Branching Out: Paris edition

 In September, Scott and I celebrated 13 years of marriage! I found a unique experience for us as a celebration called Bustronome.  This is a double decker bus with a glass roof.  It has dining tables on the top and a kitchen below.  Scott and I enjoyed a 6 course gourmet meal while cruising through the streets of Paris watching the the city light up as the sun went down. It was a little touristy but a fun experience.  One that I am happy to repeat for any visitors!

The boys returned to the International School of Paris (ISP) this fall.   They wear masks to school everyday and don't think much about it at this point.   They managed to go the entire first semester without missing a single day of in-person learning. They continue to love their school and teachers especially the Art, Music, and PE classes.  They don't have a huge desire to learn french but  C'est la Vive.  

During the Paris lockdown in April, I had to plan something that could absolutely not be cancelled.  So in August, when France all but shuts down, I took the boys back the the states to see family and friends. We visited the LA area and spent time with Granny Joan and Uncle Dale.  Spent lots of time at the pool and beach with family and friends.  It was great to see everyone. After LA, we met up with the Morlan side of the family in Winter Park, Colorado for more mountain adventures.  There was alpine slides of course, with Mom's high school best friend and her son. We also found a 3 story ropes course that the boys loved.  Kenyon taught a whole new group of people that he has no fear.   Our younger Sweet cousins joined us for a few days and as a special treat, Gigi and Papa rented a pontoon boat for the morning. It was a great morning out on the water and each kid took a turn "driving" with Gigi.  Of course all the planned and coordinated activities w...

After Greece and Switzerland, we had to play tourist around Paris a little.  Kenyon has an obsession with the Eiffel Tower and the Observation Decks were finally open.  Murphy's law worked against us and it absolutely poured rain during our reserved time.  The boys still had fun and it was good memories.  But gosh were we wet and cold.

For our second (and last) day in Interlaken, we did an organized jeep tour into the mountains to see a cheese maker that is still making the cheese by hand.  It was a fun ride up the mountain in our open air quad. The Farmer provide a great brunch while we enjoyed the scenery on the farm and learned about the cheese making. The boys loved all the farm animals, especially the cows.  Quinn got a hard reminder that gravity works when he took a tumble while running down the mountain. It was fun to see all the local farmers displaying their awards for the best cow.  It made we want to return for the annual driving of the cows off the mountain each fall. I try not to over-plan our trips.  This was a great tour that got us up into the mountains without risk to our own car. We were supposed to end to day and the trip paragliding but the wind came up and at the last minute (like we were seated on the bus ready to go last minute) Kenyon turned out to be underweight. 

 After just a few days back in Paris where it was rainy and cold, we took an impromptu driving trip to Interlaken, Switzerland.  This was the first place in Europe I visited at age 10 and I was very excited to share it with my family.  Scott and I enjoyed the scenery while watching the paragliders descend from the mountains. I have a new appreciation for my mom who planned our trip through Europe before there was Google and the internet.  She kept telling me to take the boys to the "train museum."  I did remember what she was talking about and searched it out.  It's not actually a train museum but a model train room at a park at the top of a funicular.    I remembered the human size hamster wheel and the giant seesaw.  A new addition was a couple of zip lines and an alpine coaster to the bottom. After the park, we traveled to a mountain resort to experience my favorite Swiss memory, Alpine slides.  The summer aspects of the resorts hav...

 With a yucky stay on Mykonos behind us we headed back to Crete (that was the location for our flight anyway).  Wanting to end the trip on a high note, I booking an all-inclusive resort.  With lastminute booking  we ended up with the presidential suite.  If you have ever been to a beach side resort, you know they are usually set-up in a U shape with large suites on the end caps.  Yep. that was the room we lucked into with a full living room, dinning room, 2 bathrooms, and full wrap around deck. It also had multiple pools and water slides which was absolutely wonderful since a high surf warning kept us away from the beach.  They had a kids club at night with dance parties and magic shows for the kids.  The food was a buffet which left a little to be desired but was so relaxing to let the kids try and sample what they wanted and not worrying about who got enough to eat.  It was a fabulous end to a great trip. The boys raced penguin style down t...

 Was horrible! This is a major party island.  We were close to the "most family friendly beach" of the island and the club promoters were making their rounds at 4:30.  It is also 3-4 times more expensive than any other island.  We also had some issues with our hotel- AC wasn't working, no hot water, internet password wasn't left for us, and no management on site.  All of this lead to me using the free wifi at a restaurant in downtown Mykonos to completely rebook the last few days of our trip.  Needless to say, since we were on the island only about 24 hours, not a lot of pictures to share.

4th island in our trip was Paros.  Another sleepy island much less touristy than Santorini.  As I had booked all the hotels myself based soley on what I found on the internet, our place was a little more out of the way than we would have liked.  There was a stretch of busy road with no sidewalk on our way to the beach. We did have our best single day of the trip on Captain Ben's Lazy day boat tour.  This double decker party boat had 5 swim and snorkel spots.   The bow of the boat was designated for families while the upper deck was for partiers.  The boys jumped from the upper deck at every spot and at the last location they inflated a two-story water slide for us  all to enjoy off the back.  A spectacular day.