Paris

Before I talk about our awesome trip to Paris, I need to start off with an apology:
Sr. Marcia: You were right, Sister. I should have taken French IV instead of Pre-Calc as I've now officially used my French language skills way more than any knowledge of Calculus that I (used to) have. Sorry I didn't listen to you.

OK, now that that's out of the way, let me say that our trip to Paris rocked! Paris had a ton of cool touristy places to visit. So many that we didn't even try to see them all, thus giving us an excuse to go back.

The Flight - That 7:10AM flight seems like a good idea when you are making the travel arrangements but boy when the day comes does it suck. Getting up a 4:00AM in never a good idea. The up side is that we landed by 10:20 and got to the hotel before 11:30 so that we were in line for the Eiffel Tower by 12:30!

I say it each time but it remains true: our kids are great travelers. They know the drill and behave very well in the airport and on the plane. After we got through security and were having coffee and pastries at the airport cafe, Katie was very helpful keeping us on track.
Katie: "It's now 6:10 and the flight boards at 6:40."
Good reminders. Vito, Jr.'s contribution to the same conversation was slightly less helpful.
Vito: "If you fall into the lava in a volcano you will burn up and die."
Important safety tip for sure, but not really on topic.

On the first day we saw the Eiffel Tower. Our hotel was just at the other end of the Champs de Mars (the park in front of the Eiffel Tower)...just a 10 minute walk. VJ insisted on bringing his puppy since "she wants to see the Eiffel Tower, too."

The view of the city was amazing. The Eiffel Tower has 3 levels but we did not go up to the tippity top as we didn't want to wait in another long line as the early morning start was catching up to the kids. After a quick nap at the hotel (for everyone but me...I went and got week passes for the Metro) we took the Metro over to the Arc de Triumphe. After walking up almost 300 steps, we had another great view of the city.

On Sunday we took the Metro over to the Louvre. Whatever you have heard about the Louvre does not come close to describing how amazing it is. One half day (with 2 young kids) does not begin to be long enough to see everything. We of course saw the Mona Lisa and the Venus de Milo but there were so many amazing works of art to see. I think the piece below, new to the museum, is my favorite.
After the Louvre we went for a walk outside. Starting at the Louvre pyramids & fountains, through the Jardin des Tuileries ending at the Place de la Concorde. We found a carousel in the Jardin that the kids really enjoyed.

And then we took an ice cream break before we dragged the kids into another Museum, the Musée de l'Orangerie. Don't feel too bad for them though. As you can see by the picture below, we had to go somewhere to beat the rain anyway.

Monday we went to Notre Dame Cathedral. The most amazing thing about the cathedral was the stain glass windows. They were absolutely beautiful. Other than that, I don't think Notre Dame lived up to it's hype. I feel like a bad Catholic for saying this, but it was just another old church.

We decide not to walk up the 400+ steps to the top of the North Tower. And I'm glad we did because how pissed would I have been to have stood in a long line, walked up all those stairs and instead of a beautiful view of the city, I got rained on. Did I say rained on? I meant poured on. Plus some hail. Luckily at the time this started we were walking across the Pont Neuf, the oldest bridge in Paris (ironically so, since it's name means "New Bridge") to get to the Metro station.
OK...at this point I'm going to finish this up quickly since I've been forever preparing this post. Between starting it days ago, having internet problems (which that continuing saga will get it's own rant/post in the future), writing some more, taking a break, coming back to it...it's time to wrap this puppy up.

Monday night we met friends from Budapest at the Hard Rock Cafe. Much better experience then the one in London. Alan works with Anna and Kim and I do parent volunteer stuff at the school. Their kids are the same ages as Katie & VJ so we put them all at one table and they had a great time and we got to talk and actually enjoy dinner.

Tuesday was some more museums. The Musée d'Orsey has a bunch of Monets (among other stuff) and Monet being Anna's favorite painter, it was a must see. Anna & Katie had this amusing exchange:
Katie: "I like this picture, Mommy." points at some Monet painting.
Anna: "Wow Katie, you have excellent taste. That was done by Mommy's favorite painter."
Katie: "I like it because the clouds look pink."
Anna: sighs

On Wed we were flying out in the afternoon but we had enough time to run and see Napolean's Tomb at Les Invalides.

