First day = done!

Mateo had a great first day today!  The kids and I got ourselves together early this morning and drove Mateo to school, only to find absolute parking insanity happening when we got there.  We live only about 5 minutes from school and had left with plenty of time to spare, but arrived to find a huge traffic jam going into campus and then a massive, sports-stadium-like parking disaster inside.  The main parking lot was completely full and the overflow lot was also full.  There was literally nowhere to park, and people were circling like vultures looking for slots.  It became clear much later that there was an upper school convocation thing happening at the same time as the drop-off time for little kids and it just exceeded the parking lot's capacity.  Poor Mateo was getting very worried that we were going to circle forever and never find a space, but then, luckily, someone finally pulled out in front of us and we parked.  Whew!

We went in and there was quite a crowd there already, as the kindergarten and pre-K parents were all dropping off at the same time.  We found Mateo's cubby and shoehorned all his stuff into it (lunch, snack, water bottle, change of clothes, rain boots (necessary from day one because of the little manufactured creek that runs through their playground), and backpack).  Poor Natalia was completely overwhelmed by all the people, but she hung in there. Then, we went into the classroom, where Mateo's teacher greeted him and sat him down to play with wooden tiles along with all the other kids who were already there.

I could barely say goodbye to him because I was so choked up, but Tali and I both gave him hugs and wished him a good day and then we were out and his day had started!  He seemed completely fine - no tears or looking over his shoulder or anything.  It reinforced my gut feeling that he is totally ready for this.  We went outside to try to join the parent coffee, but Tali was overwhelmed by all the chatting adults and Rosie was trying out her loudest vocal inflections, so I ended up just taking them to the playground for a few minutes instead of talking to the other parents.

From there, the girls and I went on to have a full day.  We went to OMSI for the whole morning and part of the afternoon and then came home briefly to play before picking up Mateo.  I have to say, it was pretty jarring to go right from the emotional drop-off moments to regular, everyday mom stuff again.  I wish there had been some way for me to have a few quiet minutes to regroup before embarking on the day with the girls...but, that was impossible, and it did make it impossible for me to mope around feeling sentimental!

Tali and Rosie and I had a lot of fun together at OMSI.  I think Tali really liked being able to decide where she wanted to go and how long she wanted to stay at each exhibit.  I mean, I usually let the two big kids decide together, or alternate deciding if they're having a hard time, but I'm sure it was very different and fun to get to choose things completely on her own!  We stayed at OMSI for almost 4 hours!  Fun was had by all.  Rosie even held off on napping until 1 pm, when we left, which is way late for her.  She was asleep within seconds of getting strapped into her carseat!

Before we knew it, it was time to get our big boy again.  From what he said about his first day, it sounds like it was a resounding success.  He loves the school, his teacher, and is excited to have made a friend today.  His favorite part of the day was their visit to the lower school library, which we reprised after we picked him up.  Our book-obsessed boy practically dragged the girls and me straight there.  In fact, one of the most impressive things about the day, to me, was that the librarian greeted Mateo by name when we walked in after school.  I was so impressed that he remembered him after meeting him only one time!

Tomorrow is another day, and is going to be the first day when both big kids are in school at the same time!  I am hoping that Tali will have a good day at school, as she has been very quiet during her last couple of days there.  Here's hoping that she's just adjusting and that she will come out of her shell a bit more as time goes on.

Here are the first day photos of both kiddos.  I'm just so proud of both of them!

Tomorrow

Well, the big day is almost here.  Mateo starts kindergarten tomorrow!  He had his orientation today, in which we visited his classroom, did a scavenger hunt, got his picture taken, and met his teachers.  There are two main teachers, both of whom he will interact with, but his primary one is a tall, bearded, lovely man named Isaac.  Either teacher would have been great, but we are thrilled that he's going to have the male option, being largely surrounded by girls in the rest of his life.

I have been saying this to anyone who will listen, but I'll just say it again:  I cannot believe that we have already gotten to this point.  Wasn't he just an infant like five minutes ago?  It's not like the last almost-six years have flashed by, but somehow we've gotten here faster than I thought we would.  I'm sure this is just the beginning, with first grade, middle school, high school, and college being right around each successive corner!

Anyway, mixed feelings and all, I'll be dropping off our big boy around 8:20 tomorrow morning and he'll be off to the races.  I'm so excited for him and everything that he'll learn this year.  He's so ready for new things to learn, new kids and adults to meet, and a new place that he can start to call his own. 

