Disneyland Paris
Aug 6-8, 2007

We woke up around 6:30 and hurried and got ready for our first day at Disney. We ate dry Honey Nut Cheerios in the car on the 45 minute drive from the IBIS to Disney, after an unsuccessful attempt to get McDonalds pancakes. We arrived at the Sequoia Lodge around 8AM and Aaron got us all checked in. We couldn’t get into our room yet, but we had passes to get into the park, so we headed out for the day! As we walked through the gates of Disneyland, Katie turned to us and said, “It’s like a dream!” That about melted my heart! The girls were so excited to see Sleeping Beauty’s castle and pictures of all of their favorite Disney Characters everywhere! We went straight to DiscoveryLand and rode the Buzz Lightyear ride. The girls and I waited in a pretty long line for the Orbitron while Aaron rode Space Mountain. By the time he was done it was almost our turn, so he got in line with the girls and I went to ride Space Mountain. Unfortunatly I forgot to tell Aaron that you are supposed to pull a handle on the Space Ship to make it go up and down, so the girls were a little disappointed they couldn’t go high! We waited in another pretty long line to ride the cars XXX, and by this time it was after 10 AM, so the park opened for people other than hotel guests and the lines started to get really long! I rode a black car with Katie, and she got to steer while I pushed the accelerator. She was so excited that she “learned how to drive.” A number of time throughout the day she would turn and say to me, “I really learned how to drive today!” We wanted to finish with Discovery Land, so we went on the Star Wars ride which made us feel like we were really on a space ship and in an inter-galactic battle. Katie wanted to know if we were really in space, which made me realized that the line between reality and make believe is not quite as clear to her. If I told her we really were in outer space, she would have probably believed me. So I told her that at Disney Land she can choose what she wants to be real and what she thinks is pretend. Then she said, “But I want to hear your answer.” So I broke down and told her it was pretend, but they made it seem exactly what it would feel like if we were really in space. So we ate lunch in Pizza Planet, like from Toy Story, and moved onto Fantasy Land. We walked all through Sleeping Beauty’s Castle, and even went into the dungeon where the dragon was. Although Katie reminded Aaron that Prince Phillip killed the real dragon, so Aaron told her that this was the dragon’s brother. Katie went down there with me another time, and didn’t get too close. She said to me, “Mom, is the dragon going to eat us?” I said “Of course he wasn’t because this dragon was pretend.” I couldn’t believe she was really scared of it. She said, “Of course it’s real, but it’s not the one that Prince Phillip killed.” We noticed the lines were getting increasingly longer, like 60 and 70 minute long waits (which we weren’t going to do, although the girls had been really good in the lines so far). Aaron got Fast Passes for the Peter Pan ride, and we waited in line for the Snow White ride. The girls loved it and Katie wanted to ride it again because she thought she saw the real Snow White and Prince right before the ride was over and wanted to go back and check. We then did the Pinocchio ride, which was just like Snow White and Peter Pan, just different scenes and characters. The girls were getting tired of lines and hungry, so we took the shuttle bus back to the hotel and changed into our swim suits and made our way to the pool. Nothing was close in our hotel… it was at least a ½ mile walk anywhere we wanted to go…. Like the car or pool. But the pool was nice and there was a big water slide and it was indoor and outdoor. Katie decided that since she was 5 now she wanted to swim without her floaties, which was a great epiphany for her to make since she has a huge fear of going under the water. I helped her a bit, but then she did it! She really swam by herself, and I praised her up and down and told her she was a swimmer now and how great that was, etc. I thought she would be so excited and proud of herself that she would just keep doing it and know that she really could…. That didn’t happen. She was still just as scared and no matter what I said or did, she just wanted to put her floaties back on. Ashley, on the other hand, is absolutely fearless in the water. She was going down the big slide by herself and loved it when Aaron threw her up in the air and she went far and under the water. She is seriously a little fish. We went back to our room and showered and Aaron went out to the grocery store. We ate some quick sandwiches for dinner and took the shuttle back to the park for the parade. It was already so crowded for the parade… I thought we’d never get a good place to watch it. But we found a place where they were letting people cross the street, but would close it off when the parade began, so we waited for them to close it off, and got a front row seat. While we were waiting, Ashley fell dead asleep. There was no waking her. It was pretty annoying because she is always awake so late at night in the hotel rooms… we can never get her to go to sleep when we want to, and now that we want her to see the parade she won’t wake up. I held her on my lap until it started, but when we saw the first of the parade I stood her up on her feet until she opened her eyes and decided that she really did want to be awake. The parade was wonderful, and one of the pirates from Capt. Hook’s ship came and shook Katie’s hand. The girls loved to see the Princesses, of course. It was time for our