Tag Archives: france

France_5 Eiffel Tower

by September 1, 2016

One of the coolest things about traveling with your kids is exposing them to new things. Nola can point out the Eiffel Tower whenever we see photos or statues of the monument and recall the day we saw it in real life! The day we went up the Eiffel Tower we were lucky and didn’t have to wait very long in the line (I’ve read horror stories, so my advice is get there early). But after that the whole experience went downhill from there. Granted we were with a 3 and 1 year old at the time and with this being by far the hardest experience the entire trip I also look at it as a victory! But man, if we are being real here sometimes traveling with kids is no joke and it’s freak’n hard! What happened was we had our double stroller because being out and about all day that is our lifeline with having our little ones…so yes we needed it and couldn’t go without. They allow you to take the stroller up the Eiffel Tower, but the caveat is they don’t want you to park it anywhere and it was too wide to fit in the aisles. So here we are trying to carry a folded double stroller, while the other is juggling both kids. And should I mention we didn’t bring a carrier that day!?! Jonas was also so crabby and come to find out he had pooped and clearly was just uncomfortable. I think there was a moment where CJ and I looked at each other and telepathically were saying to each other ‘wtf are we doing?’. But we prevailed guys and by the time we took the elevator down we were all calmed down and possibly having shifty eyes, hoping no one pinned as the smelly poopy culprits. We were the only one with the baby…
it was pretty obvious.

Here’s some photos of the day if you care to see. The Eiffel Tower lives up to it’s hype guys and I’m pretty happy I got to see it with my favorite people, even with a crabby baby and a ‘huge in the way double stroller’.

IMG_9650 IMG_9635 doesn’t it seem appropriate nola’s eating a pain au chocolat during this photo (every glorious france morning we were there folks!)

IMG_0293 looking up! IMG_0288 IMG_9669 Jonas time while Nola napped
IMG_9790 i never do jumping photos but i decided why not in front of the eiffel tower holding my cute kid IMG_0299 this boy is so my joy!!

France_4 Paris Museums

by August 19, 2016

I read a lot that traveling to France in the spring can be ideal. The weather is suppose to be quite nice and it’s less busy than in the summer. I was watching the weather like a crazy person, everyday, multiple times a day, leading up to our trip hoping and praying the weather was going to be good…needless to say it was sooo cold. Here’s the caveat, if you see the forecast for Paris and it’s in the upper 60’s as a Midwesterner you think ‘that’s not too bad’, however and trust me on this, it feels so much colder. As a result we visited more museums than I anticipated. I didn’t think we would go to so many just because our kids are so little and we didn’t think they would it enjoy it that much. But just like anything in life with a little or a lot of effort any place you go to can be fun for kids. And to be fair the weather was quite tolerable except for one day where I was downright miserable, what put me over the edge was the wet feet. I also may have been slightly annoyed because I couldn’t wear any of the cute outfits I brought. Oh well, all in all it worked out and frankly it being a cold, drizzly and grey Paris visit…kind of seemed fitting, don’t you think?

Here’s photos at some of the museums we frequented if you care to see:

IMG_9590 Even if you don’t have kids check out Paris’s Museum of Natural History. It is amazing!! I should mention there are branches to the Museum of Natural History. So we actually went to Museum of Comparative Anatomy and Paleontology thinking we were at the Grande Galerie de l’Évolution. Both are cool, but hands down you need to see Grande Galerie de l’Évolution.
IMG_9572 Do you ever worry that if your kids would see a tiger, lion or bear they would just walk up to it because they are convinced they are nice and maybe will start talking to them, thank you cartoons & books. I worry about that sometimes, but then I snap out of it and realize they will never run into that situation.
IMG_0271 I mean how cool is this museum?!!!
IMG_0270 Processed with VSCO with t3 preset Probably is one of my most favorite family photos on our trip! It’s pretty obvious, but we are outside the Louvre.
 IMG_9818 And sometimes we took photos pretending we didn’t have kids along…
IMG_9276 Tuileries Garden outside of the Louvre is also great. We went there multiple times to have the kiddos run around. IMG_9257 IMG_9259 IMG_9416 Checking out Sacre Coeur. We stayed not too far from here.
IMG_9396 Looking down from Sacre Coeur. The few times Nola was napping so Jonas got a taste of being an only child. IMG_9289 On the ferris wheel at the Tuileries Garden IMG_9434 My favorite museum was the art museum Musee D’Orsay. To be in the presence of art pieces from Van Gogh & Monet was unreal. 
 IMG_0311

Outside of the Center Pompidou.

If you ever have a question about places to see or do with kids in Paris please hit me up in the comments with questions and I would be more than happy to suggest things!

France_3 Random Paris Photos

by July 26, 2016

You guys remember when we took a vacation to France? Yeah me neither!!! Well I do, but it seems like a lifetime ago and when you have a list as long as a novel of things you need to get done it’s only reasonable that I would hop on here and decide to blog. I procrastinate people.