There's a kindergarten parent coffee right after drop-off that I'm hoping to bring the girls to, provided I'm not weeping in the van!  Then, I guess we'll get started with our new Thursday routine, which is going to be one of the two days each week that I get with both girls together.  Natalia is going to get to call the shots a lot more this year, which I think will be really good for her.  She is growing up by the minute and I'm excited to spend some more focused time with her this year.  I can't believe that she'll be starting kindergarten in a year.  Ack!!

Meanwhile, Sacha had her first day with students today!  It sounds like it was a bit of a rollercoaster, but she got through it.  Moving down a couple of grade levels has resulted in having much younger, squirmier kids to teach!  Luckily, she knows that if she could teach kindergarten for a year (which she did when Mateo was a newborn), she can do anything.  Today, she had the good fortune of having her mom in the classroom with her, which she very much appreciated.  Sacha's dad was also here for the first couple of days of the week, so she had both parents helping get her classroom ready before the students came.  Thanks, guys!

I'll have first day of school photos to post tomorrow, of both older kids.  I have Natalia's from last week that I have been saving for this occasion :)  Wish us luck tomorrow!

End of summer

I have recently come to terms with the fact that I have written all I am going to about our Europe trip.  I kept thinking that I would finish writing about it, but it seemed overwhelming to try to reconstruct each day, especially when my mom had already done such a complete job with that in her travel letters...and I managed to post a bunch of photos of our travels on Facebook, as well as making a book for our family full of all the pictures we took, but, again, never managed to transfer them to the blog.  If anyone out there is (1) still reading this and (2) isn't friends with me on Facebook and (3) would like to see photos, leave a comment and we'll work it out!

In other news, summer is ending fast!  We have had an amazing summer.  It has been fantastic.  It would be hard to overstate how great it has been.  We have had time at home, time to explore our region and overseas, time with kids in day camps, time with our whole family together, and time to connect with both sets of our parents and my extended family.  It has been everything a summer should be and more.  The combination of sustained beautiful weather, our new play structure, and our suburban patio allowed us many, many lovely dinners outside while the kids romped in the yard.  And, because of some focused time in her classroom at the beginning of summer and at the end, Sacha hardly had to work at all. 

Suddenly, here we are at the beginning of the school year again, and it is going to be a big one for several of us!  Sacha is in a new position at a new school.  She's going to be teaching a blended class of two different grades.  She is back at work, organizing and setting up desks and madly studying the two different sets of standards and curricula. 

Mateo is going to be starting kindergarten on Thursday.  Our baby!  In kindergarten!  How can this be happening?  We're very excited for him, of course, and thrilled and relieved to have him in a school that fits him so well.  We played there this evening, peeking into the windows of his classroom and talking about all the things he might do in the coming year.

And, Natalia has already had her first week at her new preschool!  Again, cue the thrilled and relieved feelings that we have found a school that seems to be such a good fit.  It is a very small (12 kids in her class, with two teachers and a parent helper every day), nature-based school with a real live forest right across the parking lot.  They are based in the lower level of a church, with a cute classroom that has lots of opportunities for art projects and pretend play.  They also get to spend time exploring their wooded surroundings, which Tali has already enjoyed a lot.  Moreover, she has already befriended a couple of little girls in her class, which is really, really big for her.  She seems much more comfortable there than she did at her first preschool, and we hope that this will be a great year for her there. 

As for Rosie and I, we are going to get to spend lots of one-on-one time together this year, while the bigger kids are in school.  I'm looking forward to doing some of the baby/toddler things with her that I used to do with her older siblings, but haven't been able to do with her yet.  For example, we wil now be able to go to the storytime for one- and two-year-olds at the local library, to which I never could have brought all three kids.  I have to laugh a little at how overwhelmed I sometimes felt when Mateo was a baby, and how blissfully easy spending time with one baby seems now.  I guess it's all about perspective!

I'm also hoping to do some running during the days with Rosie in tow.  We got a jogging stroller this summer and I've used it a few times already.  I'm getting ready for another half-marathon in October and have had an easy time fitting in training time while Sacha has been home, but that is about to change!  Here's hoping the jogging stroller lets me get in some miles while the big kids are at school.

That's about it for now.  Happy end of summer and new school year to everybody!

Home!

