Logan's Long, Overdue Birthday post!

Logan is 4!! 2 months ago actually... ha! But it's totally still valid because every time Logan talks to someone he likes to tell them he's 4 now as if his birthday was yesterday.

Logan had his race car 4th birthday on September 14th. His homemade, made with love cake was courtesy of betty crocker boxed cakes and should clearly appear as a race track!

I was so excited leading up to his birthday because of this bouncy castle. Such a good party accessory... kids occupied!

Logan didn't want to play alone on it before his friends came over and then when everyone left he didn't want to play on it again but then we they came to take it, he wanted it back to play!

The chaos of all the climbing children... and everyrone having an awesome time. Especially the 11 year olds!

Logan got so many goodies and for some reason opened his presents in his construction vest|! This is the best picture of the process with the tissue mid air.

For Logan's birthday he got a scooter and after his birthday party we went out to give it a whirl. This kid is such a natural for things like this... riding his 2 wheeler at 3 and then nailing the scooter right away!

On Sunday the 15th we went to the air show. My favourite part was the kids in the earmuffs. They had a few fun moments of looking at the planes, boats and the shows but they are a bit young to fully enjoy it all! Logan's favourite were the rescue boats. We weren't there for long until it started to rain!

And Monday was Logan's actual birthday. We reserved our present for that day so he still had something to open and he loved his beyblades and beyblade stadium! Since his birthday was on a school day, I wanted to make it special for him so I sent little bubble presents for his classmates and gave him a birthday boy pin!

J'adore Paris day 3, 4 & 5

It's taking me so long to finish my Paris post! I blame working. I used to be able to blog when the kiddos went to bed but now since I can't work out most days during the day (I sometimes squeeze in a lunch workout), I have been doing 8pm workouts.

Day 3 (Wednesday) we tied to make plans not so crazy since we were walking 30,000 steps each day so the plan was to do a river cruise and then that night we had moulin rouge booked at 11pm so supper beforehand.

We thought we'd find a river cruise pretty fast but that didn't happen. I was a good 12,000 steps in before we came across a cruise! We did get to eat lunch along this pretty river though (we grabbed lunch from our favourite bakery on our street) and walked pretty much the entirety of it.

But the nice part was once we did find our river cruise, we got to have a beer on dock while waiting for the boat to come back and then we could buy take away beer for the boat! All the kronenbourg!

 So many views of the eiffel tower, this one from the river. It was interesting to see all the monuments and buildings of Paris with commentary. So interesting that the eiffel tower was a gift for the world fair and the Parisians hated it because they thought it was ugly.

We definitely didn't think it was ugly and got excited every time we saw it!

It was so interesting that after the huge fire that happened in April that knocked out most of Notre Dame, that it wasn't mentioned at all in the commentary. They talked about Notre Dame like nothing had happened...

You can see from the scaffolding that the whole back was gone.

Ok, this wasn't part of the river cruise tour, but was way too cool! This guy was pulling things out of the river with what looked like a fish hook and picked up multiple bikes and electric scooters (which are everywhere there)!

We made it out for supper! This was the first real sit down meal we had (the meal we had in versailles only half counts because we didnt order full entrees!). This restaurant was right on the street our hotel was. It wasn't the frenchest food but that pizza was delish. And the wine is good no matter what.

We had our supper and then headed to the subway toward the district where moulin rouge is (which was closer to the montmartre area). We got there early around 9:30-10pm and found that the area where Moulin Rouge is was not the nicest and we ended up at a weird bar to have a beer before the show.

But we made it inside for the 11pm show, complete with champagne! The show was so well done... sexy yet tasteful. And equally for women as men!

Moulin rouge is beautiful... and the surrounding it is weird sex shops, spin off moulin rouge shows and just dingy shops.

We got out just as they were closing down the subway station and we had no idea they closed at 1am! We asked the first cab we saw how much it would be to get to the arc de triumphe and they said 40 euros. I said I would walk (google said it was a 40 min walk) and then by chance we asked another cab who said it was 10 euros max and got in that one. Clearly there are some scammer cabs out there! Just like our Vegas scammer cab.. I learned my lesson!

And on the way back to the hotel, we grabbed some street food. Crepes obviously... with the signature french shredded cheese (it doesnt sound or look the best but is so good!).

Day 4 (Thursday)... stopping by our favourite bakery on our street. We went here every day at least once. She was the best. On this day, we grabbed some quick breakfast (pastry plus cappuccino) before heading to Montmartre!

We had seen so many pictures of this well known cafe before our trip so we knew we wanted to stop here for lunch. I thought it would be much busier, but we were able to get a pretty good spot. The way to eat at restaurants in Paris is outside and facing out.

A traditional ham and cheese sandwich done france style with the cheese broiled on top.

And walking around Montmartre we found lock bridge 2.0. I guess people in France put their love locks everywhere.

The views from the church were amazing since they are right on the hill.

