36 hours in Paris

Notre Dame de Paris

Notre Dame - view from our picnic spot

All this sightseeing is darn hard work!

Alain and his little brother Amadou

Row, row, row your boat (and pray we don't fall in)...

We only stopped briefly in Paris on this visit, it was just enough time to hang out with Alain's brother Amadou and his lovely new wife Kadidia, before they fly out to Central Africa on a Red Cross mission.

Even though our stay was only brief, we did have a lovely time. We arrived in Paris at about 7am, and by 10am we were in a park and had hired a row boat (which was supposed to be for 4 people, we had 6!). All was going well until Alain and Madou decided to change positions, then the boat started rocking violently and it totally freaked the kids out (and me too), thank God we didn't fall in!

The next day we walked from Amadou's apartment near Place de la Bastille, along the Seine all the way down to Notre Dame de Paris. It was wonderful stroll with lots of beautiful things to look at. Once we were down there we found a nice little position in a park opposite the cathedral and had a picnic while the kids terrorized the pigeons.

Later that day we caught the TGV train (which we very nearly missed, but thats a whole other story) down to Montpellier in the south of France, to spend time with Alain's folks.

Washington D.C

Where we stayed: Adam's Inn

1700 Pennsylvania Ave -The White House. Spot the two snippers on top of the building.

Close up of the armed snippers.

The Washington Monument.

National World War II Memorial

World War II Memorial inscription

Lincoln Memorial

Abraham Lincoln

The Reflecting Pool. "Forest!!!"..... "Jenny!!".....

US Capitol

US Supreme Court

It's a shame we've only had a few days in DC, as there is so much to see in this beautiful capital city. It's chock-a-block full of interesting buildings, monuments and museums; one could easily spend weeks exploring it all.

We've managed to cram as much as possible into our short time in DC though. We've visited the White House, the Washington Monument, Lincoln Memorial, the National World War II Memorial, the Reflecting Pool, the US Capitol, the US Supreme Court and two wonderful Smithsonian Museums - the National History Musuem, which has a great dinosaur display (much to Dallas' delight) and the Air and Space Museum, which has space ships, rockets and a whole heap of other interesting things.

DC is a lovely place and I could easily see myself living here, if only it didn't have the highest murder rate in all the US....

For more photos of Washington DC, click HERE.

Central Park

One little monkey in the tree

The second little monkey we spotted

Rest time on the rocks

People playing baseball in the park. There were about 5 separate games going on

Can't remember what this was called, but it sure was pretty

Picnic in the park

A little plaque on a park bench, that I rather liked

Central Park

We spend our last full day in NYC just aimlessly wasting time in Central Park. It was lovely...

Alain found a fine french style boulangerie on Maddision Ave and bought some delicious baguettes and pain au chocolat which we ate whilst sitting under the trees while soaking up the sun and atmosphere.

After lunch we ambled around the park and let the kids play at 4 of the 24 playgrounds Central Park has to offer, we also watched some people playing baseball, we watched some folks sail miniature sail boats on the lake and we also watched a few buskers... I also spotted Bob Gunton, hes the actor who played Warden Norton in Shawshank Redemption sitting on a park bench which was a bit of a bonus.

I loved Central Park. It's a little piece of calm in the chaos that is New York.

Click HERE for more photos of NYC.

New York, New York

Stayed at: East Village Bed & Coffee

Stars and Stripes

View from the Empire State Building observation deck on the 86th floor

Lower Manhattan from the Empire State

Mia having a good nosey

One pretty lady and two little eggheads

Lower Manhattan skyline - Forever changed...

The Statue of Liberty... What a beauty!

Dallas at Ellis Island - Where the majority of immigrants from 1892-1954 were processed

Ellis Island

Ground Zero

Rebuilding at Ground Zero

Well, what can you really say about New York? It's loud, it's fast, it's stinky, it's funky, it's beautiful, it's chaotic, it's alive, it's bloody great...