We are home! We got back last night, after another marathon journey. We had a direct, 11-hour flight from Paris to Seattle, and then a several hour wait and a last short hop to Portland. Just as I suppose happens on any trip, we had some ups and downs. The ups included the wonderful behavior and patience displayed by our older children on the planes, and the lovely people that sat behind us on the long flight, who spent hours playing with Rosie through the seats.

The downs included Rosie throwing up all over the cab on the way to the Paris airport and the earth-shaking tantrum Mateo threw as we were trying to check in and go through security. People were actually stopping to gape at us.

Also, once we got on the plane, Rosie tuned up her earsplitting shrieking voice and spent much of the flight, when not eating, briefly sleeping, or playing with the people behind us, loudly expressing her displeasure at the situation. Yes, we were _those_ people with the obnoxious baby in tow, for a very long flight. I felt bad for the people around us, but we were doing the best we could.

But, we made it back. By the skin of our teeth, but we made it. We were really happy to see Apa when we got though security!! And, happier still to get home to our house. I couldn't stop humming "God Bless America." thankfully, we got home around 6, gave the kids some time to unwind and play, and were all in bed by 8 or so. Everybody but Rosie (surprise, surprise, I know!) slept through the night, and even she was only up twice.

We were up about 7 this morning, although by that point Mateo had been up since 5 and Rosie since 4, but everybody was mobilized by 7. We went out for bagels, mostly because we had no food in the house, and have spent the day unpacking and managing our crazed kiddos, who are certainly entitled to act a little crazy after all the change they have had in the past couple of days. I thought a big dose of caffeine would help me this morning, but, alas, it had very little effect. Hoping for a better mood and more patience tomorrow.

I spent some time earlier going through all of our photos and remembering the trip. It really was amazing and well worth the challenges that came along with it. We, both adults and kids, had all kinds of new and fun experiences, plus a lot of great family time. I feel like we really made the most of each place we visited, and that we did a good job of focusing on what would be interesting to the kids when we planned out our days.

Here are a few things, big and small, that I learned on our trip:

1. I love European coffee, and wow is it strong!

2. Natalia can sleep anywhere and is immune to jet lag, for the most part.

3. Sacha is amazing (which I already knew, but watching her navigate the trip and all the ups and downs just made me that much more impressed).

4. Going for a run in the south of France has got to be the most perfect thing ever.

5. Our kids are loud. Especially when they are supposed to be being quiet!

6. Tali despises agua con gas (fizzy water).

7. The Eiffel Tower is really very tall and I have no desire to visit the top.

8. One could get very used to regular dining at two- and three-star restaurants.

9. Attempting to visit Notre Dame in the middle of a mass with aforementioned loud children might not be a great idea.

10. Staying at a hotel near the Tuilleries, a massive garden and amusement park complete with trampolines and casual cafes, is an inspired idea (thanks, Mom and Dad!)

11. Our kiddos are flexible enough to hang with a variety of babysitters, regardless of their English abilities. We left them for seven evenings and one afternoon out of the two weeks we were there and they seemed fine with it. We had planned ahead and requested the same babysitter when it was going to be multiple nights in one place, so they had some consistency. It was also good that much of the babysitting occurred near or bedtime, so they were with us for the vast majority of their waking hours.

12. It was fun and good to experience other cultures and ways of doing things, and it also made us appreciate this country all the more.

13. We are ever so grateful to my parents for having the idea and inviting us along and making it all possible and taking such good care of us, and to my sister for making the time to be there. And, to all three of them for helping out so much and spending so much time with the kids. Sacha and I were pretty much chopped liver with Auntie E and Grammy and Grandpa around, which was fine with us!

14. Bringing a 15-month-old, a four-year-old, and a five-year-old on an international journey might have been the craziest thing we could have done, but we made it! (Before we left, I read a blog post that posited that kids who are a year and a half old are hardest to travel with, especially on long flights. That is TRUE. Wow, did Rosie give us, and the rest of the plane, a run for our money! I am endlessly grateful that she will be older next time we attempt a big trip.)

As we were boarding our first flight of the trip, I felt like we were at the top of a roller coaster with no way to get off! But, as Sacha said as we were descending into Paris, if we could do this, we can do anything, travel anywhere. Already, plans are being hatched. Not for anytime soon, though. For right now, all we want is our home, our beds, and maybe even, if we're lucky, a little sleep.