Fast Passes for the Peter Pan ride, so we rode that and then went back to the hotel to call it a day. On the way back to our room we happened to run into Minnie Mouse, and girls were so excited to meet her and get her autograph in their books. It was a very full, very fun day, and we were all exhausted. Unfortunately for us it took Ashley a while to fall asleep because of her inconvenient little cat nap, but she just watched the ipod and drifted off. The next morning we got a 6:30 wake up call so we could get an early start on the day. We wanted to make the most of our time in the park between 8 and 10 when only hotel residents can go in the park and the lines are short. We got to breakfast at the hotel, which was really good. We ate a lot so we wouldn’t be hungry like we were the day before, and we got on the shuttle and into the park at 8 and realized that not everything in the park is opened to hotel guests early, just some things… and unfortunately, most of the things we had done the day before. But we did get to ride the Dumbo ride, the tea cups, and the carousel in Fantasy Land a couple of times each. We went back to Discovery Land and rode Orbitron again (this time actually going up and down), and the Buzz Lightyear ride again. Aaron did Space Mountain one more time, and then we waited right at the entrance to Adventureland so we could run right in when it opened. We ran to the Pirates of the Caribbean ride, which was pretty fun, then spent some time between Adventureland and Frontierland. Aaron and I used the Baby Switch and Fast Pass features to ride the Indiana Jones ride. And Katie got to ride Big Thunder Mountain twice (once with each of us), and it quickly became her favorite ride! She loved it! It’s amazing because Katie is a very cautious girl…. But she LOVES big rides and is not scared of them at all. We hurried over to the Lucky Nugget Saloon, for our lunch with the Disney Characters. We were early so we got good seats for the show, and were first to start in on the very, very yummy buffet. We all about ate our weight in chips and salsa. There was steak, fajitas, chili con queso, pasta, lasagna, lots of fruit and salads and yummy brownies and other desserts. It was the closest to food from home that I think we’ve had since we moved to Europe! The girls loved to meet Mickey, Minnie, Goofy, Robin Hood, Friar Tuck, Chip and Dale, and Wendell the Bear (we think that is what he is!)… whoever that is! The girls got all of their autographs, and their pictures taken with them. It was a great lunch and well worth the extra money. We spent the afternoon seeing some shows that were really, really good. The Tarzan show was amazing! We couldn’t believe some of the acrobats and the strength that they had to do some of the stunts on the ropes. We loved it. Ashley fell asleep on me about 5 minutes into the show, which was much needed. We had a little time before the Lion King show, so we waited in line for a character Meet and Greet. Ashley woke up in time so the girls got to meet Alice and the Mad Hatter, which was perfect because they just got the Alice in Wonderland DVD for the trip and had already watched the movie 5 times. Katie was very excited to tell Alice that. It was a painfully long and slow line, which didn’t make Aaron the happiest Dad in the world, but he was a good Dad for waiting anyway. We made it to the Lion King show, which was very good, but since Aaron and I had just seen Lion King in London last February, we weren’t quite as impressed. We had about all the walking around the park we could take, so we got on the shuttle back to the hotel and put on our swimsuits. We were so lucky all day, because it looked like it was about to rain at any minute. It even thundered when we walked outside to get on the bus. It didn’t start raining until we were on our way to the pool, which was fine since the pool was indoors. We had a great time swimming… especially Little Miss Fearless Ashley. We tried to work with Katie more on her swimming, but she was a little too nervous and just wanted to wear her floaties. Ashley, on the other hand, tore off her floaties and jumped in the pool without any warning. She is definitely someone you can’t take your eye off of at the pool! She went down the water slide a bunch of times too, and loves it when Aaron throws her in the water. The rest of the night we spent back in the hotel room, watching whatever was on the Disney channel, and getting some much needed rest! Thursday morning, our last day at Disney, again it looked like it wasn’t going to be a day for great weather, but we got an early start with breakfast and were at the park just a few minutes after 8. We were leaving today, so we had to have all of our things packed and we loaded them in the car before we left. We wanted to get a good family picture of us in front of Sleeping Beauty’s Castle, so we found someone to take it for us, and just as the man took it, a wasp stung Katie right on her bum! She SCREAMED, and Aaron quickly deduced what had happened and checked her bum and pulled out the stinger. There was a first aid place close, so I took her over there and they gave her some ointment and allergy medicine, just in case she was allergic… it was her first sting, so I didn’t know. We got someone else to take another picture of us, sans the wasp attack. The we once again spent a lot of time in the early couple of hours riding all of the rides for the girls (Tea Cups, Dumbo, etc.). Aaron and I both took another turn on Space Mountain, and then went to Fantasyland to wait in the line for the It’s a Small World ride. It was pretty amazing riding the boat through the riding and seeing all of