So far we've gone up the top of the Empire State Building (on the only bloody cloudy, windy day we've had I might add), we then walked from the Empire State all the way down 5th Ave past the Rockerfeller Centre, Trump Tower and Tiffany's. We stopped for about 2 hours at the FAO Schwartz toy store, then continued on to Central Park, where we saw Jason Bateman and Jennifer Aniston filming a scene from their upcoming movie.

We've also gone to visit the Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island, Ground Zero and St Paul's Chapel (a wee church which stood across the road from the WTC and managed to survive when the towers collapsed). Whilst at Ground Zero we went to the Tribute WTC Visitor Centre which has loads of images, movies and artifacts from 9/11. I bawled my eyes out when we got to a part of the display showing photos of hundreds and hundreds of the victims... It's weird putting faces and names to the tragedy.

So far, I'm loving New York and I'll definitely be back one day, without the kids!

Disneyland

Disneyland on my 30th birthday

The Boy meets Lightening... Ka-chow!

Cuddles with Sully

Mia meets the Little Mermaid - Ariel

Dallas meets his most favourite person/thing in the entire world... Buzz Lightyear!


As you can imagine, we had an awesome time at Disneyland and the newer Disney California Adventure Park. Having a 4 day hopper pass was a great benefit, as we could leave the parks whenever we wanted and come back at a later time when the kids weren't so tired (that translates to stroppy).

I had read on the Internet that you get free admission into Disneyland on your birthday, and seeing as we had already pre-paid our tickets instead of the free admission I received a gift voucher to the value of US$69.00 to spend in their gift shops, YAY... You also receive a badge that you wear stating its your birthday. I counted 102 other people with their birthday badges on on MY birthday... 102!!! Its mental seeing 102 other people that share the same birth date as yourself...

The highlights of our time at Disneyland were meeting Buzz Lightyear (Dallas' eyes nearly fell out of his head - He was a little disappointed that Buzz's buttons didn't work though), Mia getting to meet Ariel, the Pixar Parade and riding on the Toy Story Mania ride and the Buzz Lightyear Astro Blaster.

Disneyland ROCKS!! If you've got kids or your a kid a heart you HAVE to go there!!

For more photos of Disneyland, click HERE

Coming to America

Only 2 hours left to go... Phew!

First glimpse of the Californian coastline

Little frequent flyer's

Kai time (again)

Stayed at: Anaheim Plaza Hotel & Suites

Once again, we were extremely lucky to have a really smooth uneventful flight, we even managed to arrive in LA 35 minutes early which was a good thing, cause my derrière hurt from sitting down for so darn long - 11hrs 27 minutes to be exact.

Although the kids had an awesome flight, they did suffer really badly from jet lag. They both threw up a few times at the hotel, couldn't sleep at night time and were just really disorientated for the first few days in Anaheim. Because of this we just took it really easy and eventually they came right...

What a nice 'Welcome Home' present...

Alain and I both received a nice big dose of tonsillitis a few days after arriving back in NZ. We've had fevers, chills, sore ears, muscular pain, headaches and obviously, extremely sore throats...

We both thought we had a simple case of the flu, so though we'd just rest a few days and we'd come right eventually, boy oh boy, were we wrong! By Saturday, Alain and I were just wrecks and spend most of the day sleeping or trying to decided whether or not we were hot or cold, whilst trying our hardest not to produce saliva cause swallowing was pure torture!!

We ended up waking early on the Sunday and headed straight to A&E to get checked over by a doctor (who charged us NZ$170 for the honour too...Grrrrr!). The nurse was a little iffy of us because all of this 'swine flu' business, but the doctor took one look down our throats and diagnosed tonsillitis straight away. He even wrote in my notes that my tonsils are "huge and pussy"..... Nice!

Now, after a few days of antibiotics and constantly downing nurofens we are finally on the mend. It's just a pity that all our plans for our time in NZ were flushed down the toilet. We never got a chance to go and visit my grandfather, we never got a chance to take the kids to Rotorua, the Mount or even to Raglan. We've only got one full day left in NZ now, so I'm not sure what we're going to do.... Hell, anything is better than felling like ass...