Buzz Lightyear to the Rescue!

Mom took a picture of Cam with Buzz Lightyear at Disneyland Paris while Jeff and I were riding Space Mountain. Actually, I think we were in line waiting to ride SM before it broke down. We got to ride it later, but spent a looooong time waiting. Anyway, here's Cammy with his hero, Buzz.

Edited to add this last picture because Cam wanted one with both faces in it that he could see well.

Still hot

It was hot today, and strangely not sunny. The kids still had a great time playing in the little pool and helping their dad clean the garage.

Yesterday, we took care of Collin while his dad was at work. Collin and the kids loved it! Collin and Paige ended up taking their naps at the same time, together on my lap. It was so sweet.

Paige is still working on potty training. Today she peed on a chair and came and to me and told me about it. She knows it doesn't go there, and she loves to sit on the toilet, but the excitement seems to stop there. Her favorite thing to do is to sit on the toilet, rip up a bunch of toilet paper, put it in the pot and flush. Silly baby! I like that it's nice enough for her to run around naked though. Her buns are pretty cute.

I have a cold and I've worked all day today so I'm off to bed. Good night!

Cammy is a good brother

Cam and Paige are in the kitchen making themselves peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Mostly, they are making a big mess, but it's fun. Paige started screaming because she got jelly on her hand (reminicent of Cammy with the mud on his hands!) so Cam grabbed a towel and wiped it off for her. I told him that was very sweet of him to help her and he got all grouchy about it. :) He's helping her still. Paige thinks he is just the best thing ever.

I forgot.. when we were in Paris, Paige sat down in my seat while we were waiting for a train and there weren't any more seats, so I told her to move over because that was my chair and she said "NO!!" I said, "Paigie, let's share the chair." She replied "NOOOOOOOOOO I FIRST!"

Pee on the pot!

I like being back at work, but it's a bummer too. Vacation is way more fun!

Today, for the very first time ever, Paige peed on the potty! She asked me to take off her diaper because it was wet and then she started to have an accident and then went into the bathroom, sat on her little potty and filled it up! Cam and I cheered and cheered for her. She was proud of herself too. I hope it's the beginning of something new. I'm really hoping she's easier to potty train than Cammy boy was.

I'm still a little depressed about being home from vacation, even though I'm happy here. I think the kids and I will go out to a park or something in a bit.

Sunday at home

Today was kind of weird. It kept feeling like it was a lot later than it was. Even now, it's only 8:00 and I'd have thought it was midnight if it wasn't still light out. Cam has been asleep since 5:30 or so and Paige has been asleep since 7:30. I'll probably go to sleep soon too because I'm tired and I need to go in to work extra early tomorrow.

Jenn had her pancreas and kidney transplant today. I don't know anything except that it was successful and the pancreas is already working. Jenn, if you read this, I'm thinking of you and praying for you. I can't seem to get ahold of anyone close to you, but it's not for lack of trying :) So glad your new organs are working already. Happy new birthday.

My mommy and daddy tags came while we were on vacation and I just love them. The kids keep wanting to wear mine, so maybe for Christmas or something, I can get them the kid tags that go with ours. They'd make good grandparent gifts too!

Jeff doesn't feel good. I'm not sure if it's a cold or allergies yet, but he's pretty miserable and tired too. We just can't seem to adjust past that last couple of hours of Paris time. We are just hanging out in between Paris and Seattle time.

Good night.

Cars!

Last night, we drove to Wenatchee. Jeff and Dad got up at 3:00 am to go fishing and the rest of us slept until 4:00. I guess we are getting closer to the 6:00 wake up time. No fish were caught, but that's okay because I don't really want to eat any fish anyway. They saw a lot of salmon, but they were too smart. Go Fish!

This afternoon we went to see Cars with the neighbor kids, Gracie and Nolan. It's really cute. There was a preview for Pixar's next movie which is about a mouse in Paris. I'm totally excited to see that one. I have a whole year to wait. Cam is out for the night - he has had an exciting day with no nap. Hopefully he'll sleep all night. Paige is sitting on her Papa's lap reading a book. Jeff is crashed on a chair with his arm over his head :) Poor guy has bad allergies over here and he's SO tired.

