off
to normal human-sized meals the next few breakfasts.

After breakfast:
Notre Dame (Super cool up on the roof.)

Trying to get a peak at the pealing bells.

"Those boys are good eggs."

Shakespeare and Company Bookstore (Where Sam petted a cat and Max played the piano and Sam bought "The Princess Bride".)
Sainte-Chapelle where the glass made us gasp.

Sainte Chapelle was BEAUTIFUL!!!

The Louvre was hot and crowded but Mona greeted us with her enigmatic smile unperturbed. Boys were pretty good sports and happy to explore!

Selfies!!

Max's favorite's from the Louvre

Give a lady some room to breathe!

Fancy French dinner where the boys tried Escargot in order to earn crepes for dessert.

Both Sam and Max ate Escargot! Great job boys!!!

"I guess it was worth it..." So we got crepes and then on the way home we got more crepes.

Tuesday Schedule:
Max and Doug took a French pastry cooking class, LOVED IT, and had a great time.
Sam and I explored a sorta lame museum but still enjoyed ourselves.
Sam did NOT want to have an art lesson with me in the Renoir gardens, but I forgave him because he was sweet and smiley about it.

This delicious pastry was made by my 15 year old! Great work Max!!

Met back up to explore...
Sacré-Cœur! (Bought our souvenir Nativity. Only two figures this time. 1 Joseph 2. Mary holding Jesus.)

Such a cool building!

(Boys bought fidget spinners on the steps.)

Ubered to Versailles.
{UBER IS AMAZING AND SO EASY TO USE AND SAVED MY ACHING FEET SO MANY TIMES!!!}
Versailles is ALSO amazing and super cool to look around. We rented a golf cart to explore the grounds and let Max drive a little. He was disappointed it only went about 3.2 mph.

Quick food stop: "We'll take one of each please."

Walked to the brand new Paris L.D.S. Temple

This glass in the visitor's center was so darn pretty. We loved looking around this peaceful place!

The grounds were just as pretty as the building.

Ubered back to hotel
Sent the boys out for dinner crepes, and took ourselves to a yummy Italian place.
(Spied on boys to make sure they made it to crepe stand safely.)

Wednesday Schedule:

Woke up late and missed our train to London (via Chunnel) by about 10 minutes. (Didn't know you had to check in 30 mins early...)

Had a two hour delay, but made it just in time for...

High Tea at "The Orangery"

(The boys actually liked my Raspberry Tea...! and we all liked the dainty finger sandwiches.)

Sam was so excited to see a real British phone booth. And then a double-decker bus drove by.
The gleeful exclamations were awesome.

Relaxed and walked in Kensington Gardens after visiting Diana's Memorial garden

Soaking in London

"I'll use this for my cover shot."

Made our way to the fun, bustling Covent Garden
Watched Agatha Christie's "The Mouse Trap". The boys loved it and didn't guess who the murderer was! Win!!
Ate dessert after the show at an Italian place I visited on my last trip.

Thursday Schedule:
Big Red Bus Tour
Hopped off at The Tower of London

This guy told a cool story about when he attempted to steal
the crown jewels and nearly got away with them...

Took a Thames river boat tour.
It dropped us off at Houses of Parliament and Big Ben
Barely missed being able to go in Westminster Abbey
Went to Buckingham Palace and saw ladies in hats going in for a garden party.
Hopped on bus to Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese where Samuel Johnson spent time writing the first dictionary. Ate yummy pub food there and finally discovered what Bubble and Squeak is.
Saw Les Miserables. Kept us all on the edge of our seats. The boys LOVED it but Sam was a little shocked at how sad it is. He wasn't familiar with the story at all before hand, but loved the music.

We loved walking around lively Piccadilly Circus after the show.

Friday Schedule:
Straight to Kings Cross Station where we grabbed some pastries from stalls outside before checking out Platform 9 3/4. Doug and the boys made it through, I did not.

Tube to Paddington then Train to Windsor to see the queens weekend residence.
We met with our friends the Harrises who used to leave near us in Carlsbad. They drove about four hours to meet up with us--with 5 kids in the car! Now THAT is friendship.

Went on a beautiful river cruise.

Explored a used book store. (And came out weighing about 50 extra pounds.)
Spent the afternoon taking in the charming town.

Had a picnic and spent the afternoon enjoying and relaxing Eton and had such a lovely day!

Made it back to London in time to grab a quick bite and buy last minute tickets to see...

Mamma Mia!!
It was so so fun. The boys love ABBA and the movie Mamma Mia so they knew all the songs. They had to adjust to the crowd clapping along, but we all totally loved it.

Saturday Schedule:

Our last morning in London.

Woke up and found a fun little place for breakfast.

Headed to the Sherlock Holmes museum. (But only went to the gift shop 'cause that place is ex.pen.sive.)

Ubered to The London Eye and checked the last thing off of Max's London To Do List.(So very cool to see London from above.)

Train via Chunnel back to Paris. (Getting out of town a few hours before the London Bridge terrorist attack.)

Checked back into the same hotel. 

Met up with our Monacan friend Ugo and his friend Juliette at an amazing restaurant. The best meal ever to end our awesome trip. The boys tried: Seared duck foie gras, AND Knife-cut Charolais steak tartare. What incredibly brave teens! I was so impressed with them!

And then we all had one more crepe...

Sunday Schedule:
Ate one last buffet breakfast. Sadly, I could only manage hot chocolate and Mueslix. Too much gluttony early in the week.
Made it to Charles De Gaulle in plenty of time. Only to have an unclaimed backpack clear our terminal and make us almost miss our flight.
I mean, we were five minutes away from missing our flight people. SO GLAD WE DIDN'T MISS OUR FLIGHT. Or, ya know, get blown up. Also glad that didn't happen.

Finally made it home to our sweet baby boys Sunday night around 7p.m.
And there was much rejoicing! Yaaaaaaay!

Special thanks to our amazing niece for taking such good care of my boys and being so darn fun and nice. I promise you'll like kids again one day. Give it a few months.

Many thanks to Business Credit Card points for completely covering our 4 round trip tickets.

And MAJOR thanks to our amazing friends The Harrises and Ugo and his friend Juliette for traveling hours to see us. You made our trip so much better!! We love you guys.

We had an amazing trip and are so grateful we had the opportunity to take our boys with us. I hope they'll remember it forever and forgive us for taking the games off their phones.

Cheers!!