After going through the church oddly through the middle of a mass, we decided it would be worth the 7 euros to go up to the top of the church for the view. It was so worth it! It was a crazy workout having to go up hundreds of stairs but you could see the condensed huge city with the oldest buildings and the eiffel tower there in the horizon.

After montmartre and lunch, we grabbed a subway and train all the way over to the Saint Denis Primark for shopping. We fell in love with Primark in Glasgow so decided it was worth it to go out of our way for shopping specifically at this store. It wasn't as great for us as we remember but we both got a few things. But we got lots of kids things! We thought it looked like a rough neighbourhood (the glass from broken car windows on the road gave it away!) and after the fact read that it wasn't the safest of neighbourhoods... oops.

And Thursday night was another Eiffel tower night complete with wine, baguette, jam and cheese.

We changed up the view this night and went to the closer park right in front of the tower so we had to look way up for our view this night! The "beer, wine, beer, wine" vendors were there too... and rats. But we were prepared for both... avoiding the rats in the bushes and loaded with extra wine in our backpack!

This was out spot. So close to the tower and obviously wine in hand.

Both nights we went to the Eiffel tower, we sat for hours and watched it like a fire. But what we noticed the more common thing was to take staged pictures... and a million of them and then once you get the right shot, you leave.

This is a very nice girlfriend right beside us taking the perfect shot of her boyfriend... he also had a bag from some expensive store to really make his Instagram picture impressive. They took these pictures and then left. I don't think they saw the tower from their own eyes... just the camera.

Our hotel! The arc d'elysee! It was small, but clean and modern and in the perfect spot for everything.

The kiddos clothing haul from Primark. So many cute things for cheap.





















Friday morning was our last day in Paris. We only had breakfast which we got from our bakery and then ate on the champ elysees before heading to the airport by subway and train. The train to the airport was nutty and I hardly got myself and my luggage on at one of the stops. It was so congested and people just pile on top of each other pretty much. But we made it home for Friday evening... even if we didn't get to sit together on the plane. That was the first time in all our travels that we didn't get seats together.

J'adore Paris! Days 1 & 2

The last week of August (which also feels like forever ago), we went to Paris for our 5 year anniversary. This was kind of a spontaneous destination choice because we had talked a lot about Greece and other longer journeys like Thailand, but Paris seemed to fit our 5 day limit perfectly!

It was 3 flights to get there but we didn't find it too bad since travelling without kids is a vacation in itself. We also left directly from London which was super convenient and just a better friendly airport to go from.
We finally got there around 7am Paris time which was 2am our time so we were pretty tired. Too tired to figure the transportation system out right away and spent $50 on a bus to our hotel (our subway back home was only around $10!). But after the bus dropped us off, we were right beside the arc de triumphe and this is the first thing we saw! It is way bigger in person than I thought.

Our hotel was about a 10 minute walk from the Arc and luky for us we were able to check in when we got there around 9am and sleep!!

After a good nights rest from 9am-1pm, we started our first day adventure at the bakery that became our favourite on the street right by our hotel. Every morning we would grab espressos or cappuccino and pastries and she had the best!

After walking down the Champs D'elysee where all the shops are (Loius Vuitton is how we knew we were at our street!), and stopping at all the sights along the way heading toward the Louvre (or as we like to say the Loove), we had a little stop at the restaurant in the park for a drink. It was a great first sit down experience taking 20 minutes to take our order, 20 minutes to serve our singular drinks and Aleksy ordering this flat, red grenadine beer.

Getting closer to the Louvre we saw the ferris wheel and glad I got this picture because we saw it go down and get hauled away on trucks the day after!

And we made it to the louvre! We were more there for the architecture and exterior than the art work inside. We are not gallery people so we sacrificed seeing the Mona Lisa because we knew it wouldnt be our thing! We also heard on our river cruise that if you took a few seconds to look at every picture in the museum, it would take 2 months so...

Nearby the museum, we found a wine tasting room, les caves de louvre. This is when we first realized that every wine in France is good. It doesn't matter what the kind, if we don't usually like it back home.... all delicious!

After walking all the way to the louvre, we didn't realize how far we had walked out and were pretty tired of walking. And on the way back, we accidentally ran into the lock walking bridge!

There was a street vendor right there selling overpriced locks at something crazy like 10 euros so obviously we bought one to lock down our love (until they have to cut them down again if it weighs the bridge down!).

We ran into so many good surprises this day including this street with so many shops and take away crepe places.This ham and cheese crepe was amazingly cheesy!

That night we had planned on heading to the Eiffel tower but by the time we got back to the hotel it was past 8pm and we were exhausted so we stayed in, had some delicious 5 euro grocery store wine with some cheese and ham and 1 euro brie.

The next morning, we went down to the subway station by the Arc de triomphe and got a deal of a ride all day pass for 3.40 euros each! We grabbed the subway and then transferred to a train to head to the Castle of Versailles.

This is the grounds of Versailles. So big and beautiful.