All in all we had a great time in Paris. It was a plus too know some French, but I actually didn't have to speak it too often since I only ran into like 2 people that didn't speak English. Eventually I will load up the 700+ pictures we took...if the f#%*ing internet connection in our f#%*ing housing complex f#%*ing cooperates.

Updates

I'm behind on posting so here's a few quick updates:

"My Country" Presentation
I went to Katie's school for her "My Country" presentation. All the kids put together a presentation about their home country. The parents went from kid to kid and they had to present the info they had collected and answer our questions. Katie decided to do a hanging presentation (sort of like a mobile). Some kids did posters, some were living statues (walk up to them and they start spouting their info) and some did PowerPoint presentations. I think that she, and all the kids really, did very well. The only question that I heard Katie get stumped on was what did "DC" in "Washington, DC" stand for.


More "My Country" pictures on our Kodak Gallery. Thanks to Katie's teacher for the pictures since I forgot my camera at home (and Katie's backpack, and my belt...it was a bad morning).

Disney On Ice
I can't say "Disney on Ice" without thinking about that Saturday Night Live skit (I think it was SNL) about how Walt Disney's body was frozen after his death and that the time had come to thaw him out and it was your last chance to see "Disney on Ice" (cut to picture of coffin sliding across the ice rink). Totally tasteless but still funny and having nothing to do with anything we did last Saturday.

We took the kids and Vito's friend Carlos to see Disney on Ice. Despite being all in Hungarian the show was really enjoyable. We got the boys Buzz Lightyear Swords and Katie a glowing Princess Scepter. And if you thought Hungarian was a hard language to learn and understand, you haven't heard anything until you try and make out what the hell Donald Duck is saying in Hungarian.

Vito was really happy with his sword as he "always wanted a power sword like He-Man's, but one that would change him into Batman instead."

More Disney on Ice Pictures.

Easter
Of course we decorated Easter Eggs and the Bunny came and hid them and lots of other candy around the house. Unfortunately due to the crappy weather of Easter weekend (it snowed on Holy Saturday and Easter Monday) our Egg hunt was limited to our living room.


More Easter Pictures.

Katie's Haircut
Katie got her haircut yesterday. We decided to cut it a little shorter than normal for the summer. After the lady dried it, she looked much too old for my taste.
Luckily, after a good night's rest, it curled up nicely so she looks like a little girl again.

Happy Birthday Vito, Jr.

Then

Now

Vito turned 4 years old today. The fun started when Katie, Anna & I all went in to his room to wake him up and wish him a Happy Birthday. He was very excited but we were told not to sing to him until later "When there was cake."

Anna made cupcakes and I brought them in to his school for the class to enjoy after lunch. The kids sang Happy Birthday and he received a gift of a finger puppet from the class.

Doma and Vito enjoy their cupcakes.

Vito's buddy Carlos came over for the afternoon and they wrecked the house had fun playing. Carlos just turned 4 in Dec, he's just REALLY tall (or Vito is really short).
We all sang Happy Birthday and then enjoyed the cake that Anna had made (from scratch!). It was delicious!

The present from Mommy and Daddy went over pretty well.
More pictures on our Kodak Gallery Homepage.


You may have noticed that there was no mention of "VJ" in this post. About a week ago, Vito informed us that he no longer wanted to be called "VJ". We were to call him "Vito." OK, we can work on that. So we started to call him Vito. And then the problems began.

He corrected how I pronounced his my our name. He did not like the way I pronounced "Vito." I never realized that I tend to pronounce the "t" more like a "d". This is NOT acceptable to Vito, Jr. When you next speak to him, make sure that the "t" sound comes through loud and clear.

I haven't broken the news to him yet, but he needs to prepare for a lifetime of people saying his name wrong. For 5 years, my next door neighbor in TX called me Vidal. A woman I worked with at Samaritan Hospital thought my name was Guido. She'd greet me with a "Hey, Gui."
Me: "Union National Customer Service, Vito speaking. How may I help you?"
Customer: "Good morning Peter. Can you tell me the balance on my checking account."

You get used to it after a while and it is just easier to answer to whatever they call me (as long as it comes close). Just don't tell ME how to pronounce MY name.

Happy St. Patrick's Day

OK, this is the last one for a while. I just stumbled across this site and had to do it for St. Patrick's Day.