Disneyland Paris for Dummies

So let's just face facts upfront.  If you go to Disneyland Paris, you are a dummy.  There is really no way around it.  Once we accept the fact that there are no "real" deals to be had, no way around the exorbitant prices and no super smart ideas for avoiding lines, everything will be a bit easier to deal with.  Be prepared to spend the money on entrance tickets even when they are 20% off, be forewarned that you will spend $50 on a fast food like meal for lunch and that you WILL spend more time in line than actually riding rides.  If you are okay with all the above, which we were, you are good to go!  We can single handedly thank British Sky Free Sat for our decision to take Evans to Disneyland this past May.  Thanks to their aggressive ad campaigns, which aired every other commercial on the children's tv channel, we could hardly say no when Evans asked us every 5 minutes to take him to the 20th Anniversary of Disneyland Paris.  Deaner didn't need any excuses and consequently Mama was given a weekend in Paris/Disneyland for Mother's Day 2013.  I didn't complain.

One would think that May is a no brainer month to make the pilgrimage to Europe's version of the Magic Kingdom.  School is still in session so the crowds should be manageable and by late May, the weather should be tolerable.  Well don't go getting any ideas.  We were both crowd challenged and weather challenged if you can't tell by winter ski jackets the week before JUNE arrived.  

Thankfully it didn't seem to bother either of my two children much.  Deaner and I talked extensively before this trip about our concern that we would arrive and Evans would refuse to go on any rides.  He isn't exactly know for his sense of adventure or bravery.  We were pleasantly surprised when he jumped directly into the teacup with Daddy and had a ball.  I think Daddy did too.  I was concerned about the concept of actually waiting in line but even that wasn't too big of an issue.  

Thankfully we waited 55 minutes to meet Mickey Mouse.  Can't you tell how excited Evans is to get to the front of the line?

Okay well he might have psyched us out a little bit with this on.

Turns out he didn't want to meet the Mouse as much as we thought it did.  Once E got over the initial shock and fright of seeing Mickey, we were able to take a picture........with the Disney professional photographer.....for the small price of 18 euro, which Daddy gladly purchased.  

Deaner and I did wonder after the fact why, for 18 euro, they couldn't have photoshopped the shine off our faces.  Evans was still a little unsure of Mickey but he sure likes the picture now.  Don't forget to get the 3 euro cardboard souvenir frame.  

I know that everyone will be surprised to find out that one of Evans' favorite rides in the entire park was the Casey Jr. choo choo train.  I think we rode it four times the first day.  30 minutes is a long time to wait for a 2 minute train ride.  Thankfully Evans's parents love him. 

Daddy might have been a little nervous on this one.  

After a day of riding nearly everything age appropriate, Evans reverted to his old self and absolutely refused to ride the carousel.  Forget it.  Because why ride something so babyish after a day of real adventure?

Is anyone seeing the pattern of Deaner/Evans pictures?  Thankfully they had a mom along to document their trip!  Best part of the day was the parade down Main Street each afternoon at 5:30.  Who doesn't love these characters (at a safe distance)?

One of the only helpful tips I read before visiting Disney was that it was best to watch the daily parade as close to the start of it as you could.  Therefore, when the parade ended you could bolt and catch a ride with no line before the masses finished watching.  This worked for us and we were able to snag a ride on Dumbo without waiting for two hours.  

It's a good thing we were able to get right onto Dumbo because somehow we ended up with the only lame elephant on the whole ride.  That's right.  Our bunk elephant wouldn't take off from the ground!  If I had waited two hours for that ride I might have demanded another turn.  This was our last ride of the day so I was sort of over it by that point.  As you can see the weather cleared some by the close of day one.  

There was really no way we were going to make it until 10:30 for the Fantasy Dream fireworks and I think we left around 7pm.

None too soon for this little camper. 

We did have to rest up for Day two and the "real" Lightning McQueen.  Seriously though, how do people take 7 day Disney vacations?  I was EXHAUSTED after day one and while I can partly blame some of that on being newly pregnant, I imagine this sort of thing could wear anyone out!  Stay tuned for Day 2 and Walt Disney Toon Studios.  The trip wouldn't have been complete without it! 

Paris Day Two

So we might have had some rough weather on our first day, as well as the knife incident, so what could possibly go wrong on our second day?  Saturday dawned with sunny skies but still chilly temps.  We started the morning off at Musee d'Orsay, which was my personal favorite on our first trip to Paris.  d'Orsay is in an old train station and you literally cannot turn around without seeing a famous painting.  It has by far the best permanent Impressionist exhibit that there is.  It's not too shabby on the inside either.