PS: Now that we are back and have a little more time, I am going to go back and add photos and blog about the second week of the trip. Not today - the Olympics are calling, if I can stay up that long! - but soon.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

The south of France

First, let me say that sleep is not going very well. Natalia stands alone among our children in her adjustment to our new time zone and I would like to publicly thank her for that! She has been staying in her bed all night since the first night, and, although she has had some periods of wakefulness, she has not needed one iota of nighttime support since the first night. Thank you, Tali!

Our other children, on the other hand, are vying for the title of Worst Jetlag Adjustment, having had periods of nighttime wakefulness of approximately two hours in length every night since we arrived. They are neck and neck rit now, with last night having been particularly bad for both. Needless to say, their moms are feeling like walking zombies, although a grandparent-assisted nap this afternoon did a lot for us.

I haven't thought this much about sleep since the various kids were newborns! I keep hoping every night that it will get better. I am hoping again for tonight. I would say that it couldn't get much worse, but i would hate to test that out!

Anyway, despite the sleep deprivation, we have been having a lovely time in Provence. We had quite the day getting here on Friday. We took an early taxi to the sweltering train station on Friday morning, wrestled our 100 pounds of luggage on and off of two trains, and attempted to keep our kids from running amok on said trains while slowly succumbing to motion sickness and lamenting our aging stomachs!

Then, my parents rented a mini van that truly was mini and we crammed all of us and all our stuff into it. We wound around the narrow parking garage until we got to the ticket taking machine, at which point we discovered that the rental company had forgotten to give my dad a ticket to get out! Oops. I was proud of all of us that we took it mostly in stride. My dad calmly backed the van into a corner and went to retrieve the ticket in the train station. Then, we were out and onto the streets of Nimes, France!

My parents did an admirable job of navigating and getting us to Les Baux, the area where our hotel was located. Sacha and I did our best in the back, but containing all three kids with only one belted in led to some lengthy moments of screaming, although I guess we were lucky that it was the kids wailing and not their parents!

We arrived at our hotel and checked in, got to our suite, and I laid down on the bed and burst into tears. I was so tired and carsick that I just lost it. Not the best moment.

However, I soon calmed down and started looking around and realized that we were in PARADISE. Seriously. Our room was gorgeous and smelled like lavender. The grounds of the hotel were beautiful and there was a deep blue pool. There were goats and even a small playground for the kids. There was an organic garden with tomatoes, eggplants, and even grapes free for the picking. And, the surrounding countryside was so beautiful as to defy description. Things were looking up in a serious way!

Since then, things during the day have been great. We have been having breakfast in the mornings on our little terrace. We have been swimming and lunching by the pool. We have been playing at the playground, visiting the goats, and having a couple of unbelievable dinners. Most of all, we have been soaking up the sun and having fun with my parents and sister, who joined us here from Boston. The kids are in heaven to have their auntie and their grandparents around all the time!

And...tomorrow we leave for Paris! We are a bit daunted by getting there, but also really looking forward to exploring such an amazing city. And, of course, experiencing the culinary adventure that my dad has planned.

More later, from Paris! In the meantime, good thoughts for us to actually sleep at night would be much appreciated!


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

The last few days

We have had quite the last few days! We finished up our stay in Barcelona with a day of a bit more sight seeing and a return to the aquarium area, where I got to jump on a big bungee cord/trampoline contraption. That was really fun, but hard on my stomach, which has taken a beating since we have been here. At first, I thought it was just the effects of jet lag, but it has lasted much longer than I would have expected. I have been waking up every morning feeling sick, a feeling that fades gradually as the day goes on. It had been nice to enjoy our dinners every night, but I would prefer to just feel good during the day, too!

Anyway, today has been a little better, thank goodness. I hope it is the start of a trend.

So, our last day in Barcelona was good, although very hot, and we were all fading. We visited an outrageous cathedral called the Sagrada Familia in the morning, although the line was so long that we decided to just walk around the outside. It was very, very hot and our littlest traveling companion was really struggling. Despite all our efforts, she has not really adjusted to the time change, which has been rough on everybody. She has been wakeful at night and sleepy during the day, which is a cycle that perpetuates itself!

We bought ourselves some time by offering Rosa some slushies at the Sagrada Familia, which perked her up for awhile, and then headed over to the aquarium area, where I did the aforementioned jumping, the kids drove around some small motorboats, and then Sacha took the big kids back via taxi and my parents and I walked back with Rosie in the stroller, which caused her to take yet another nap.

