Paris - day 2

This blog will be lacking in the writing area. I've put it off so long that I don't remember too many of the fine details. We traveled by Metro to the Sacre Coure. The Sacre Coure is a big church at the highest point in the city of Paris. Once we were off the Metro we had to walk up the hill. It was fun to browse for souvenirs from the street vendors. We really enjoyed the area because of the cool playground at the base. Can you believe it, we found a playground at a very popular tourist attraction. I don't have good pictures of the playground and the boys playing but they did enjoy it. The other great thing was that they had a merry-go-round. The boys loved the music that was being played. After some time on the slides at the playground and having just had some fantastically hot crepes with either jam (for Willie and I) or sugar (for Parker) on them Willie took the boys on the merry-go-round. I tried to take pictures.One of the funny moments from the day was when we had to trek up all of the stairs to get to the Sacre Coure. Willie had to push down on the stroller and move it about a foot to the next step and do that again, all the way up. When we made it about 3/4 of the way up we saw that there was an elevator that would have taken us up. We used it going back down. One of the oldest windmills in Paris. The Moulin Rouge.
After seeing the highest points of the city we headed on the metro down to the Notre Dame Cathedral. Lincoln slept during most of our visit here. Family pictures were few due to nap times. Parker enjoyed chasing the pigeons. He sure loves to see them run and then fly away.


Lincoln woke up after we had seen the whole building of Notre Dame. So we took a picture of him at the back side. We found our Christmas ornaments here too.
We found yet another playground. The boys sure had a lucky day for playing outside.
As we were heading to the Louvre we had a surprise walking up behind us. The 'gendermarie' (I think) came up on their horses. There were so many horses being ridden by these men and women dressed up in their best. The line of horses was so long. I would say a mile, but that might be stretching it a little. Anyway there were a lot of horses and Parker loved every minute of it. We tried to keep up with them at one point but they went on without us.
We had to cross a bridge to get to the Louvre and Parker wanted to keep stopping because he saw some boats. We stopped for a little bit and watched the boats go by. Both boys were excited. It's fun to see Lincoln get excited about the same things as Parker.

The Louvre. We made it down to the Louvre with about an hour and a half before they closed. So we decided that we came all this way and it was our last chance to see some great artwork. Parker was asleep which would help us to see some things. We took our chance and we paid full price for just an hour and a half. We saw the Mona Lisa as well as a few other things. We ran through corridors looking at the architecture and paintings and statues. We went through Napoleons apartment rooms. We accomplished a lot in such a short time. We were probably a sight to see, we rarely used the elevators to get to different levels. We would come to some stairs and one of us would get the front of the stroller and we'd haul the kids up or down. Lincoln just had to have his picture next to one of his favorite horses. He enjoyed looking at all the statues of horses. We realized that they have replicas of the statues outside in the garden areas. Who knew that we would have been able to see the statues outside?For dinner that night we found a place with waffles. Since the boys hadn't had waffles in a long time we decided to get them one. Parker loved the powdered sugar on top. Lincoln just enjoys eating pretty much whatever we give him. As the sunlight was fading we watched the lights turn on the Eiffel Tower and then watched the light show. Parker now refers to the Eiffel Tower as 'the purple one that parkles.' (We bought the boys plates that have the Eiffel Tower on them)

Paris - Day 1

Our first day into Paris we made it in time for lunch. We found that Parker enjoyed his hot dog very much. I enjoyed my tasty apple dessert. We traveled by Metro to most of our destinations. This was a great experience for the boys because they absolutely love trains. By the last day though Willie and I were tired of carrying the boys up and down the many stairs to get us to the trains. Most of the stations didn't have an elevator or escalator. I thought I had planned for us to come out of the Metro so we could see the Eiffel Tower. I was a bit off. We did make it close to a cool bridge that I'm forgetting the name of at the moment. At this bridge you can see the Eiffel Tower, so in the end it was okay.
We took a look around the Hotel of Invalides. The king of the time built this hotel for his injured soldiers. It's really cool because there are a lot of statues of armor and military type designs.
I thought it was great when we walked by this travel place. They were advertising for good ole Utah.
It was pretty cold walking around but we enjoyed our little visit to the Eiffel Tower. Someone in Portugal gave me my nice green rain coat. It's a bit big, but it kept me warm. We tried to keep the boys warm. I had heard that there was a miniature Statue of Liberty just down from the Tower. We searched and couldn't find it. Another day we did find it but it was while we were on the train traveling somewhere, it was by the river.
Our little world travelers. I can't believe that these kids even have passports. I just hope that they can enjoy the pictures when they are older.

We tried to have someone take our picture at the Arc de Triumph but I don't think they understood what wanted in our picture; us AND the Arc. So here are the few pictures we took with one of us and the kids or just us. It rained a little bit as the night grew on.


