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.

Thursday was our first full day in Paris. We all woke up around 10:30, I went downstairs to the bakery that was almost directly below us and bought a few croissants to enjoy as breakfast with eggs and fruit. The plain ones were divine, the chocolate left us wanting the ones from Quebrada. By the time we actually got out of the house it was past noon and we headed out walking over towards the Rodin museum. On the way, we stopped at the back of Invalides. It is a museum and a hospital and retirement home for veterans all in one. Surrounded of course by lovely gardens and stone walkways. Since museums, especially military ones, are not the girls main interest or forte we just looked around a bit, snapped a few photos and continued on. We went in last time Jordi and I came to visit.

We walked around a few more blocks and into the Rodin museum. I know I just said museums are not the girls main interest, but the Rodin museum is very different as it has two parts. The outside garden is just a beautiful garden full of Rodin’s bronze sculptures, and then his old house is full of more stuff but it’s small and it was very skippable for us. The garden is a wonderful place as it is outside with lots of room to run and move with a few neat statues along the way. Celia had fallen asleep on the way over and so we sat down to lunch once we got inside the garden in the little cafe. The french make such fantastic salads, I don’t know why they taste so much better than mine. Eventually Celia woke up and we went to explore the garden some more.

The photo above is from the back of the garden looking at the mansion. The girls were sitting separately and then I asked them to move closer and for Josie to hug Celia. She tried, and half a second after I managed to snap this, they were more wrestling than hugging. But the moment got an audible ‘awwwwwwwwwww’ from the many multicultural tourists standing around behind me, who also snapped some pictures. We had an odd experience of people taking pictures of our children. Not that the girls happened to be in the shot, but people actually taking their picture on purpose. Tourists are strange.

The statue in the middle of the pond above is of a man being forced to resort to cannibalism of his dead children because of extreme hunger. We did not explain, they did not ask. Rodin was a strange guy, he was definitely looking to evoke emotion with his art. He also makes the hands and feet on his statues enormous.

I snapped some more pictures too. Lots of backlit ones with the beautiful sun.

And the obligatory family shot so that I remember that I was there too!

Look at the straight, square trees, very typical french garden! We started to play games with the statues, trying to pretend that Josie was holding their hands or getting pet on the head. It kept her interested as we looked around. Mostly Celia just wanted to do this…

Josie humored me with a lot of portrait taking in some nicely lit places.

After the garden, Josie was losing it so we walked back toward the Eiffel tower. Josie fell asleep in the stroller, being majorly jetlagged and all, while Jordi carried Celia.

Along the way for a snack we stopped for some ice cream. Jordi got a kind of lemon/lime, I got caramel. It was hot and Celia actually agreed to take a taste. And this is when she learned about ice cream. I guess everything does taste better in Paris because once she finally tried the ice cream she loved it and kept going back for more, learning to say the word ‘cream’ as well! We headed over towards the Eiffel tower for some outdoor playtime. We found a playground along the big park in front of the tower and they both enjoyed getting to play on new equipment.

We also got our first introduction to french playground etiquette. Sand toys are all brought from home, sharing is not particularly encouraged, there is nothing just laying around for public use. There are no swings. Lots of nannies in this area, some of whom smoke while attending to their small children. They did have a smaller child and a larger child area which were nicely separated and a ton of public ping pong tables.

After playtime we headed to see the eiffel tower closer up. It always impresses! Unfortunately we also learned that only one elevator was working currently and reservations must be made 2 months in advance. The lines were very long and we pretty much gave up on that idea. It also stays light out very late this time of year in Paris, and so we still did not get to see the tower twinkling as it wasn’t dark yet. But we got the girls on the two-floor carousel, a very Paris tradition that the girls loved.

After some playtime, we attempted to get closer to standard dinner times. We headed back to Rue Cler and went to an italian restaurant. No high chairs but Celia did pretty well with sitting in a regular chair, although it may have gotten some pasta sauce smooshed into some crevices. It was a great first day in Paris.

Yay happy fathers day to the fathers out there including mine of course, my husband and my father in law!

Yesterday we spent our free time with my dad celebrating his birthday with a nice dinner out to Punjab, some gifts and some pie and home-made kitkat ice cream. Our friendly neighbor snapped this for us, showcasing the card Celia and Josie made for my dad. Celia painted the orange cake, Josie did the candles with her fingers. Note that some people are wearing a coat, in June, yikes is this weather weird.