We had some quiet time and then Janet the babysitter arrived so that the adults could go to dinner. She warned us that a big protest, presumably against the Spanish austerity measures, was about to come down our street, so we should leave now. In fact, just as we were leaving, we looked to our right and there was a HUGE demonstration starting just a few blocks down. As we gaped at the throng of people, we heard some loud booms and saw a cloud of smoke erupt over the protesters. We weren't completely sure, but thought it was probably tear gas. Ack! We thought it behooved us to leave quickly, which we did! Although, then we had some worries about our hotel and the tear gas and such, but it appeared that things were being broken up well before they reached our hotel. In any case, it was quite sobering and a dose of reality outside our tourist bubble.

We walked for quite awhile until we reached our restaurant, which was rated a two-star restaurant by Michelin. The juxtaposition of this and the people getting tear gassed just a couple of moles away was not lost on us.

However, dinner was absolutely amazing. Sublime, even. I hope I remember it forever! We took some photos of our food, which are trapped on my iPhone along with all my other photos. It doesn't seem to be communicating well with the hotel wireless network, but I will post them eventually!

Anyway, it was a stellar end to the first part of our trip.

We are now in the south of France at an incredible little hotel called La Cabro D'Or. We had a big day of travel yesterday, including taxis, trains, and a cramped rental minivan, which ended at last in the French countryside. We are about to go to dinner, so I will continue this tomorrow!


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

First few days in Barcelona

So, we had landed in Paris and the most challenging part was behind us, or so we thought! In reality, that was true, but the last hours of our trip were pretty rough in their own right. We were just so tired by that point.

We got off the plane, and, guided by some advice from my parents, who had done the same thing the day before, we started looking for the gate for our last flight to Barcelona. It was in terminal 2F, which was right next to the terminal we were in. Easy, right? There was supposed to be a shuttle between the terminals, so we started following the signs to 2F while looking for the shuttle. We followed the signs religiously until suddenly our passports were being stamped, which seemed strange, since we weren't supposed to be going through customs until Barcelona, and then suddenly we were outside the airport. As in, in the place where people we waiting to greet international travelers. As in, outside of security. Ack!!

We regrouped, because we had no other choice, and walked through an eternal maze of corridors toward security. We got there and started through the line, but were stopped by a guard who motioned at our tiny umbrella stroller, which had been cheap but a crucial part of our plan to survive walking though Europe, and indicated that we couldn't bring it through. It was, he said, simply too big to fit onto the small intra-Europe flights in this terminal. After some hemming and hawing, we finally just ditched it and left it behind. We had to laugh, or maybe cry, when we got to our gate and found that we were getting onto a regular sized jumbo jet, with plenty of room for strollers!

We were all majorly cranky, hungry, and tired by the time we made it to the gate. Luckily, we had enough time for food, so we wolfed down some sandwiches and some fabulous French espresso, along with some yogurt for the girls and nothing for Mateo, who was losing it but refusing to eat anything.

The flight to Barcelona, once we finally got on it, was uneventful and proved me in thinking that we couldn't handle even one more minute of flying. We made it! We touched down in Spain, found our way to our bags, and located my parents outside the baggage claim with great relief! It was so good to see them after such a long journey. Two days, 14 hours of flying, not enough sleeping, but we had done it!

We got into two taxis and within about 20 minutes, we were checking into our room at the hotel. We had gotten our second winds by that point, so we tried to go to the rooftop pool, but it was crowded and there was no place to sit down, so we went back to our room and ordered room service.

It was then that Mateo showed us how truly tired he was. True to form, the kid who has never acted drowsy in his entire life was not sleepy. No, he was crazed. Practically hysterical. Jumping on the beds, getting loud and crazy, and unable to listen to any words about calming down.

Finally, mercifully, Sacha got all the kids into the bath, and then into bed, where the big kids passed out literally as soon as their heads hit the pillow. Turns out, all we needed was 14 hours in the air to land us the easiest bedtime ever!

Rosie was eventually convinced to sleep and Sacha and I weren't far behind. We should have been set for the night, right? We were all so exhausted that we should have slept for a long time.

In fact, no, our experience of jet lag was just beginning. The kids, all of them, were up and raring to go at 3:30 am. They were hungry and ready to get going! This was when I began to experience something akin to despair.

