Visit to Paris, France

We had a wonderful 4 night stay at Disneyland Paris Wednesday through Sunday last week. There were so many things to do and see...

DAY 1 - Wednesday evening we had a flight on Air France from Aberdeen airport to Paris. We arrived and took a 30 minute taxi to our hotel. We stayed at the Disneyland Hotel which was really nice and was very convenient to Disneyland Park, we just walked right outside the hotel each morning and we were at the park entrance!

DAY 2 - We had our first Character breakfast at 8 am at "Inventions" restaurant in our hotel. We saw Mickey, Pluto and Donald Duck. Trent and Landon were very excited because they love a big breakfast. They were serving bacon, sausage, eggs, toast, pastries, pancakes, donuts, fruit and plenty of other things to choose from on the buffet. After our big breakfast we headed down to the park entrance of Disneyland Park. We visited the Sleeping Beauty Castle and then rode Peter Pan's Flight, Dumbo the Flying Elephant, Mad Hatter's Tea Cups and Its a Small World. We went to the Pirates Beach to play in Adventureland. We loved walking down Main Street and seeing the City Hall and all the shops. That afternoon we also were all able to ride on Big Thunder Mountain! It was a wild roller coaster. We watched the Disney character parade at 5 pm which the boys loved (they especially liked seeing Captain Hook) and then had dinner at Inventions again with more of our favorite characters. They enjoyed seeing Chip and Dale, they love these chipmunks.

DAY 3 - After our character breakfast we headed to Walt Disney Studios Park where we caught shows including Playhouse Disney Live on Stage and Monsters Inc. Trent and Daddy rode the Crush's Coaster and we watched the Moteurs...Action! Stunt Show Spectacular. After lunch, we went back to Disneyland Park to Discoveryland to ride on the Buzz Lightyear Laser Blast (the boys favorite) and Orbitron. We rode the teacups and Peter Pan's Flight again and then headed back to watch the parade. That evening we saw the Wild West Dinner show which was a lot of fun.

DAY 4 - Day trip to Paris. After our breakfast we headed get on a bus at 9:30 am for a tour of Paris. We saw so many things including the Notre-Dame Cathedral, Place de la Concorde, Avenue Chaps-Elysees, Arc de Triomphe and took a boat cruise down the River Seine. We also went to the Eiffel Tower and up to the second floor to see all the views of Paris. The Eiffel Tower was amazing to see in person, it was a great experience! We returned to the hotel around 7 pm.

DAY 5 - We were able to ride the Buzz Lightyear Laser Blast again and also the Star Tours before heading back to the airport to go home. We arrived back in Aberdeen around 4:30 pm. We had a great trip and hope to go back soon!

Happy 4th Birthday Landon!

I can't believe my sweet little boy is 4 today! He has grown up so much in the last year, but he is still my baby. He is such a sweet boy, loves to give hugs and kisses and he brightens our day. Landon loves to play with airplanes, he has a lot of them and it is his favorite toy right now. Today we had his 4th Birthday party at a place in Oldmeldrum (about 15 minutes away) called Hoodles Playbarn with about 15 of his friends from school. There is an indoor playscape with slides that my kids just love. We had pizza and sandwiches and ice cream and cake. Today it was so pretty all the kids were able to play outside with their tricycles and play area. It was a gorgeous day and Landon and his friends had a great time.

Our New Friend

The boys had a fun St. Patricks Day and wore there green to school. We have been having fun with our new friend lately, our neighbor's cat. He comes over to visit us everyday after school and hangs out for a while in our front yard. The boys have been throwing ball with him and chasing him, Trent even decided we needed to make a house for him for when he comes over to visit :) 

We received a package in the mail from Aunt Katy and Uncle Clark yesterday, filled with toys, cheetos, cheezits, Ranch dressing, goldfish, skittles and other snacks which aren't found over here in Scotland. They were so excited. Thanks so much!

Just One More Time!

After a couple of beautiful sunny weeks here in Aberdeen, today it has been snowing all day here at our home. Trent and Landon have been asking for it to snow just one more time this winter. So they got their wish. I really enjoy watching the snowfall out the window and the fact that Trent and Landon love playing in the snow, but I must admit it is something that I would rather not live with. I think this could be the last of the snowfall this year, so we decided to make the most of it and got to do a little sledging this afternoon. Not as much snow as we have had of course, but I'm glad that my kids got to have another day in the snow this winter. 

Trent and Landon have been staying busy with school, playing at the park, golf lessons and football (soccer). We will start swim lessons again soon and we just found out that they will be able to play T-Ball this Spring at their school. They are very excited as this is one thing we thought we would miss from home. Trent has had a mild case of Chicken Pox for the past 11 days even after he had been vaccinated back home! He has had the spots but other than that he has been fine. He has been back at school though because he is past the contagious phase. We were surprised but children here in Scotland are not vaccinated for Chicken Pox like in the US and it is going around here. On Monday Landon got hit in the mouth at school which knocked his two front teeth out of alignment (they were pretty crooked) and the whole part of the inside upper lip was purple and so swollen! With all the blood I had to find a Dentist so that he could be seen. Not being registered with a Dentist here, I was a little concerned because it usually takes months to get in to see one. I called the 24 hour Emergency Dental Hotline here with the National Healthcare System and they were able to get me in (although across town) within 30 minutes. It was a relief that it wasn't anything serious. The swelling was so bad the 2nd day and poor Landon didn't even look like himself, he had bruising now on the outside of his mouth! The following day the swelling went down so much and he looked so much better. Amazingly, his teeth even straightened back up! 

 This past weekend Jon and I attended our first AWA (American Woman's Group) event together, the Mardi Gras Party. We are lucky to have found a wonderful babysitter named Fiona, the boys love her! That night we had a great time eating Cajun food, dancing and even joining in on the Mardi Gras Mambo song line dance.  That week I also attended my first AWA meeting in which I met several more other American women living in Aberdeen. It was nice to meet so many wonderful ladies and I hope to start doing a few more activities with the group. Christi and I went Scottish Antique shopping on Thursday and went to a few stores we found here in Aberdeen. I would like to find a few things to take home with me in the next couple of years so it will be neat to see what I can find. Some of our finds included tartan plaid items, antique golf clubs, and gorgeous handcrafted grandfather clocks from the 1800s from Scotland, England and Wales. I can't wait to go visit some other stores nearby. On Friday I had lunch with some of the other moms in the Preschool ISA. One of the moms hosted at her home and each person brought a dish. There were so many different things to try and I hope to get all the recipes! We had a great time.