Jordi’s mom came up for Josie’s birthday party and hung out with us a few more days. She got to do such fun things as take the girls to the doctor, and take me to the doctor for some strong medicine to finally get healthy. One day we went to the Stone Zoo as she had gotten Josie a membership for her birthday. We also played outside and inside and luckily on the day she had to leave we got to go to the Franklin Park zoo all together before we dropped her at the airport to just barely catch her flight. Josie and Celia loved to watch the gorillas, especially the baby one. We’ve been to the zoo at least 5 times now since getting the membership, we can get friends in too, so let us know if you want to go!

On Josie’s birthday we had a full house with three extra guests in our little place! We woke up and had waffles for breakfast at home and my parents joined us too. We had the traditional whipped cream, strawberries, butter and syrup on them, fully loaded. Then we headed into present opening where Josie got to open her whole big pile of loot. She got a great well-rounded set of presents from books to art and dress up and our big present to her was a new big girl bicycle. I made her (yet another) cake for us to celebrate with, this time a layer carrot cake with cream cheese frosting.

After some bike riding and playtime, Josie requested italien food for lunch, so we got some takeout from Sabatino’s.  And then we had a hasty cake and singing time as Javier and Bruna had to catch their flight back to Miami.

Celia I think was already napping by cake time, she was too tuckered out to make it. We said our goodbyes to Javier and Bruna and spent the lovely afternoon playing outside with my parents down at Waldo park and down on the bikes. Per Josie’s request I made lentil burritos for dinner and wished her a very happy birthday in the middle of dinner right at 6:39. More cake follows, boy we were full by the end of the day! It was a fun calmer day with us all at home relaxing and playing around the house with all the new fun toys.

Josie has been doing well with her new bike. No training wheels, she can ride across the basketball court and stop herself. Still working on getting going and she wants us to stay with her still too, but her balance bike has prepared her well. Celia has already claimed the balance bike well as hers and is trying really hard to master it already.

Josie’s party this year was the day before her actual birthday, with the usual party at my parents house with the bounce house, food and cake. Josie picked a theme of penguins and lollipops. I could not find penguin lollipops unfortunately so I went instead with making some cake pops that sort of looked like penguins. I am not terribly skilled with decorating confections, but I try. Josie thought they were pretty cute, but they seemed to be too sweet for the kids though several moms liked them. The girls and I had also made some paper penguins that we put on the walls and bought some big rainbow lollipops that we put out on the table.

We had a book exchange at the party which always produces the most amazing quiet calm time at a birthday party that I’ve ever seen!

Jordi’s mom had flown up that morning from Miami so she celebrated with us too.

I made some of my mom friends smile for a picture…

We had an art table. Interestingly enough, Celia was just wandering all over the party helping herself to whatever she wanted and doing whatever she wanted. She was completely comfortable which was pretty amusing and she’d just walk away from whoever was watching her quietly and swiftly until you’d turn around and have to find her again. She’d climb in the bounce house with the big kids, sit down and start drawing with markers at the table, and go help herself to some cheese.

At the end, they enjoyed the big lollipops.

Josie blew out her candles, after the wind blew them out first. [Photo credit to my mom as I was obviously not in a position to do this]

And then we sent them all home for their own dinner while we grabbed some pizza and soup even though we were all so stuffed from the party! But the partying didn’t end there… Sunday was her actual birthday and we started early.

Just before Josie’s birthday Jordi’s brother Javier and his girlfriend Bruna came to visit us. We tried to show them around town a little, took them to the Boston Common, got some dunkies coffee and went to the playground. We played around the fountain some and met up with Jordi for lunch at his company. Then Celia fell asleep on my back as we walked over through Faneuil hall and down to the carousel on the greenway. Josie got two spins around, once with Javi and once with Bruna before we walked over to the north end and got some cannolis from Mike’s Pastry. At that point we were pretty tired and headed for home, heading out again for a nice dinner at Punjab.

Josie wasn’t unhappy, I’m not sure what expression I caught there. Just ignore her.

It was fun to have some adult cooperative models for a change. But they both sure do blink a lot. They hung out with us until Sunday Josie’s actual birthday, celebrating at her party and on Sunday again with the family before they had to catch a plane back. They were great fun to have help play with the girls, and they all wore each other out! Late at night we also got to catch up a bit and chat which was fun.