Paige and the potty

Paige is showing interest in the toilet! No action yet, but she takes off her diaper, sits on her potty and then get toilet paper, puts it in the pot and flushes. When Cam poo'd this morning, she ran in, said "I poo' and sat on her pot. It's so cute! Silly Paigie.

Disneyland Paris, Catacombs and the trip home

Tuesday was Cam's day. Paige enjoyed it too, but Cam made most of the decisions. After we got up, we hopped on a train and rode out to Disneyland Paris. The park is really beautiful - they have done a great job with landscaping. Cam loved the Buzz Lightyear ride. I think it was his favorite. You sit in the little car and then use your laser to shoot at Zurg and other aliens. We went on The Pirates of the Caribbean and Cam liked that one until we went down a little water fall and it kind of scared him. He survived it, but didn't want to try it again. He liked the haunted mansion and really liked Star Tours! Grandma took him and Paige on Buzz Lightyear for a second time while Jeff and I went on Space Mountain 2. Talk about scary!! It is a roller coaster in the dark and it's much scarier than the original Space Mtn. It seemed darker and it went upside down three times. Sometimes I couldn't even tell which way was up. It was great fun. :) Overall, we enjoyed it, but the CA one is a lot bigger and the public in CA is way better. For some reason, the visitors at Disney Paris didn't bother standing in line or giving personal space. They would just cut in front of you and if you challenge them, they'd say they were there first or just ignore you. You had to really pay attention and keep your spot. I got tired of being agressive about my place in line. The only thing I really loved was Space Mt 2.

On our last day, we got going rather slow and then headed off to the Catacombs. They only let a certain amount of people down there at a time and we were the last of our group allowed in so we had a lot of time all by ourselves which really added to the experience. It's about 30 meters deep and then you walk a long way down a dimly lit stone hallway. It used to be a quarry for stones used to build the city. Later, bones from cemetaries were moved down there and stacked and labeled by cemetary. It's sad that they are all piled together so they can't be identified, but it was done respectfully and it was very interesting. Definitely worth seeing. Again.. pictures to come.

Thursday morning, we headed off to the airport. The nutty lady at the Air France desk could not figure out how to issue us proper tickets and boarding passes. We arrived at the airport 2 hours early and she ended up taking so long we actually made the plane late. When we got to the gate, I handed all the papers to the gate check people and they told us that Cam and Jeff did not have tickets and therefore we would not be allowed on the plane. At this point, we were quite upset at that crazy lady out front. Someone made a call to headquarters and it was squared away and we got on the plane. I don't know if the passengers were happy to see us board or not. Two crying kids aren't too thrilling to everyone else :) Eventually we arrived home and Mom had to be wheeled off the plane in a wheel chair because her foot was so swollen and painful. It seems better now though. It's nice to be home.

Speaking of being home, our house is CLEAN! Everytime I turn around, I see something else grandma Patty cleaned while we were away. The shower is cleaner than when we bought the house, everything is vacuumed, the fridge is sparkling, the pans are shiny (how did she even do that?) The garage fridge was washed because something sticky got in there. it is so beautifully spic and span! That was so kind of her. I totally love it!

Miss a Papa...

For this whole trip, every time we ask Paige where Papa is, she gets all sad and says 'I miss a Papa.' It's very pathetic and adorable at the same time. She snaps out of it when you ask her where Cammy is.

Oh yea.

I forgot.. we went out last night to be in the middle of everything after the World Cup game and it was really crazy. The entire Champs Elysees from the Louvre to the Arc was full of people. There were fireworks, screaming, crying, cheering, chanting... everything. Riot police were out in full gear to break up the few fights between the Italians and the French and there were police guarding the Arc. Some people threw fireworks into the crowd which was actually pretty scary to me. I'm not sure how dangerous they were, but people kept running from them, so I'm guessing it's not exactly recommended. The riot police were very effective at breaking up fights so overall it wasn't too scary or dangerous. Just loud and exciting to be a part of. People really liked us because they thought Jeff was press with his great big 200 2.0 lens.