I decided I am going to do two more posts on Paris, one on museums and another on the Eiffel Tower, so this post is just random fun photos taken while in the city. I was brushing my teeth in my kid’s bathroom the other night bc our mirror’s aren’t up yet and I had this random strong desire to be back in Paris with my little family. It’s weird when those feeling will hit you. But I can’t tell you how much fun it is to go to different places in the world with your people.

Here are the photos if you care to see:

IMG_0278 there was a lot of this the entire trip. they fight, but their love is like no other. also can you see jonas’s eyelashes, they are sooo long, makes this asian mama jealous! IMG_0277 doesn’t she look french here?
IMG_0290 IMG_0314 when you travel with little one’s, some chores will follow you, like sweeping up crumbs from bread and croissants…trust me i wasn’t complaining. IMG_0264 my favorite boys! IMG_0315 IMG_0249 i would do an entire trip to paris just hitting up their markets, they are the best! IMG_9805 IMG_9802 IMG_9550 IMG_9467 farmer market treats IMG_0276 i love this photo and this is also the walkway to our airbnb.

France_2 Pharmacie and Laduree LOVE

by June 10, 2016

I really could do a post for each day we were in France, but that’s like when your family makes you sit down and look at 100’s of photos of their trip and your heart just sinks a little bit. And I promise we really do like seeing photo’s from people’s trips, we aren’t complete jerks!! Just not 100’s of photos?? Is that bad? Maybe…we’ll work on that. Anyways, so instead of 15 different posts maybe I’ll narrow it down to 7?!? But then again maybe I will do 15 and it will probably take the entire year to complete because I’m that sloooow these days. It’s a blog, you can choose not to read them if you want to :). Nola was just saying she missed vacation and I do too!! Plus I am up to my eyeballs on house stuff that I need a moment where I can reminisce and think about something else.

Where should I start, I guess it’s best to back up and first tell you what comes to my mind when I think about French women. They have a natural timeless beauty, they are confident, they wear ballet flats, they wear trench coats, they would never be out and about wearing yoga pants and a baseball hat…what they are is put together. This may or not be accurate but this is what I have ingrained in my head and honestly something I look up to and admire. There’s a reason I’m not French, because baseball hats save me truly, but I would love to be more put together and that it would be a daily norm. One reason I believe the French woman are so exquisite is because of the quality beauty products available to them at their Pharmacie’s. They have them all over Paris and I saw them even in the small town we were staying at in the country. These are not like your typical Walgreens, mind you. Along with wanting to see the Eiffel Tower it was my mission to find the fountain of youth at these Pharmacies.

After searching the pharmacies and claiming to cj once all of it was gone we were going to need to come back to Paris to get more, kidding – I later found out some of the stuff is sold on Amazon, naturally we headed out to find something to eat. On our list was Laduree and it did not disappoint. We let Nola get whatever she wanted and we of course choose some treats for ourselves as well.

Here’s some photos of the day if you care to see:

IMG_9226 Processed with VSCO with c1 preset IMG_9241 IMG_9242 IMG_9248 IMG_9251

France!

by June 1, 2016

It’s been almost a month since we have been to France and I can honestly say I want to go back!! I LOVED Paris and in a different life could see myself living there. We joke that my Asian-Adopted-Dutch-Self was a European in another lifetime. I just love the European culture and history! The US is practically a baby compared to Europe! I also realized I just miss being in a city. I lived in Chicago for 5 years and miss it a lot.

I figured I’d break up these posts up so I don’t overload you with photos.

IMG_9218 I feel that if you lived in a city sometime in your life where you used public transportation regularly it’s fairly easy to pick things up at any city. The metro was pretty easy to use, BUT there’s a huge caveat… it was not easy to use with a stroller, NOT EASY. But we were out and about all day so there was no getting around it. This stroller is where our kids could rest, take naps, etc. Though we ate our way in carbs delight we shed those pounds by lifting that stroller up stairs all day, everyday. By the end of the trip we easily wanted to throw that stroller out of the window of some moving vehicle, but we didn’t because I’m too practical and didn’t want to toss a couple hundred dollars away.

Processed with VSCO with c1 preset Notre Dame!

IMG_9125 IMG_9133 This was inside Notre Dame. I prayed for my kiddos at this exact spot and want to remember that. I should add our kids were maniacs for the entire time we were inside. IMG_9205 Isn’t this tree amazing!

IMG_9150 I’m sorry but this kid is the cutest thing in all the land! Plus add a crepe into those adorable chubby hands and forget about it! I love that kid silly!

IMG_9160 Best quote of the day, “look dad that monkey is tickling that guy”  IMG_9197 Here we are at Museum of Natural History of Paris.  I fell in love with the historic building of this museum! I want those exact wood floors in our new house.

When we travel we usually assume the first day is a wash since we are trying to figure things out and get the lay of the land. But surprisingly we jam packed a ton of stuff and had a really great day!