And we rented bikes and rode around the grounds for an hour. This was the best decision. We would have never known how big the grounds truly were without bikes! This day we wished that we had packed a baguette and wine for a little picnic on the grounds but what happened each time on this trip was when we packed wine, we carried it all day and there was no opportunity to sit and enjoy it and if we didn't bring it we wished we had.

We also were able to check out some of the water fountain shows (kind of like the Bellagio but castley) and the whole outdoor grounds had classical royal music playing to set the tone!

McCafe... but not the same as ours! This one had tons of macaroons... all the flavours! We had some and they were delicious. Im pretty sure there was no traditional coffee that we serve. Just espressos and cappuccinos.

After exploring Versailles including getting take away heinekens, finding that toilet seats are not necessary in washrooms, and biking the grounds, we walked into the town of Versailles for some lunch. We picked the spot we thought looked the most french and then picked the most french food we could... french onion soup and escargot! The escargot was chewy but not gross at all.

After a busy morning of walking around and the train back, we had our daily rest time from being on our feet from around 6-8pm then headed to the Eiffel tower equipped with baguette, jam and wine to enjoy the view!

We got a good spot in the front of the back park this night and learned that there are about 1000 vendors out selling everything every night there at the tower... we got Leah a backpack, Logan a toy bird that flies and even bought some wine from the guys yelling "beer, wine, beer wine!" all night as we try to have a romantic evening by the Eiffel tower.

After a bottle of red and champagne bottle, thsi street meat looked and smelled so good. It was on the bridge on the way back to the subway and this is the only "street meat" we saw. Street crepes were clearly more of the french thing...

The problem with drinking all the wine by the eiffel tower is there are no washrooms anywhere! So bushes were it and I had to hit them a couple times and this was the time Aleksy saw rats in the bushes beside us. I heard them but didn't see them thank goodness!

Those "beer, wine, beer, wine!" vendors got us even on the way to the subway back home and we were not stable enough to make the responsible choice to say no and this happened openly on the way home. Seemed like a great idea at the time...

The light show of sparkly lights was every hour on the hour in the evening (last one I think was midnight but we only made it to 10pm this night and 11pm the other night we went!).

The Annual Boat Weekend

We can't miss a year! Sail boats and kids under 4 are not the best mix in the world with confined spaces for long periods of time, minimal sleeping spots, and of course the dreaded life jacket (which I think we are in the clear for after this year because Leah will be 2 and will understand better next year!) but each year gets better and more enjoyment from the kiddos and its worth it every time!

Boat weekend was August 10th and Logan was equipped for the road trip with his smoothie and tablet of downloaded shows. Lucky for us the drives to and from were pretty good (aside from Leah getting sick on the way home.. she's been doing that more lately!).

We got there at lunch time so went in to eat straight away! I made tuna salad the night before (and smelled like fish all night) so it was easy peasy. These 2 though... Logan wouldn't be about the celery and onion so he had his noodles with pesto. Leah's just as picky (although spits out pretty much all vegetables) but did have some.

That weekend wasn't the warmest and with the wind and other boaters saying it was choppy out, we decided not to take the kiddos out for a sail on the Saturday so we didn't scar their opinions of sailing! Also so I didn't have a heart attack afraid for the kids... We hung out on the boat and around the marina instead!

Logan officially loves the boat! He even didn't mind that we didn't sail the Saturday because he just likes sitting at the front (I have to say bow because Paul would be very upset...) so exciting! He really wanted to go into the window thats a sky light for the bathroom (again Paul... the head).

Although this little cutie is basically running now, here she was content to just hold hands and meander the marina. Logan was pretty pumped about the Police boat and later when having our supper at one of the bbq areas in the marina we saw a Police officer speed to the boat and set off... so exciting! It was basically straight from Paw Patrol...

fam boat picture!

We had some bbq for supper, then headed to our hotel around 8pm that night with  plan to go out the next morning for a sail!

Anything that includes snuggles is Leah's favourite! Logan is also into snuggles but way more into tv! They had some snacks and then crashed in the hotel... Logan with his own double bed, Leah with her playpen and us roughing it with the other double (why do we always get the beds that sink into the middle!?)

They even slept in until 730am! A quick breakfast snack and bottle before heading back to the boat!

She'll just take the whole banana... and throw the cheerios by the handful.

We got some McD's breakfast, which Logan thought could be better enjoyed by the ducks. All the pancakes except for Leah's portion went to Logan's little duck friends...

Life jackets on and ready to sail! I even got a smile out of Leah here despite her having it on!

This was Leah the whole sail. Just like Logan when he was 10 months. She even fell asleep the last 20 minutes or so! Logan loved it and will probably love it more when he can start helping with things. It was a perfect day for it... not too windy that we were heeled over but windy enough that we went!

After our sail, it was nap time for Leah so we headed back home. She slept until about Cambridge then got sick when she woke... she has been doing this a lot lately poor babe.