Walking and shopping

Today we started out walking around Montmartre. At lunch time, we went back to the apartment and then Jeff and I went out to Champs Elysees by ourselves to shop all by ourselves. We started at Dpam where I got a few clothes for the kids, then to Ducati Paris so Jeff could get a sticker for his bike. From there we went to Cartier to look at wedding bands. Jeff said I could get the nice one that I really liked. I was so excited! They served us Coke (offered champagne) and treated us like royalty. It was fun :) It will be extra special because we bought it together in Paris and I will always remember the experience. It is a simple platinum band. Pictures later, of course. From there I had to skip the other kids' stores because Jeff took away my credit card.. Hahaha! We had to stop back at NafNaf because they forgot to give me the jewelry I had purchased last week and lucky for me, the sales person had set it aside for me so the manager knew I had really left it behind. We walked down some super fancy street full of snobby stores like Hermes and Chanel. We found a Metro station and stupid me, I chose a different metro stop to get home because it was higher. Turns out, the trains never go uphill so it just meant I got to hike up more stairs to get out. The sign says it was 30 meters, but I'd bet it was more like a mile. Sheesh! I was glad to be out of that. Then, Mom and I went shopping for fabric, but it was boring so we shopped at a super market instead. WAY more fun! We came home and had tortellini for dinner. Tomorrow is Disney Paris! WOO HOO!!

World Cup Finals!

Yay!! The game is on! We walked around on Champs Elysees today and everyone driving was honking their horns, people were dressed in blue, white, red, people were screaming, blowing horns and waving flags. The French are very excited about this game. It's really fun to be here right now. The score is 1 to 1. Towards the end of the game, Jeff and I are planning to go out to Champs Elysees to see what happens if they win.

Today was mostly low key. I did a little shopping, a lot of walking and a fair amount of eating. Not much is open on Sundays and now everyone is watching the game.

The weekend

I'm exhausted, but here's what happened the last couple of days:

We got up Friday morning at 5:00am and left to catch the train to St. Pierre des Corps in the Loire Valley. On the way down the stairs, Mom fell hard and hurt her foot/ankle really bad. She almost didn't go, but decided she could try. Poor thing, her foot is absolutely huge, swollen and purple. She doesn't think it is broken, but it is sprained at the least. It looks really awful. We raced off to catch our train and BARELY made it! We jumped on just before the doors closed and off we went. As we were sitting in our chairs resting and thinking how lucky we were to catch our train, Paige puked all over me and herself. I hadn't brought a change of clothes so I stood in the tiny bathroom (think airplane small, but dirtier) and washed my dress and Paige's clothes and managed to dump water all over the floor. We finally go to St. Pierre, rented a car and headed out. We went to Chambord and then shopping in one Loches. We then went to our hotel which was actually a castle... le Chateau du Razay. It was beautiful and the lady who owned the place was so very sweet! We had an incredible room with a canopy bed and two smaller beds. We got up this morning and headed out to see the castle Chenenceau. It was beautiful. Even more beautiful than I had imagined. Then we headed back to the train station thinking we had a lot of time to kill. We sat around.. looked in the store, had some coffee... At 6:10 I thought I should check our train number and upon closer inspection of the ticket, I realized that I had read 17:50 (5:50) as 6:50! I looked on the board and it said our train was 20 minutes late (YAY!!) So, we RAN to the platform and the lady said we could not get on because the doors were closed and just as she said that, it pulled away. I wanted to cry. Never fear, though! I went down to ticketing and after a really long wait, I got tickets on the next train that was less than an hour away and I didn't even have to pay to change the tickets. This time, we got on without a problem and headed home. The kids fell asleep on the train, so Mom and I had to carry them and they woke up just as we got to the last subway stop. After we got back to our apartment, Jeff and I went out by ourselves to the Arc du Triomphe only to find that the lady who sells the tickets to take the elevator to the top decided that she could close 15 minutes early so we just missed. Of course, she didn't care. :) We will have to go back another day. We walked down Champs Elysees where I was able to replace my sunglasses (oh yea, I lost my Ray Bans on the metro! I bet someone is the proud new owner of my sunglasses.) and then we came back home. It was a very exciting two days. A lot of fun though! :)
Good night.

