A Totally New Parisian Experience

These past 2 week have been two for the books.    Some of our very best friends, The Campoamors, flew all the way from Japan to visit us.   Susannah and their oldest daughter Leyton are the same age and were friends when we lived in Coronado.   They had a ball playing together.   Add Leyton's little 2 year old sister and Sarah Avery to the mix, and we had our hands full!    Since they came so far, we decided they had to see Paris, so we packed our bags (making sure not to forget three princess dresses and three wands of course) and hopped on a high speed train to our very favorite European city.   The weather wasn't very cooperative, but we made the best of it.   Here are the pictures that I managed to snag despite all the cat-herding that kept us quite busy.

These two were best friends within minutes.   Leyton loved walking Susannah to and from school. 

After a few days of jet-lag recovery, we were ready to head to the train station for our Parisian adventure.

The train ride was a little over 3 hours.   Luckily, our car was full of some rowdy German tourists headed to Paris on holiday.   They were drinking champagne at 10 am, so they drowned out any of our kid related noise.

Sarah Avery did great on her first big train ride.   She even napped well.

After checking in to our apartment, we obliged these two and headed straight for the Eiffel Tower.

They carried these princess wands all over the city. 

The Mallory's + Ellis

Love this pic because Peter and I have one of us from 6 years ago on our very first trip to Paris.   It is so crazy to think that our family size has doubled since then.   

We were quite a crowd with two strollers, an infant seat and four kids.

Picnic dinner in front of the Eiffel Tower was perfect after a long train ride. 

Sarah Avery seemed to enjoy herself.

"J'aime Paris!"

Running out all their energy.

Headed to our next order of business....the carousel.

"Wheeee!"

The Campoamor girls enjoyed themselves.

Peter bought Leyton and Susannah these flower balloons and they were a huge hit.

The view from our apartment.   It was so fun to watch the light show every night after the girls were all asleep.

The view in the other direction was a tiny slice of the Arc de Triomphe.

The next day we checked out the Arc de Triomphe (didn't take pics because it was raining) and then headed to Notre Dame.   SA was a good sport about this long line to get inside.

After checking out Notre Dame and having a yummy cafe lunch, we headed over to the Louvre to feed the ducks.  

This was one of the highlights of the day for the girls.

Who needs famous art when there are ducks to be fed??

SA was just relieved to be out of the stroller.

She loves hanging out with her Daddy.

Posing in front of the famous pyramid in front of the Louvre

Silly girls with matching "Frozen" hair-bows.

This was SA's other mode of transport during the trip.

After the ducks had their fill, we took advantage of the sun's brief appearance and headed to the playground in the Jardin de Tuilleries

The see-saw was a big hit.

As was this super tall slide.   Shannon may have had to climb up there herself to encourage the girls to finish the drill.

And then we hit up another carousel.

Fun, fun!

Sarah Avery's first ride

After a long and eventful walk home(we played musical strollers and Ergo the entire hour-long walk home), these three were ready for some wind down time with "Angelina, Ballerina."

SA was along for the ride and such a little trooper the entire weekend.

Day 2 brought lots of rain and strong winds, so we decided to head over to the Pompidou Center, Paris's kid-friendly modern art museum.   These padded benches in the lobby were a big hit.

SA seemed to like it. 

Checking out some of the art.   See those black lines?    You aren't supposed to cross them.   I'll give you three guesses as to how well our party did with that rule.  ;)

"What does this one mean, Mommy?"

We had lunch in the museum's cafe.

After lunch we opted for a covered boat ride down the Seine.    SA napped for part of it, but woke in time to enjoy the last few minutes.

Everybody seemed to enjoy this part of our day.

It wasn't crowded and gave us all a chance to relax without worrying about somebody running out into traffic or jumping off a bridge.

Peter bought all the kids a beret.   "All the kids" included himself of course.   

We blended in with the Parisians about as well as you are imagining.  ;)

They sure do look cute though, don't they??

Our last stop of the day was by the bakery across the street from our apartment.   The girls all picked out a pastry for their dessert.   

These two princesses picked chocolate ones.  

We headed home the next morning.   Seeing Paris with four kids under five was a whole new experience.    While I wouldn't call it our most relaxing weekend, it was full of fun and hilarious memories!   Later in the week I'll post more pictures of the rest of the Campoamor's visit and share our Easter photos as well.    I hope all of you had a wonderful Easter weekend.   We love and miss you all!!