We left for Paris around 10:30 and arrived about 2:30. Our hotel was in a great location. Just about 6 blocks from Sacre Couer and Moulin Rouge in Montmartre. The hotel didn't have parking so we had to pay 30 Euro to leave our car in a garage for 24 hours and haul 2 kids and luggage a block or so back to the hotel. Thank goodness we packed light--as light as you can with 2 kids--one of which needed to sleep in a pack-n-play.


After we settled in a bit, we got out for some sightseeing. We took the Metro (subway) to the Louvre stop but didn't go in the museum. We were attempting to follow a walking tour (that went about 2 km down to Notre Dame), but went the wrong way.
We started walking though Jardin des Tuileries and then figured out that we needed to go the opposite direction. We walked down the Seine to the Pont Nuef, the oldest bridge across the river. It was completed in 1607. The first pic is of Mike and Ezra with the bridge behind them.
Then we made our way to Saint Chapelle. Finished in 1248, it was built to house Christ's relics in the possession of Louis IX, including the crown of thorns. It has amazing stained glass windows that were removed during the Revolution and both World Wars to keep them protected. Much of the chapel was destroyed in the Revolution, but 2/3 of the windows are original.





Then it was off to Nortre Dame.
Ezra was crashed out in the stroller by this time. We didn't go up to the top--too difficult with the kids. We walked around the perimeter of the inside (while a Sunday evening mass was going on with singing-very cool).





Then it was dinner time and off to Hard Rock-Paris. It was only a few blocks from our hotel, so we took the Metro back to Montmartre to eat.
We wanted to see the Eiffel Tower at sunset, so we took the Metro back down town. We had a fun time chilling out on the grassy mall in front of the tower and got some great pictures. Ezra chased birds and Mike chased Ezra. Jonas and I took pictures.



Lots and lots of pictures...

Me giving Jonas a kiss.

Jonas giving me a kiss.




Ezra running around.




Then we walked up to the tower and stood in line for about 5 minutes. Then we realized that it probably was not going to work out. It was already about 9 pm, an hour past the kid's bedtime and we probably weren't going to be at the top until about 10 pm at the earliest. So we walked back down the mall. We had hoped to wait around long enough to see them turn the lights on, but at 9:30 and probably another hour or so until it got dark enough, we decided to call it a night. Jonas was asleep by 11 and Ezra 11:30. It was a late night!


More pictures...




Jonas woke up at 4 am. Usually if he wakes up in the night at home, I ignore him and he goes back to sleep within a few minutes. However, in a hotel room he can see me in the bed, just an arm's length away and he's not as willing to go back to sleep. Plus, I had to believe that the hotel walls were not very thick, so I didn't want a bunch of travellers angry with us for having a crying baby at 4 am. So Jonas was up for about an hour. Thank goodness Ezra went right back to sleep after Jonas woke him up.
We got up and had a breakfast of juice, coffee, croissants, and bagguettes and then headed off to the Louvre to see the Mona Lisa. It was crowded, hot, and the elevators were hard to find and not very conveniently located. Mike hauled the stroller up a lot of stairs. Jonas was tired from the late night and waking up in the middle of the night. He's also weaning so he wasn't very happy and all of our patience was wearing thin. We didn't really have anything else in mind to seek out at the Louvre so we just wandered around a bit. We found ourselves in an African sculpture exhibit which was pretty cool. Ezra was scared of many of the sculptures--especially the ones with teeth. Here's a picture of Mike and Ezra in front of a giant head. After that, it was nearing lunch time so we decided to end our short trip to the Louvre. Here's a pic of Ezra playing in the fountain in front of the Louvre.

We decided to walk to the Arc de Triomphe (about 3 1/2 km) through the Jardin de Tuileries and down Champs Elysees. We grabbed some fruit along the way.







Somehow my camera got a giant smudge on the lens right before we took the pics at the Arc. :( We didn't go up to the top here either, but we snapped a few pictures. Then jumped on the Metro back up to Sacre Couer. We hiked up to the base of the stairs and took some pictures. We didn't have enough time to go to climb the stairs (or ride the funicular) to the top. Then we walked back down to the parking garage and headed home.


Traveling is never easy with the kids, and it was a quick trip, (and expensive) but worth it. It was Mike's first time and he really enjoyed it. We all had lots of fun!

This video isn't the greatest. It shows Ezra chasing a pigeon, which he did a lot of in Paris. And then he runs back to a stroller that he thinks is his and gets embarassed. Sorry--that's the best I could do for a video during our trip to Paris. I should have gotten him chasing birds in front of the Eiffel Tower. Oh well.

Mike is going camping (recreationally) with some guys from work on Friday night. He set up the tent in the backyard to air it out, and as you can imagine the boys loved it. Ezra kept running back and forth and flopping on the ground--he thought it was a bounce house.

Jonas

Ezra

The boys playing together.

Jonas with a silly grin posing in front of the azaleas.

Here I tried to use the timer. This was the best of the ones I was able to take before the bees starting getting angry. Ezra is deathly afraid of the big bumblebees so he wasn't wanting to sit by the bush where they were congregating. Jonas just wanted to crawl into the bush and eat the bees, so he was just as unhappy to be posing in front of it. Not the mention is was about 7:30am. Too early for smiles.

This video is just Jonas playing in the dirt of our recently cleared out and groomed flower bed. Toward the end, Ezra joins him and Ezra says "dirt". Not phenomenal considering he should probably be saying sentences like "I like to play in the dirt", but progress for Ezra nontheless.

Jonas is kind of working out of a morning nap. If he takes one, it's very short, but on this day, he skiped it all together. You can see by lunch he was VERY tired. Watch all the way to the end (or about 10 seconds from the end).

Matching shirts Nana sent.



This video is of the boys in a bounce house. The community center has one available every Tuesday. It was rainy and the house is inside so I thought that surely there would be more people there but as you can see, we had the place to ourselves. It was so much fun! The video isn't that entertaining, but it's funny because Ezra just keeps running back and forth and Jonas just keeps watching him. Toward the end, you can hear Jonas give a little squeak--he's laughing at Ezra. After the video, I got in and threw them around a little. They didn't quite know what to do by themselves...

Our first stop was a Dutch farm. Our table was set with 4 different types of Gouda cheese made there on the farm, meat,hard-boiled egg, toast, juice, and coffee.

Then we saw a wooden shoe making demonstration. In the picture the guy is about to drill the foot hole for the shoe. They are made of Poplar wood. Next, in the cheese room she just told us about the process since we were pressed for time. Not so pressed though, that there was not enough time to pose for a picture in some giant wooden shoes. :)



Then it was off to Keukenhof Gardens to see tons of tulips and other flowers.

There were several folks walking through the gardens in traditional Dutch garb.


The red with yellow around the edges of the petals were my favorite because it looked like there was a candle in them. There wasn't.




There are slightly submerged "steps" in the water. So it looks really cool if you can get it just right--looks like you're walking on the water. Note the swan on the far left. So pretty.


Mike said this kind of tulip was "scary".







After the gardens, we went to Haarlem, Holland. There, we toured the Corrie Ten Boom house. Corrie, her sister Betsy, and their father were Christians who helped Jews and people involved in the Dutch resistance get to safety during WWII. They helped over 800 people. In one bedroom, they put up a wall and a door through the closet to make a small hiding place for people to go in case of a raid. The day they were betrayed, 6 people stayed in that cramped spot for 48 hours until someone came in to tell them it was safe. The Ten Booms however, were taken to jail, where the father (age 84 died). Corrie and Betsy were transferred to Ravensbruck concentration camp. Betsy died, but Corrie was released after many months. The week after she was released, all the females her age were gassed. She went on to write many books including The Hiding Place which was made into a movie. She had a world wide ministry and was able to tell thousands of people her story and of her faith in Jesus that saw her through that dark time.



There was a door in the bottom of closet that they were able to close once they were inside. And the other picture was taken from inside the hiding place.





Here's a video from one spot in the gardens. Photos and videos just don't do it justice. It was so beautiful!