Once thing that I love about Europe is that they put their sandwiches on baguettes. Yum. Willie loved seeing all the cool places in Paris. Parker loves his new sweat bands, he got them in a kids meal. He wears them all the time. I don't know if we have a picture of him with his sweatbands. Lincoln was along for the ride. He enjoyed the trains and getting out to run around.

London.

We arrived to our hotel a little late in London. We did send Willie and Parker out to get some food for us while I tried to let Lincoln fall asleep. Our quarters were small. We barely had room enough to put the pack n'play in and squeeze by it sideways. Parker had a hot dog and Willie had fish and chips while I had a nice cup of ministroni soup. We pulled out the maps during our 10:00 dinner and Parker helped us to pick a few sights to see.
Willie and I decided to take a tour bus around London and see everything. As we were on the bus we would decide where we wanted to go back. When we left the hotel I forgot to grab the battery for the camera, but I thought we would be okay too because I was sure that the battery in the camera was full. We walked to Marble Arch and found that the battery was nearly dead. This was the beginning of our day and we hadn't even gotten on the tour bus yet. I felt horrible. In the end it was okay. We took the bus all around. The boys had a REALLY good nap. They slept the whole time on the two hour bus ride. We planned to make it back to the hotel to grab the battery. We took the Underground to Trafalgar Square, then we walked down to the Thames River, took a boat cruise for half an hour up to London Tower Bridge. Then we rode the Underground back to Trafalgar Square. Willie and I found cupid and since we are in love, we just had to take a picture.
Oh the red phone booth.
This is at Trafalgar Square. The lions are so huge. We didn't have much time for pictures and it threatened rain most of the day. We only pulled out the umbrellas a couple of times.
Big Ben. Actually the bell in the tower is called Big Ben but over time visitors have called the whole thing Big Ben. The bell has a crack in it as well, ever since they put the bell in the tower. The long hand on the clock is 14 ft. long.

From the river boat we could see Big Ben. Parker enjoyed his time on the boat. Willie loved, "puntin' on the Thames." (Mary Poppins, or in Parkers words Mary Puntins)

Willie went on top of the boat where it was a bit chilly and he took lots of fun pictures, too many to post though. Here is one that he got of himself.
Willie had someone take his picture with London Tower Bridge in the background. He was a little unimpressed with their picture-taking skills. We realized on this trip that many people have different views on how to take a picture. Go ahead and leave us your ideal way of taking a picture in front of a place like this. Do you like the full body shot or from your belly button up?

Since we have been living in Portugal I had been craving pizza. Yes, normal pizza. The pizza here is weird, it's a combination of their meats and cheese as well as the tomato paste they use. So needless to say we found a place to eat pizza while we were in London. Thanks Willie. Willie wanted to visit a huge toy store (7 stories tall) that is by Trafalgar Square. We decided a little too late to go visit the store. They closed about an hour before we got there. But we did enjoy their window display. We spent at least 10 minutes looking at it. I fear that most of our pictures from the day came from the window display at Hamley's Toy Store.

Could we get the boys to look at the camera for just two seconds? Not really.

Paddington station was the station closest to our hotel. All the boys are waiting for the train to come. I believe you could here it coming in the distance.
Back at the hotel. The bathroom here reminded me of an R.V. potty. Willie related it to our bathroom on our cruise ship when we went to Mexico one year. Either way the boys loved playing on the step leading into the bathroom.

Are we Crazy?

Willie and I took the boys on a vacation while we are on vacation. Portugal is kind of a vacation because we are seeing so many things while we are here. This time though we flew with Ryan Air to London then we took the EuroStar to Paris and flew back to Portugal from Paris. In some ways I look back and think that yes we were a little crazy taking the boys on a vacation such as that. With two boys though we saw many great things.
Our flight getting us in to London was delayed about two hours so we were really tired the next day. We left the hotel a little later than we had planned but that was okay. We were blessed all along the way. The first day in London we traveled from Stansted down to Surrey where the temple is. The trip took us about two hours. Willie went in to the 3:00 session and tried to come out so I could attend the 5:00 session. There was a nice visitors center and a place for us to sit with the kids the whole time. We would have played more outside but the weather was really chilly and VERY windy. We went out to get a couple of pictures but the boys didn't like the cold. At 5 minutes to 5:00 Willie came back. I ran in to see if I could catch the session. I was a little nervous but the Temple President held the session for me. I was very grateful. The temple is very beautiful and I enjoyed the time we had there. When I got out of the temple Willie said that we were suppose to have checked into our hotel by 6:00. Whoops. He made a call and asked if we could get there by 9:00. They said 'no later.' Well we were later. 9:30 wasn't too bad. Here are the boys in the area reserved for people like us. They had their toys all over the place. Our day was rushed but in the temple our time was our own. We didn't need to rush (too much). Willie told me that it was nice to do the Lord's work first, before we did all the sight-seeing stuff. It's like paying tithing, pay your tithing first and then you can use the rest.