However, again, there was nothing to be done but to keep going, so Sacha and I took an hour at a time and pretty soon two hours had gone by and, miracle of miracles, Mateo was rubbing his eyes. I decided it was now or never, so I announced that we were taking a nap and the lights were going off. Thank God, it must have been some sort of divine intervention, the kids fell back asleep. We all passed out and woke up to find that it was 10:45 am! We had slept for five more hours!

Breakfast was closing at 11 am, so Mateo and I hustled down to eat, leaving the girls to snooze a bit longer. Having delicious Spanish coffee, good food, and good company put me on a high that lasted for the rest of the day. We had a truly magical first day in Barcelona. We walked to the harbor, visited a restored Spanish galleon ship, went on a merry go round, went to a huge aquarium, consumed lots of caffeine, walked back to the hotel, went out for an earlyish dinner at a nearby tapas place (the kids were losing it by this point, but held on for a delicious ice cream dessert after a very mediocre dinner) and went back to the hotel, where we all crashed for the night. Or, did we?

No, Rosa and Mateo had other plans. They both slept for about an hour and then woke up at 11 pm, raring to go. Again, cue the despair! I had wondered, before our trip, what our experience of jet lag would be, and, it turns out, ours involves wakeful children in the middle of the night.

Three hours later, at 2 am, after copious pacing around the hotel room with Rosie in the Ergo, she finally fell asleep. Mateo eventually followed suit, and their parents collapsed again. Again, we slept late and got up on Tuesday morning just in time for breakfast. We had another good day, although we were VERY tired and it was hot.

We visited Parque Guell, a Gaudi creation that is neat and also extremely popular. We ended up with a tour by a guy named Killian who was half Irish and half Chilean. We explored for quite awhile, until the heat finally did us in, at which point we returned to the hotel and stayed in the air conditioning for the rest of the afternoon.

We rallied at some point to go to a cafe down the street for ice cream, where Rosie continued her trend of eating everything in sight, polishing off my mom's entire ice cream sundae!

After another hour or so of down time, we rallied again for dinner at another, much better tapas place, where we ate an incredible quantity of food and drink and polished off four big desserts. Mateo was captivated by the cartoons on the tv, Tali was asleep on Sacha's lap, and Rosie was eating everything she could reach, so we actually had a pretty peaceful dinner!

And, to top it off, we finally had a night in which most of us actually slept! Rosie was still up for a few hours in the middle, but Sacha was in charge of her instead of me and she is much better at sleeping through interruptions than I am. Mateo, likewise, woke up when Rosie did, but was amenable to being cuddled in the dark and eventually fell back asleep. Again we awoke on Wednesday morning (today) late and got to breakfast around 10. This morning was much better, although Sacha and I still felt pretty wiped out from everything.

Today, Wednesday, we decided to hit the Barcelona Zoo, which was both fun and shady, which was welcome because it was, again, very hot. We saw an incredible dolphin show, a terrible sea lion show, and lots of other cool animals. Mateo expressed great concern over the "escaped" peacocks we saw wandering around and wanted to report them to the authorities! Rosie napped briefly in her stroller, although she was roasting hot and didn't snooze for too long. Around 3 pm, we had had enough of the heat, so we taxied back to our hotel and had some rest time.

Now, Sacha and my mom and the kids are playing at the park around the corner and I have been taking some time to write the longest blog entry ever!

A few final things - it has been wonderful traveling with my parents. We have all been having fun experiencing new things together and reminiscing about trips we took when I and my siblings were younger. We are in Barcelona until Friday morning, when we will need to mobilize early to catch a train to Les Baux, a place in the French countryside where we will stay for a few days and meet up with my sister. We are hoping to do lots of playing in the pool, eating, and checking out the goats that are supposed to be on the hotel's property.

Then, we will be off to Paris for a week of exploring and visiting fancy restaurants with my parents. Our kids will get to experience having French babysitters (well, just one if all goes according to plan) in the evenings. they will actually also have a Spanish babysitter tonight and tomorrow night, as the adults go out for a couple of late Spanish dinners.

We can't believe how lucky we are to be on this trip! We are hoping that the jet lag situation will continue to improve and that we will be able to be at least somewhat well-rested for most of trip...at least until we return to the States and do the whole thing in reverse!

Oh, and we have a stroller again, rented from the hotel. We are very happy to have wheels again to help with the kid schlepping!

More in a few days....


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad