Paris - Day 1!!!

What a great-and long-first day we had here in Paris! Prepare for picture overload!

We set our alarm for 5:00 this morning, but neither of us actually woke up to the alarm. We're kind of out of practice. It's been a long summer and K was out of the office for over six weeks. Other than Sundays, we haven't used an alarm for a long time. Anyway, when we actually woke up at a little after 6:00, we got moving fast and were on the road by 7:00. On the way we hit up a cute little French bakery for some croissants and bread for breakfast. I've never been much of a fan of croissants, unless it's got chicken salad in it, but I've got to admit, they're growing on me. And I'm learning that, when in Rome (or France....or Luxembourg), do as the Romans (or Frenchmen....or Luxembourgers....)

Anyway, our mini road trip was great. The French highways provided entertainment for us. There were these painted three dimensional shapes for miles along the sides of the road. The kids kept their eyes peeled looking for more shapes- and learned the names of a few three dimensional shapes along the way too. As cool as we thought they were too, we just hope the 22€ toll we had to pay to drive on that highway was not in place to finance the outdoor art project! Seriously, we both about had a heart attack when we saw how steep the toll was.




On the way we listened to the 2012 Primary theme songs sung in French. Our Primary President gave me a cd last week at church because she said Miss A seemed uncomfortable singing in English in Primary when most of the other kids sing in French. Miss A admitted it was true, so we're working on helping her learn. When that got old, we jammed out to the "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat" soundtrack. I found an old cd in the car that hadn't been listened to for ages. Some fresh material is a good thing. The trip from our house to the hotel in Paris took about three hours.




After checking into the hotel and dropping our bags, we headed out to check out the city. K has been reading Frommer's Paris 2013 guide in preparation for our quick trip and has been giving me daily tips over the last week or so. One of the things he told me several times is that Paris is not safe like sweet little Lux. There are pickpockets everywhere. Don't carry a purse and keep your things close by. I took his advice seriously and locked my purse in the safe at the hotel before we left. We headed out to the subway station and waited in a huge line to buy tickets. While we were waiting, all of a sudden we heard a big commotion behind us. We turned around and saw a guy grabbing another guy's backpack and another guy punching the backpack grabbing guy. Then a whole bunch of guys took off running trying to catch the thieves. And everyone waiting in the ticket line suddenly turned their backpacks around to the front and held on to their bags a little tighter. And we pulled our kids a little closer.... Crazy thing is, a few minutes later, two of the guys came back with one of the wallets that had been stolen. Turns out two of the guys were undercover police officers. Pickpockets picked the wrong guys to mess with today!

After we made it on the train, we rode to our first stop-the Eiffel Tower, of course. Miss A has been asking for months to see it and was not disappointed! We were all a but disappointed though that the elevator tickets to ride to the top are sold out online for the next few months and the physical line to buy tickets there was so long it would have taken a few months to get through, so we'll just have to try again for our next visit. Did you know in 2013 they're opening an ice skating rink on the first level? Maybe we'll try back then.

Here is Miss A's first reaction to the tower- she's trying to be the tower, of course!












Have you seen Despicable Me? Our kids watched it recently, and at the beginning there's a part where tourists are visiting the pyramids. The guy says, "Take a picture. I'm holding the pyramid in my hands.". Well, Miss A thinks it's funny and wanted to get a picture holding the Eiffel Tower. It's not perfect, but it's our attempt :)




Being goofy and having fun!




After checking out the tower, we jumped on one of those double decker sightseeing buses. This was way cool, except that the top deck didn't have any open seats for the first 30 minutes of our ride, which was a major tragedy for the 2 and 5-year-old in our party.




Thankfully, some seats opened up eventually. We even got a whole row all to ourselves. Totally worth the wait! We saw all kinds of cool things, but I can't really tell you what any of them are because I was too busy trying to keep Miss H from jumping out of the bus to get to wear the headphones. I think K wore them for a few minutes. Maybe he can fill in the holes for me....

Here's the evidence. She seriously was trying to climb out. I don't think she has that depth perception thing down yet.













Isn't this funny? The Parisians want a beach so they put a strip of sand down the side of the river Seine and call it the seaside. Whatever floats your boat, I guess.....













After an hour or so of looking at Paris, Mr. L was tuckered out. Being the champ that he is, he decided to make lemonade out of life's lemons and take a Parisian nap...




But it didn't last for long, and seeing how Paris is sooo romantic, Miss H woke Mr. L up with a sweet little kiss. It makes a mama's heart happy to see sibling love. Of course what you don't see is her trying to poke his eyes after the cute kiss.....




We got off the bus at the Arc de Triomph. You have to walk through a tunnel that goes under the ground to get out to the middle. Then, if you want to go to the top, you have to climb hundreds of stairs all the way up there. Unless.....you have little kids and a stroller in tow. Then, the very nice ticket taker escorts you to the elevator and tells you to wait for the attendant. How great is that? We probably wouldn't have all made it otherwise.







The view from the top is pretty impressive!










Remember how we were warned about the pickpockets? On top of the Arc, I wasn't watching the stroller very well, so I took my wallet out and was just holding it. Miss H is ticked here because I won't let her play with it, so cooperating for a picture is totally our of the question.