This is Deaner and Evans in front of the giant clock that looks at Sacracour.  You can't exactly tell it's them but they didn't understand that and the picture is still cool. 

View from clock.  So cool.

Seeing a museum with a two year old was definitely a different experience than ten years ago with my mom, sister and grandmother.  It's a good thing that I really took my time ten years ago because we weren't here very long this go around.  I also can't pretend that I mind.  I am an in and out museum person and Evans was my perfect excuse.  If anyone wants to come and sight see with me, I'll have to bring Evans along, wink wink.  

After the museum and lunch we strolled down to Tour Eiffel.  Evans was WAY more impressed with the Eiffel Tower than with Notre Dame the previous day.  Despite the fact that he was under his much hated rain protector, he really enjoyed this part of sightseeing.    

Finally the rain stopped and we were able to let him out of plastic jail.  

Please note the difference in the sky.  Cloudy to pending thunderstorm to beautiful. 

A few that include me.  Thank God for the rear facing iPhone 5 camera.

I wish Evans could have managed to look a little happier. 

Hands down the best part of the day was chasing pigeons by the Eiffel Tower.  

It was a great (exhausting) day.

Finished off by dinner in the same steak restaurant where my mom, sister, grandmother and I ate in 1999.  

You have two choices in this place.  Do you want your steak medium or rare and do you want water or wine?  Pretty obvious answers to me.  They serve you TWO courses of steak and fries with the most wonderful sauce you have ever tasted.  Just ask my mom.  For the whole story.  Better get their 30 minutes before the place opens because the line wraps around the corner to get in!  

I feel like I need add these additional pictures at the bottom.  It just goes to show how cultured my son is after his trip to Paris.  He has not been able to stop himself from building lego Eiffel Towers whenever he has the chance.  This was his first attempt after seeing the real deal.  Not too shabby.

His second attempt while waiting in my doctor's office.  Not his best effort. 

And the latest creation.  Not sure exactly what it is?  It's the Eiffel Tower with a Kitty Cat on top.  I know.  I was a bit stumped too. 

Stay tuned for Disney pictures.  Finally.  I'm catching up with my life.  

Paris, France 2013

I get that this is not exactly the best picture I could have posted of Notre Dame but I feel like my readers will appreciate it more than any other I could have chosen.  Paris in the spring.....blue skies, fair temperatures, gay moods.......Not so much on our first day in the City of Lights.  I think that our winter ski outfits, the grey skies and Evans's pose sum up  the atmosphere on Day 1.  This picture makes me laugh every time I look at it.  Truly we were far from miserable though and it was a fun rainy day (once we got everyone [Evans] watered and fed).  We started on the Left Bank of Notre Dame because 14 years ago (I can't believe I'm admitting it was that long ago) my Grandmother, mother, sister and myself spent two weeks in Paris on our Spring Break.  The trip was memorable for a MILLION reasons (including Mom's tumble in the Louve which resulted in a broken foot) and it was so nice to start our re-visit to the city on the same street as the flat we stayed in all those years ago.  Unfortunately the weather wasn't ideal and Evans wasn't nearly as impressed with Notre Dame as we thought he might be.

Something about subarctic temperatures at the end of May seemed to be getting him down.  I could relate.  

But we soldiered on.  Our final stop of day 1 (there was a lot of walking involved in the interim) was to visit Musee de l'Orangerie.  Back in 1999 this was one of the top museums that we wanted to visit while in Paris.  My mother read to us about Monet's Waterlily's and how they were supposed to be fantastic.  Upon arriving in Paris and eventually l'Orangerie we noticed that it seemed pretty deserted.  As we walked up the steps to the museum it became obvious we were attempting to visit on a closed day.  There was a lone piece of paper tacked to the door (at least this is how I am remembering it in my head) that read something like this:

Dear Patrons:

Musee de l'Orangerie closed about 5 minutes ago for a few renovations.  We will re-open again in ten years.  Please plan on revisiting in 2009.  Sorry for any inconvenience this may have caused.

ANYWAYS.  

l'Orangerie WAS open this time around.  I was thrilled.  I was finally going to see those water lily's.  I post this next picture just so you can get an idea of Deaner's accouterments that were along for the day.