the representations of children from all over the world. We really enjoyed it. Katie had been DYING to get to Alice’s Curious Labyrinth, so we went there and she led us through and then to the top of the little house. At this point we felt like we had done just about everything we wanted to in the Disneyland Park, and walked over to Walt Disney Studios. At this time of day it was super, super crowded. The line for Crush’s Coaster was over 2 hours. We were able to ride on Aladdin’s Flying Carpets Over Agrabah, we met Remy (the rat from Ratatoille) and the girls and I waited to meet Mike from Monsters Inc. Aaron waited to get into the Stunt Show Spectacular. We met him over there and saw some really cook motorcycle and car stunts. Ashley was a little too tired to sit through the whole thing, so we left about 10 minutes early. We had fast passes for Rock-n-Roller Coaster, so we used Baby Switch and Aaron and I both got to ride that. It was pretty scary the first few seconds! We saw a little performance of High School Musical, and then we had definitely had our fill of Disney for 3 days. We were very, very tired! We were ready to drive out of town, but we still hadn’t seen the Eiffel Tower yet!!! We drove back into Paris and tried for the longest time to get a decent parking spot. Finally we found one and walked a short distance to the Tower. Katie and Ashley loved to see it because they have learned about it on Little Einsteins, so they always recognize it when they see it in pictures. It was fun for them to see it in real life! We were going to go to the top, but the line was ridiculously long, and after a long day at Disney already, none of us were in the mood for waiting around. We got back in the car, feeling like a little sweet of some sort, so decided to drive to our favorite pastry and sandwich shop by Notre Dame. We got chicken baquette sandwiches, chocolate éclairs and crepes. I finally got the Nutella crepe that I’d been waiting for all week! Earlier in the week I got one with sugar, and after one bite I decided it wasn’t worth the calories to me if it didn’t have Nutella… so I waited, I was so glad I didn’t have to go home without getting one! Paris was complete, for now. There are still things we would like to see and do in Paris, but it would have to wait for another time. We drove as far as we could that night, and we made it to Reims, France. There was an Ibis there, where we spent the night. Our friends from Toronto, Mark and Kristen Voorhies, were arriving in Budapest on Friday (the next day), so we needed to hurry home because we were so excited to see them. But some of our other friends from Toronto, Jeff and Michelle Davis, had just moved to Frankfurt, so we had plans to meet them for dinner Friday night on our way through town. Friday, August 10, 2007 We weren’t in a rush to leave Reims, since we didn’t have to be in Frankfurt until dinner time, and it was only a 4 hour drive at most. Aaron went into Carrefour and stocked up on some cereal and things that we can’t find here in Budapest, and we got McDonalds pancakes for breakfast (Aaron’s favorite… he prefers McDonalds to mine)! We drove around the Champagne region of France, and took pictures of the XXX. It was kind of a rainy day, but as soon as we got to Frankfurt (per our good luck with weather) the sun came out. We checked into our Sheraton in eastern Frankfurt, and then drove to the Davis’s temporary apartment. It was so fun to see them and their family. Their oldest son, Nick, just went into the MTC preparing for his mission to St. Petersburg. But their other kids, Sarah, Cole and Jenna, were all there. Katie and Ashley had a blast with their kids (although their youngest is 10). And their dog, Lily, had just arrived from the States, so everyone was excited! We went and ate at a pizza place in town that was really good, and then walked the little streets to an ice cream shop. We spent some more time catching up with them back at their apartment while the kids watched Lion King 2 ½ and fell asleep. It was so, so fun to spend time with them… and making plans to go on a ski trip together. We didn’t leave there until almost midnight, and had a 30 minute drive back to our hotel. We also wanted to wake up early to get on the road and home to spend time with Mark and Kristen. Needless to say, we were pretty tired. Saturday, August 11, 2007 So after 5 hours of sleep we awoke to our wake-up call and put the girls in the car in their pajamas. It was about an 8 ½ hour drive home, and we were tired!!! Everything went smoothly until we reached a 5 kilometer back-up at the border to Hungary! Fortunately, Aaron is very skillful at getting through traffic jams like this. He drove on the shoulder, got off on exit ramps to return further up, and weaved from one lane to the other. We also went through the EU lane instead of the non-EU lane. So what should have taken us 3 hours took only 45 minutes, and we were almost home! We got home at 5 and Vrhiddi (our babysitter) was coming over at 6 so we could go out with Mark and Kristen. We said quick hellos to our dear friends, and they surprised us with a suitcase full of American candy and other treats… some of which I had asked Kristen to bring for me, but a lot they surprised us with. The Milk Duds were a big hit with Aaron, and they were gone in a flash. We went to a great Hungarian restaurant with then that night. It was one where Mark had eaten when he was on his mission here 15 years ago! It was delicious! We loved to be with our friends, but really, really loved to be home in our own bed that night. It was a wonderful, wonderful two weeks, but now it was time to rest from our vacation!