Miss H had her own triumph while on top, so I had the rare privilege of changing a diaper on top of the Arc. How many people do you think can say they've done that??? I'm telling myself it's a relatively small number ;)




After the Arc, we needed some chill time so we headed back to the hotel for a little R&R before dinner.




Miss H didn't quite make it all the way back before she crashed.




With our batteries recharged, it was dinner time! We ate at Framboise Creperie.




We all tried new things, but found it was all pretty tasty! Even picky Miss H liked the crepes (funny though because yesterday I made crepes for breakfast filled with Nutella and banana and she wouldn't touch those!).




We took a leisurely stroll back to the hotel after dinner. And stopped for ice cream, of course.







And when we got tired of walking we jumped back on the subway. Mr. L told us tonight that one of his favorite things about today was riding on the train with the rainbow seats. It's true, they really are rainbow-see?







And now it's bedtime. One day down in a crazy big city with three little guys in tow. We had a blast! Tomorrow's a new adventure!

Location:Paris, France

Moving at the speed of Europe

We've been here now a little over three weeks, and probably the first lesson that we've had to learn is that of patience. So many things here are slower and just take more time, we've got some pretty good examples. Please see below:

1. When we arrived we discussed with the relocation consultant various items that we wanted, one of which was the Internet. We actually stunned her when we said we didn't want cable, but we really just wanted the internet to communicate etc... Much to our surprise we were told that it would be a minimum of 3-4 weeks to get the Internet installed in our house. One of my co-workers had it take over 7 weeks because the Internet company wouldn't install their Internet until the phone line was installed, and they refused to do the phone line and the Internet at the same time.

2. We also wanted to have cell phone while we're here. We had brought over our iPhone from the US so that we didn't need to sign a contract here, and went into the store to get a phone. Well, after much discussion with the cell phone clerk we were finally able to get a SIM card for K's phone. We installed the card in the store and it said no service. We asked why and we're told that it takes 3-4 days for the paperwork we signed to be mailed to the central office for their review and approval. Wow! We were stunned, it may sound a little crazy, but seriously who mails papers into an office for approval anymore, isn't everything electronic?

3. K went to work on the first day and took the usual glamor shot photo ID pictures. He stood at the counter waiting for his ID badge but instead was given this orange color blank badge and was told that he would get his final badge in 3-4 weeks.

Overall, we've been able to just sit back and appreciate a different pace of life, its been nice to simply look at each other, laugh and say OK, whenever we're told 3-4 weeks. In the end, we really love the experience so far, and the time that we've spent waiting for all the technology and "necessities" of life, have really given us a chance to take pause and reflect on what is really important in life. We're really grateful for all our family and friends and how we know if in the end we needed you, you wouldn't tell us to wait 3-4 weeks.

Love You All!

Location:Luxembourg, Luxembourg

Miss A & The Tooth Fairy

A few weeks ago we noticed that Miss A's mouth looked like this...




She had a tooth growing in behind the baby tooth. After much research by a very trusted source - Google, we decided that this is pretty common and that it was nothing to be too concerned about. After a few weeks A's tooth got looser and then...




As the French say, and they really do say, viola!




A pair of pliers and a few tears later and she had lost her first tooth! She was a trooper and luckily the Tooth Fairy had our forwarding address here in Luxembourg, because she was able to deliver a nice 2€ coin under A's pillow.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Luxembourg, Luxembourg

Our First Castle

We felt like we needed to take a break from the stress of moving into the new house, as well as give the kids a break from being dragged everywhere. So, we took a trip to a famous castle here in Luxembourg. It's called Vianden and ironically it's located in the village of Vianden.





It is the biggest castle in Luxembourg, which we learned this weekend has over 30 castles within its small borders. Anyways, the castle was hosting its annual medieval festival while we were there, so it was a really fun experience to see some other exhibits and demonstrations. For example:




A drum band made up of really young kids who knew how to do things with flags that we've never dreamed of...




A sword fighting play which was pretty comical...







We were pretty amazed at how close they would get to the crowd with their swords and flames. A couple of moms had to leave with their kids because the guys scared them...



In the end everyone died, but L really enjoyed it, go figure.




They also had a ton of different types of medieval birds on display. The kids felt like they were in Harry Potter...







Overall it was just fun to hang out in the castle and it was cool to feel a part of something so old and historic. It was actually occupied by the Nazis during WWII.



Miss A getting her medieval pose on.











We've come to appreciate that Johnsonville sausage really doesn't have a leg to stand on when compared to sausage here. We had lunch here and then washed down our sausages with some waffles which are kind of a snack food here.




L's face in this pic is a good one, he didn't want to share :)

At the end of the day we let the kids all pick out a toy to take home, A & L picked out little wooden swords and Miss H, well let's just say the executioner in her came out... Don't worry- it's made out of wood. Not as dangerous as it looks!




She didn't want to put it down, and fell asleep with it in the car. People were commenting the whole walk down, probably on how bad of parents we are, but hey we couldn't understand them, so no harm no foul.

Overall, it was a great experience and a very cool opportunity to see such an old piece of Luxembourgish history.










See ya Vianden!

-K & E

Location:Vianden, Luxembourg