"Three more stops, then ours"

Our Emma has become quite the Metro navigator! When we hopped on Saturday afternoon after we left the Louvre, she was looking up at the map posted on the top of the wall. After several stops, she leaned over and announced, "three more stops, then ours". And she was right. As you can imagine this elicited high praise from her adoring fans . . . oops I meant parents.

Paris was a wonderful stop for all of us. Day one found us entering immigration without incident -- hooray! After dropping our bags at our hotel (finding it was decidedly NOT without incident, but that's a rant for another day) we headed for Emma's favorite park near Le Tour Eiffel. Unfortunately, the carousel she loves was shut. No worries though, we hit it Sunday afternoon after we worshiped with an international and interdenominational bunch at the American Church. Emma enjoyed being around other kids and we thanked God for an Isabelle and another Emma who made sure our Emma's time in Children's Church was pleasant.

At the Louvre we garnered a special tour for Emma in the form of a wonderful guide book for families. It came with adventure cards -- two sets actually. One for ages 8-9 and one for ages 10-12 (yes, we'll return). Emma guided us through works including, but not limited to, The Victory of Samonthrace, the Mona Lisa, and our piece de resistance, an Egyptian mummy. She really took to being the guide and literally led us through the Denon, Richlieu, and Sully wings, giving us facts about the various works we encountered in each.

Our last day in Paris was actually spent a bit outside the city. A thirty-five minute ride on the RER to be exact. The signs above the stop read "Parc Disneyland." Yes, we're addicts. We'd pretty much decided not to go out there this time, but after a trip to the Disney store on the Champs Elysees, Wade surprised us with tickets. We managed to hit all our favorite rides with little to no waiting time and garnered FastPasses for Peter Pan's Flight and Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Ride. Emma wants me to announce that, once again, she and her dad hit waaaaaay more targets than Mom did. We learned an important thing about our family late that afternoon at Disney Studios. It turns out we're not roller coaster people. Emma had been stoked about checking out "Crush's Coaster" one of the newest rides at Disneyland Paris. Since it's a coaster with a theme from Finding Nemo, I expected it to be a gentle introduction to the world of roller coasters. I WAS WRONG. None of us received any pleasure from that ride. In fact, Emma and Mom screamed most of the way through and Dad got jerked around so much he needed a rest after that one. Though Mom is not a big fan of the tilt-a-whirl, we agreed to let Emma do the Cars themed ride next so Crush wouldn't be her last memory of the park!