Happy New Years Paris Style

Awe Paris at the ripe old age of 22 months - what a lucky girl! And at this point in our trip we are into a traveling groove. We arrived in Paris on New Years Eve around 5pm to find out that once again the apartment I pre-arranged wasn't going to work out - I was quite mad to say the least. Dylan is screaming up and down the street excited to be out of the car, Matt's chasing after her and I'm trying to figure out how to make an international call and use my rusty french to try and talk to people to make other arrangements. It wasn't so much the money lost that I was mad about (we've since gotten that portion back) it was the time in arranging another place - ON New Years Eve evening with a toddler! Luckily it all worked out, we were able to book a hotel for a few nights before Matt found a great little apartment in the Montmartre district - which we loved.

Our New Years Eve was pretty low key - we found a quite little restaurant and had a yummy dinner and then headed back to our hotel. It was an early evening for the Clarks. The next day we headed over to the Eiffel Tower, which apparently there was a big hoopla the night before because there was all kinds of trash - confetti, champagne bottles, paper, beer cans.... Well little missy being the eco girl that she is saw all the garbage and started picking it up saying "trash" and taking it to the garbage can. Well this was cute for the first few minutes but after 5 and not seeing the end of the garbage in sight we had to steer her in another direction as we'd probably still be there picking up all the trash!

One thing that really helped our travels in Paris was our sitter, Madison, taught Dylan a few french words - like Bonjour and Merci - with just those few words and that cute little face the French were like pudding in our hands.




Here's Dylan back on the Chou-Chou, like I said before it was her favorite part of the trip. She even memorized the entrances and when we'd pass by one she start yelling "chou-chou, dadda chou-chou".


Sweet picture of a girl and her dad.
Here's a few shots of Dylan and what we called her "chou-chou" dance as she'd get so excited to see another train pass by us. Her arms would start waving, her legs start jumping, and she'd yell (loudly, I might add) "Chou-Chou, Chou-Chou, bye Chou-Chou".


Well Dylan learned quickly that when in Paris you shop and being our girl she learned quickly you shop for shoes. She eyed a nice purple suede pair in this window - luckily it was after hours and they were closed!


Uh, guess someone was a little hungry...

Driving miss momma.

Awe, Notre Dame.


Back at the apartment Dylan found a tool kit. Usually we wouldn't really let her run around the house with a screw driver and hammer but after constantly through out the trip telling her 'don't touch this and don't touch that' we figured the girl needed a few toys to play with. And by the looks of her from the picture she had it all figure out what tools you use to fix what.

Here's a picture of the Sacre Coeur right by where we were staying. One night we hiked up the hill to check it out - it was quite a sight and even better was the view of all of Paris!




The next day we found a really awesome little bakery just a few blocks from our apartment. We stopped in for a baguette and found ourselves munching on chocolate croissants and cappuccinos and warm steamed milk for miss d. It was one of those really fun unplanned moments.



Back at the apartment again and I guess this time the dryer needed fixing - yes, those are wire cutters, come on the girl needed something to play with!


We even had her reviewing maps for the next day's event.

(notice the crossed feet).

"Hum, well if we took that subway to that stop then transferred to the red line...."

Awe the Pere Lachaise Cemetery - one of my favorite places to visit in Paris (besides my very favorite little Indian textile shop - which we did find!). It's a very old and very beautiful cemetery - I just love it. It was a nice day and we thought it would be a great spot for Dylan to run off some energy.







Okay so maybe she ran off a little too much energy! Before heading back to the apartment we ducked into a bike shop Matt wanted to check out - honestly we weren't in there very long when we looked down and found Dylan passed out cold. We weren't sure what to do (as if we moved her it would risk waking her up) - We felt a little bad as she didn't look to comfortable but figured sleep out weight comfort. I wrapped my scarf around her head to keep it warm and make it a little darker for her to rest. We ducked into a restaurant and had a nice quiet little lunch together (as usually one of us is chasing after d). We even got to enjoy our after lunch cappuccinos!

Bath time fun!

Make sure you read all the labels Dylan.


And here's a little video of Dylan running after her dad in the Pere Lachaise Cemetry.

Europe 101 With A Toddler - First Stop Getting There

Awe, the Holidays in Europe! What could be more fun? The snow, being in foreign countries, being with family, the food, the beer, and traveling! We didn't really know what to expect traveling with a toddler and we found out. I do have to say that miss d is a fabulous traveler, as she's been on several trips, I could NOT imagine do this kind of trip with a not so seasoned traveling toddler. But we sure figured out fast it makes for a whole different kind of trip!


Our friend Jeff Proctor runs a cyclocross camp in Belgium during the holiday's (that's when their racing season is). Matt's been craving going for a few years now so we figured what the heck let's go! We asked Auntie Beans to come join in on the fun. She was quite a trooper and flew in from Hawaii, packed up her winter gear, bundled up and off we headed for a winter European Holiday adventure. As you can see from the picture above it was a little snowy!

Here's the troops in Toronto switching planes. Funny as it looks as though we are traveling so light, which is a joke as anyone that has a little one knows the amount of gear you have to tow around with you! Matt was doing a filming project with the cyclocross camp so we had his gear as well. We really tried to keep things down to a minimum but we still managed to fill up our town car (our ride to the airport) and Auntie Beans had to get a ride with her boyfriend, Daryl. Oh and did I mention that Matt hurt his shoulder while racing in Bend just days before? A little crazy but come on it's us that's how we Clark's roll.

Since Dylan was under 2 she was able to travel for free on our laps for the 12 hour flight. Luckily I took Great Auntie Doris's advise and bought a DVD player which Dylan loved watching 10 straight hours of Curious George. Well hey she was happy as a clam! Dylan actually did really good on both the flight over and back. Here she is sleeping in her momma's arms.

And here's our little monkey on the other side of the world - still smiling!