On the Road Again!

Flying overnight!

(Saturday October 17)

It's been a few years since we used this blog, but last time it proved such a great way for family and a few friends to keep tabs on our adventure we thought we'd try to update it again.  We're especially excited for this trip because not only do we get to do Paris (one of our two favorite places on earth) and London again, but Jenn's brother Douglas is coming with us and visiting Europe for the first time.  We're so happy to be traveling with him!

Our first day of vacation (Saturday 10/17) started NOT bright and early as we're used to, but rather late in the evening, which felt weird.  Our flight didn't leave Seattle until 9:30pm, so the kids were good and ready to get some rest on the plane...or at least Max and Josie were; they both slept much of the 5.5 hours to JFK.  Jenn managed a couple hours.  If Nicole or Scott had been able to sleep at all it would have been a much more pleasant flight for them, though!

Max, excited and ready!

He LOVES taking off.  He was glued to the window!

New York City

(Sunday October 18)

We had originally intended to just book tickets straight from Seattle to Paris, but because we were redeeming frequent flyer miles we couldn't get the exact flights we wanted.  So we arrived in New York City at 6:45am Sunday (after 0 to a few hours sleep, mind you) and our flight to Paris didn't leave until 5:20pm.  So, we decided to make lemonade and booked a tour of the city for our looooooong layover!  By the way, if anyone is going to NYC and is interested, I can't recommend this tour company highly enough.  They are called Family in New York.  Yes, their site looks a little cheesy, but they were fantastic, and very reasonably priced.  They picked us up at the airport as soon as we landed and packed us and our stuff into a minivan, spending the next 7+ hours driving us all over the city (including recommending food stops) and bringing us back to JFK in plenty of time for our flight.  The driver was also our tour guide and shared TONS of history and stories about the city, its development, the things we saw, etc.  We even got to see the site of two very cool things we just learned about in History for school: the spots where Nathan Hale was executed, and where George Washington took the oath of office when he became President!  Here are some random pics of the day.

Breakfast at Ellen's Stardust Diner.  The servers are all Broadway performers, or wannabes, and they sing while they serve.  Since opening in 1987 they've had more than 220 staff members perform on Broadway.  Our server had actually just returned from playing a lead role in the European tour of Mamma Mia.  Nicole immediately decided she wants to work there someday, which given her theater aspirations is, I guess, a possibility!

 St. Patrick's Cathedral

 Rockefeller Center - notice the ice rink behind us!

On top of the 30 Rock building

Central Park

Central Park

Central Park

The Brooklyn Bridge

That's the teeny tiny Statue of Liberty behind us

Freedom Tower at the site of The World Trade Center. 

911 Firefighter Memorial Wall

911 Memorial - there are two waterfalls like this, each standing where a tower once stood (though these are smaller than the actual footprint of the buildings.  This was an emotional stop for both Scott and I, we found ourselves unexpectedly choked up just standing at the memorial.  It was quite something to be there and think about what happened.

Max and a slice of real New York pizza bigger than his head (maybe the size of his whole torso, actually) at our lunch stop. Yum!

I know I only made it through the end of the day Sunday, and it's already Tuesday night here, but we're tired and we're headed for Disneyland Paris in the morning, so off to bed we go.  We'll try to update soon!