Paris is fabulous

Yesterday, we went to the Musee d'Orsay, Notre Dame cathedral and then the Eiffel Tower. After we were home in the evening, we heard a bunch of cheering and hollering. I looked out the window and a bunch of other people were hanging out of their windows too looking down the street. Jeff and I thought it might be related to the World Cup, so we turned on the TV and sure enough, France had just scored against Portugal. They ended up winning the game 1-0 and I think everyone in Paris was screaming, cheering, and honking their horns. There were fireworks going off around the city and people were burning something red up on Sacre Coeur. The finals are in a couple of days and I can't imagine the noise if France wins! They are playing Italy so it should be a good game.

Today, we spent time at the Louvre, mostly with the Italian paintings, but we did see the jewels and Venus de Milo. Of course we also saw the Mona Lisa, but it's really no big deal.

Now, we are off to catch a train to St. Pierre des Corps to see the castles of the Loire Valley.

found some photos

I found some pictures on Mom's computer. Here is a street up by the Sacre Coeur.
My Cammy boy.. it's a hot, humid day here! You can see Paige's little leg to the left.


The fabulous view from our apartment. That's the Sacre Coeur on the hill.

The double decker carousel near the church. We took a ride on it this afternoon. This is the first time it has been in operation when we have visited.

Paris - July 4th

We made it! Woo hoo!! Detroit airport has a way cool fountain that shoots different jets of water.. I'll have to post pictures. It also has a train that runs up on the second story that you can take to get from gate A1 to gate A77 because 77 gates is a LONG way. Cam had fun riding that. Our gate was right next to a Starbucks so I took full advantage of that. Finally, after an almost 5 hour layover, we boarded our Airbus A330, got all ready to leave, even did the 'Flight attendants, prepare for takeoff' bit and then the captain came on and told us that someone had found a hydraulic leak and the mechanics were fixing it and they were expecting a one hour delay. Just about an hour later, paperwork was signed and we were good to go! 'Flight attendants prepare' again and then the captain came on and said there was another leak and we would be delayed a little longer. In the meantime I really needed a bathroom!! Shortly after that, the captain informed us that his warning light was incorrect and the leak was indeed fixed and ready to go. Now, I know those are good mechanics out there, but I was scared during that take off! Thankfully, all was fine. We had our own tv screens in the back of the headrests and Paige and I watched Ice Age 2 - The Meltdown. We had fun.

Our apartment here has an awesome view of Sacre Coeur! I can't wait to see it all lit up at night. Jeff took pictures, but the lucky guy is now sleeping. I wish I was asleep, but Cam is seriously going strong. We walked around a bit today and then came back for an early night. Cam has a different opinion, however.

I will try to post pictures tomorrow, but I have to manage them away from Jeff.

Oh, it's hot here! And humid. I expected warm, but this is definitely beyond my idea of warm.

Silly, sleepy Paige

Here is silly Paige playing with Zoe dog. She can just about walk under her. I'm really not sure what she was doing in that third picture, but it was funny. It has been so nice out all week. It's nice to get out on the deck with the kids.



One afternoon, I went out and left Jeff with the kids. Paige was drawing with a green marker she'd found and the next time Jeff looked over at her, she was asleep. Funny how kids can fall asleep just about anywhere.





We also signed on our 2nd Mortgage refinance. It's about time! This has been going on for a long time. The lady at the bank took her own sweet time.

Time to go to bed because when I get up, I'm off to Paris! Yay! How fun will that be? Cam is excited. He's going to carry his turtle backpack. I have a backpack for Paige, but I figure she'll end up refusing to wear it and I'll just have to find a way to carry it myself so I think I'll leave it behind.

I also got the new Stampin Up! catalog. SOOOO fun :)