Remembering France...

Family vacations are the best way to make good memories. Whenever I think of my most favorable childhood memories, they always seem to center around some family outing or vacation. So Harvey and I are building our own family memories. I overheard our girls once say during their make believe playtime, "Let's pretend we are girls that travel all over the world." I guess it is apparent that they haven't a clue that they have not only traveled all over the world but have lived all over the world! Although they may not appreciate the uniqueness in their voyaging; Harvey and I do, and we are surely having fun. Here is a brief synopsis of our trip to France:

Day 1:
In the evening, we arrived safely in France and made it through our arduous 1 hour flight! We rented a car and navied our way to the Hilton which to our delight had a pool. Harvey took the kids swimming while I put Rylie to bed and read a book, which alloted me peace and quiet, the only peace I was to recieve for the next 8 days!

Day 2:
We drove to Euro Disney, where we stayed at the resort. Carson got to meet his Mickey, Goofy and Pluto...and we were able to make a day doing all the small kiddie rides


Day 3:
One more day at Disney, we woke up early enough to get on the rides that were too crowded the day before, but all too soon the rain overtook the day and we headed back to the hotel. The kids went to the pool and remained there for nearly 2 1/2 hours. When they got back, I took Carson and Madison to the parade where they could see all the Disney clubhouse characters and princesses. Once dark hit Savannah and I went back into the park where I forced her to ride the "Space Mountain" ride with me. Lucky for her, this time she didn't cry! All in all, I realized my kids could have forgone Disney all together and just gone to any random hotel anywhere in the world as long as it had a pool and would have been just as happy.




Day 4:
We got back into our rental and drove West! This time settling in a beautiful country town called Brives. We stayed with some work friends of Harvey, whom were way more accomadating then we deserved. They made us feel so welcome and comfortable. They had a 9 year old grand-daughter and a 6 year old grandson and we seriously didn't see our kids the entire time we were there. They had a blast playing, and Rylie felt free with a room of her own and space to explore. I was able to see France at it's truest. I have always longed to see the French countryside. We stayed in our friends villa and the town was covered in vineyards (unfortunately they were still hibernating). Unbelievable!

Apparently these fields of gold are fields of sunflowers in the summer, I guess well have to go back in the summer to find out!

Madison rarely has bad moments but she definitely had one on the trip down to Brives. She had quite the tantrum and it was all over having to eat a ham sandwich, because that was all we had in the car. So Harvey had to stop the car and take her to what is now "Madison's tree" to have a cool down and a chat with daddy on what having a good attitude can do for the family.



Day 5:
We went to a city near the ocean called La Rochelle. It had some fun architecture, but nothing compared to what we were about to see in Paris! We also visited the aquarium that was there, because once again it started to rain! But I have to note that unlike England when it is done raining the sun actually comes out!


Rylie was so adorable with this Golden Retriever named Jemma, it was Anne's sons dog. Rylie would scream and yell and get so excited when she saw him, but as soon as he put his snout to her face she would cry, and all her bravery and attention seeking would fly out the window.


Day 6:
We started our drive back to Paris. We asked Anne (Harvey's friend) where we could do some sight seeing along the way and she offered up one of our greatest memories of France; the city of Ambroise. It was an old city where Leonardo Divinci spent his last days in. We were able to visit the castle and Leonardo's villa.


Some of the homes in Ambroise were actually built into the rock, like this one. I chose this one because of the contrast from the old stone rock home to the satellite dish stapled on the front!




Day 7:
We arrived the previous night in Paris. I was so excited to get out and see the sights. We headed out early and traveled by subway to the Sacre Couer, Champs Elysees, Arc De Triomphe, and of course you can't visit Paris without seeing the Eiffel Tower. The kids did great! I can't believe after all the walking they did, they still had smiles on their faces when we finally made it back to the hotel that night.


Sacre Couer


Sweet Maddie with the view of Paris behind her





Hmmm, what are they looking at?


Why it's the belly of Eiffel!


Day 8:
We ventured out for yet another day in Paris. We were able to see the home of the hunchback Cathedral Notre Dame, we also saw the Louvre, but sad for me we weren't able to go inside, something about taking all 4 kids into a museum of that nature scared me somewhat. We had done so well up to this point why push our luck?! After the Louvre, the kiddos had had it!!! They were ready to go home. So we packed our bags yet again and left back to the Hilton with the pool, which I failed to mention before is a hop, skip and jump away from the airport.

Rylie and the Louvre!


Notre Dame


We arrived with Baguette munchies and we finished the trip off with them too!


Day 9:
Home again, home again, jiggity jig!!! The flight home was the only thing I must admit was horrendous about this entire trip. I think Carson threw his all time tantrum and Rylie cried non-stop. But what can you expect when they have spent 8 days away from home and were on the move constantly.

To sum it all up, this was by far the best trip we have ever taken. I hope this memory will be a sweet one to the children because it will certainly be treasured by the parents.

Disclaimer: Harvey took the majority of the photos posted here. He is awesome!