After the morning set of pictures, we headed out for Luxembourg garden. I had seen video and photos of the Luxenbourg garden in french class in high school from a set of videos called “French In Action.” Can’t say they looked much the same or different as the videos were in such small sections of the park and we didn’t explore the whole thing either. Anyone else subjected to those stories?

We started off at our biggest attraction which was the sail boats. For 2 euros you can rent a wooden toy sailboat for 30 minutes to float around in the fountain. A few grown-ups brought their own serious remote control ones, but mostly it’s these wooden boats, getting caught in the wind and being pushed away from the side by children running and then shoving with sticks.

Jordi has the stick in the above picture. Every time the boat gets near the wall you give it a shove with the rubber tipped end. Then the wind takes it around the fountain. That means of course that you’re running around trying to get to the thing and guess where it will go. In half an hour we probably only pushed on it about six times as it got stuck circling the middle where there’s a little house for ducks for a while. One other time another kid pushed on our boat, which left Josie livid. It was a great use of 2 euro and half an hour though.

Celia pretty much just played with the rocks on the ground and tried to throw them into the pond which we were not supposed to do.

After the sailboats we headed up deeper into the park to find the infamous ‘best playground in Paris’. First we found the swings. We hadn’t found any other swings here in Paris. They were 2 euro for a whopping 5 minutes on the swing. We were on vacation so we went for it, and so did a lot of other french parents that we saw. They were two seater swings each in their own tiny fenced in area, metal with metal rods hanging down so they went back and forth precisely in those fences. Josie liked it but Celia refused to try.

After the swing we went on to find the playground which was also for a fee, about 5 euro for the family I think which wasn’t too bad. It had a huge sand pit, zip line, climbing structures and rocking elements. Still no swings. But the structures were huge and they were challenging. Josie actually slipped on one of the rope bridges and scared herself for a while, but she eventually made it back on and slid down a 15 ft slide. They had really tried to make the structure good for older kids, not masterable by a 4 year old. The other cool thing they had is a basic kind of circular zip line. Josie was brave enough to jump on it and did a great job hanging on all the way around. It was a great example of the bigger kids helping the smaller ones too getting the lines around the circuit and back up to the launch area.

Celia spent more of her time in the sand box and was eventually persuaded to do a little climbing. They had toilets available which was helpful as public toilets are few and far between in Paris and they even had a kid sized one. After the playground it was time for our daily trip around the carousel. The one in this park though does not have a floor and the animals do not go up and down. It was old! They had one cart that they tied Celia into so she could ride and not fall off since we couldn’t stand next to her or ride with her and that worked out ok. For the experienced kids, i.e. not Josie who refused, they had a game that each kid was given a short sword like thing and the man running the machine held up a device that held rings that could be pulled out. So as the child went around, they were to aim their sword at a ring and yank it off and see how many they could collect. It was a nice touch and some of the kids were really good at it.

After the merry-go-round we headed over to the park cafe for lunch. We had made up cards that said we were ovo-lacto-vegetarians, but with more explaining words and tried to give it to these people to ask what we could have. They sent us around to the restaurant, clearly having not read it. Eventually we got some cheese sandwiches and french fries (meal of champions of course). During lunch Josie had seen the pony rides going by and wanted to go on one. Celia was really exhausted and losing it at this point so I walked along with her in the stroller behind Josie on the pony ride. This was probably one of the biggest smile-producing events for Josie on the trip. She’s always looking around and thinking about three things and sometimes has a hard time staying in the moment (perhaps like her mother?) but she greatly enjoyed the ponies and managed to finagle two rides out of us on the biggest and smallest ponies.

After the pony rides we walked around to explore the park some more, admire the square trees and the lovely pathways. We found where they play boule, a game like bocce. I particularly liked their neat picking up the ball magnetic devices on cords to prevent them from having to bend down and pick up the balls.

Jordi and Josie had some ice cream-like-stuff, a crepe for me, and we headed back home for some more Italian takeout dinner relaxing at home.

Sunday was mother’s day, at least in the US. I looked it up before we went and the french have their own day which isn’t the same as ours. But to us it was mothers day. I got a little time to sleep in, and the girls gave me a very nice card that they had made. I also requested time to take pictures, because that’s what I like to do! I got some cooperation, especially from Josie.

I learned how people love to take pictures of people on beds with big white blankets. Great natural reflector of light, people are comfortable and can move around a lot.

Boy some day I cannot wait to have a gigantic bed and get a big white cover for it, to only be used for photoshoots, because we have cats that puke on the beds regularly.

And then we headed out for some family time doing family things. We were in Paris, I was with our little family, what a great mother’s day present. To be continued…

Yesterday our family got a bike trailer! Nothing fancy, but it seems to be doing the job. The girls enjoyed a brisk ride over to Spy pond playground, pulled by Jordi. We played and then we came back home, and in this picture, even though you can’t see it well, Celia is asleep. We’re looking forward to some more family adventures on bike, or at least giving me a way to get around town a bit better when Jordi takes the car for work.

This morning our preschool group drove up to Gloucester to enhance our lessons on castles at Hammond Castle. As usual with all trips, we arrive, and then we eat.

It was built in the 1920’s by a man made wealthy by inventing new kinds of remote control to be used in the war. It was built taking inspiration from his favorite parts of Europe including using gargolyes, a rose window, flying buttresses as well as small cross windows to make it hard to shoot arrows inside. It was eclectic. Also not the best place for small children as the entire museum is ‘don’t touch’ so Blake and Celia were carried through. The grounds outside were lovely though and the kids loved finding the different lions around. The drawbridge was also a big hit. All-together I was actually a bit disappointed though because it was hard  to get any information about anything, it was just a self-guided look at things tour, not too many explanations or detailed information on items. Josie was mostly concerned that someone would try to knock it down while we were in it. She and Bronwyn also had a heated discussion about whether the knight’s armor would be what someone would wear if they were to knock down a castle. Celia loved to walk up and down the steep stone stairs and sit on the lions. Blake celebrated the huge truck that was there to deliver and install a tent. He wanted his photo taken with the truck wheel.

Let today be the day on record that Jordi declared himself ‘old’ because he did not want to go on any of the carnival rides and possibly feel sick to his stomach.