We stood in a relatively short line to enter the museum.  As we edged up towards the metal detector a sudden look of panic crossed Deaner's face and he mumbled that he would "be right back" only to turn around and fight his way backwards through the line and back out the front door.  I had no idea what was going on but went thru the metal detector and waited for him.  When he caught up to me 10 minutes later and I asked what in the world had happened he responded very nonchalantly "Oh.  That.  Well, I had a knife in my backpack and I didn't think they would let me bring it in".  Huh.  Ok.  So apparently my husband is that guy who carries a knife around in his backpack.  I wasn't aware either.  Why did he run back outside?  To HIDE his knife in the bushes.  Because that is where museum going knife carrying people stash their knives.  Knife and flashlight combo stayed home for Disney.  Water lily's = super cool.   

I was going to combine both Paris days into one post but my bed is calling my name and I'll have to finish day 2 tomorrow.  The weather and our moods perked up the second day in Paris so no worries there.  I'll leave you with a picture of Evans's favorite part of Day 1.  

Riding the train home, of course! 

How Can This Be?

How can it possibly be that the last time I blogged was back in April?  I have a few excuses up my sleeve but none of them really justify the span of MONTHS that it has been since I last filled the world in on the goings on in our lives.  Not that they have been all that exciting but we have had a few bits of excitement here and there!  I'll never be able to catch everyone up on the last three months in one post but I'll try and hit the highlights.  First and foremost (and most obvious) we would like to officially announce in blogland that we are expecting our second child around January 20th, 2014.  Deaner and I could not be more excited and surprisingly enough, Evans appears to be just as pumped as we are.  He has tagged along to all the doctor's appointments up to this point and loves going to "the mama doctor" to see the little baby on the screen.  He talks constantly about the baby (truthfully, he talks constantly about anything that strikes his fancy and most days I'm ready to put in the ear plugs by 5pm) and seems to really be into the idea of having a brother or sister.  We completely understand that this will more than likely change once the baby physically appears and can't be sent away.  For now he is happy to share with every single person he encounters that mama has a baby girl in her stomach and we are going to name her Charlotte.  This would all be good and well except that we don't know what sex the baby is yet.  If you ask him what we might name a baby boy he will tell you "Dump Truck" and then explain that it is a girl.  I'll worry about this in a few weeks when we find out for sure whether we are expecting a Charlotte or a Dump Truck and I'll keep y'all posted.

We have actually had a pretty busy summer so far though it has stalled out over the past few weeks with an actual "heatwave" in Germany.  Of course this means temperatures in the 90's but with no AC anywhere in Europe, I'd say the terminology is appropriate.  Deaner and I took Evans back in May for a long weekend in Paris which included two days in the city and two days in Disneyland Paris.

Though you can't tell from the above picture, Evans pretty much couldn't contain his excitement.

Especially when Lightning McQueen was involved.

Thankfully Mama was along to take all the pictures.  You might not be able to tell but I actually was on the vacation too.  They brought me along to be the official documenter.  More on that trip later.  The pictures of Evans are hysterical and they really do deserve their own post.  

On the heels of our trip to Paris we had a nice visit from Old Dad and Grandmag from Atlanta.  We had a blast and were sad to see them go at the end of June though we hardly had time to cry because the next week we meet the entire Gleaton family in Provence for a week in the South of France.  Again, there are too many pictures from these trips to start posting here but that gives me an excuse to not to wait 3 months before the next post.  Now we are almost to August, I've ALMOST finished re-decorating Evans's big boy room (just wait til you see the pictures) and we will find out if we will be having another son or a daughter on August 15th.  A big month for us coming up and I can't wait!  

For now I will leave you with some pictures from today.  When we got up this morning Evans and I had no plans for the day.  In order to avoid a whole day filled with this.....

We packed up and met Daddy for lunch.  Unfortunately Deaner had JUST had his eye dilated when we met up with him for some grub. 

Since his (8th) pair of nice glasses broke on Saturday, he actually had to wear the pair issued from the eye doctor.  Ha ha ha.  Evans found them highly entertaining and couldn't understand why Daddy didn't LOVE wearing them.

Hopefully Dad will remember to bring them home from work so we can play with them some more.  That's about if for our day today.  Evans is down for a nap and I am close behind him.  I don't remember being this tired when I was pregnant with Evans but of course, I didn't have an Evans back then to contend with.  Stay tuned and I'll fill y'all in on the rest of our travels from this spring and summer in the next couple of days.  Happy Tuesday!