Paris II – Our 15th Anniversary!

Since we could see the sun out our hotel window and no hint of rain, we set out this morning to see the Eiffel tower first. The line stretched forever though so we decided to scrap that and come back later. We snapped a few pics, ok a ton of pics, and then set off to find a metro map. Oops, in the hustle to leave the hotel I forgot our pop-out map! We found a station and gladly took another free metro map! Whew!

We decided to stop in the park and eat our sandwiches that John made, they were fantastic! Next stop, the Louvre! Venus de Milo, Winged Victory and the Mona Lisa, just to name a few! This museum is so overwhelming, we stuck to just one floor and just saw a few of the majors. Our plan was to see the Musee d’ Orsay later to catch Monet and Van Gogh, we ran out of time though and the kids voted it out. We tried to let them dictate this trip as much as possible. It was a good experience for me to not be in control of everything and relinquish the plan to someone else. For instance, we are driving home to Germany as I type this. The kids voted out Normandy, I was very excited about this stop but realized in Rome that this was not going to happen, we were already too tired! There was also a castle that Disney used as inspiration with some of its castles. It’s free ‘till June and just over an hour outside of Paris. That was also voted out. Oh well, no sense touring so much that it’s not fun anymore! It’s good for me to see that the world continues turning even when I don’t get to “see it all”! Ok, moving on!

The Louvre was the start of something that caught John and I by surprise. Maps, multiple maps can provide much distraction and fun for our three younger children. Especially Jarod & Laura. We allowed them to each grab a Louvre map and they were obsessed! Instantly! They made up games, and carried the maps around the rest of the day. Even carrying into our drive back to Germany. We got them each a free map of Paris from the hotel and they just play, and play, and play, and play! It’s crazy! They love seeing the icons of the places they now recognize from Paris on the map. Who knew?

We stopped by Arc de Triumph so I could take a picture of the Arc and the phone booth from the movie French Kiss, with Meg Ryan and Kevin Kline. We didn’t see one. There is a phone booth but not on the street that it appears to be on in the movie. Oh well, it was still beautiful!

Notre Dame. Even as sore as our feet have been, the kids still wanted to go up in the bell tower. The view from up there is wonderful!

Yea, more steps! The crowds just keep appearing. I waited for a bit to try and take a pic of the steps of Montmartre but alas, there was no break in pedestrian traffic. It’s still beautiful. And, once again, the kids hoofed it up with no complaint!

The kids managed to finish up most of their shopping here,

then we stopped for a look at Sacre Coeur.

We walked down the steps, much nicer than going up!, and set off towards the Eiffel tower. We were being flexible as our plan was to go up during the day but the night came upon us too quickly. We were also delaying our date night. Jess and Lucy were prepared to hold down the fort one night so John and I could go out for our anniversary. We were going to go while in Italy but it never worked out. Going to an Italian restaurant actually ON our anniversary seemed a fine alternative.

The lines were much smaller now, nearly non-existent compared to earlier in the day. While in the elevator going up, someone asked who was going to propose tonight. John of course raised his hand! He jokingly asked me to marry him again on the ride back down the tower. I of course said “yes”!

Any idea who Jessie’s new boyfriend is??? We didn’t notice this guy until I was looking through the pics as I type this blog! We thought you’d enjoy the laugh as well! (Notice BOTH his hands in front; this is why we can laugh instead of hunting him down!)

At the metro station we decided to split up and race back to the hotel. There were two lines close by so we thought we’d live it up our last night is Paris. John took Lucy, Jarod and Jenna while I had Jess, Leah and Laura. There was some mild confusion as the second option was closed for repair work. John ended up beating us back, big time. We were a block away from the hotel when he caught us on the street. His “group” was already up in the room getting jammies on. He was headed to the grocery store to pick up some extra things for dinner. We had a few sandwiches left from lunch but thought they’d like some more. Jess took my “group” up while I went with John. We decided that instead of trying to find the awesome Italian restaurant near Notre Dame that we had loved in ’05, we’d ask the concierge if there was a nice Italian place nearby. We brought the kids their goodies and left the hotel for our anniversary dinner at about 10pm. We had to laugh when the restaurant he directed us to even had Venice in the name! Today, the 27th was also Grandpa Herb’s birthday. He passed away on January 11th so in honor of him John wore the hat of his that Grandma gave us. He used to wear a hat similar to this when we were dating, I still think he looks handsome in hats like this! I might not have used the word “handsome” back then, mighty fine maybe! We completely enjoyed our dinner and leisurely wandered back to the hotel, just the two of us.