Party in Paris

It was India's twelfth birthday this week. She wanted a simple celebration with a few friends. This is where we went. The ice rink in front of the Hôtel de Ville. An impressive backdrop for what was probably the easiest birthday party I've ever planned.


Seven girls and I set off into Paris on the train after school on Friday. I'd packed snack bags to keep them going until dinner and threw in a few party favours I'd picked up in Super U that morning. The masks were a surprise hit. The girls wore them on the train, in the metro and the whole time they were skating, much to the amusement of commuters and passers by!


The rink at the Hôtel de Ville is the last of the Holiday Season's temporary ice rinks in Paris to remain open. It costs just five euros to rent skates and the crowds have gone at this time of year. After dark, lights on the roof sparkle all night long.


It was a cold night but the girls were happy skating for an hour while I watched and worked on my night photography.


People come from all over the world to see the view from our local ice rink!


Once they we were done skating we warmed up with some street snacks, churros, nutella crêpes and the biggest Barbapapa (cotton candy) I've ever seen that was inhaled before I could get my camera out to snap a photo!


India has a pretty sophisticated bunch of friends, but they couldn't resist the carousel this night, especially as they got this beautiful double decker ride all to themselves.


After the fun at the Hôtel de Ville, we braved the metro once again to get to our dinner date at Chipotle. The beauty and cuisine of Paris is lost on these girls most of the time, what they really want is a good burrito and a Dr. Pepper. This was my first visit to the Paris Chipotle which opened last May and it was the perfect place to take these girls for a birthday dinner. The servers were patient while they slowly made their choices (in English) and then changed their mind. We had a big table tucked away upstairs all to ourselves and no one cared when the noise level rose - and rose!


It's not always (ever?) easy being a parent to a sixth grader. We are finding it a challenge as we navigate this path for the first time, but on this night the girls smiled and laughed and were polite and couldn't believe it when I said yes to all their requests for treats. For my birthday girl I was happy to indulge.


And the highlight of the party? Checking out the cool shoes on the last day of les soldes!

India was born on my 28th birthday so you can do the maths and figure out that this year's number was a big one for me! Not content with Paris on my doorstep, I'm getting on a plane in a few hours to spend the weekend with Keith in Rome. It's our first visit. If you have any must do's please let us know.

Bon weekend!

We love Mondays

The girls had a couple of extra days off school this weekend while the teachers did some Professional Development. They (the girls not the teachers!) decided this would be the perfect opportunity to go to Disneyland. They pooled their pocket money, did chores without complaining and convinced me there would be no queues on a wet February Monday. They were right. The waits were short, the rain stopped and everyone had a great time. We met up with some friends, so while they took the big girls on the scary rides, Florence and I hung out in Fantasyland. She doesn't watch the Disney Channel or know who the princesses are but she was beside herself with excitement to be there! And the best thing about Disneyland Paris? Nutella Crêpes!

Happy World Nutella Day!

Citrouilles

Last week, Florence and I headed over to Les Fermes de Gally to pick out some pumpkins for our neighbourhood's early Halloween Celebrations. It was a foggy, damp morning and we had the place to ourselves. When we discovered that Paris had it's very own Pumpkin Patch last year, Florence still wasn't walking and had to be carried around in the baby carrier. What a difference a year makes! This year she revelled in the chance to pick out her own pumpkin and stomp around in the mud.

I'm not sure when the next Love the Place you Live link up will be over at Design Mom, but Les Fermes des Gally is a definite contender in the Berry household. It really is just a ten minute drive from our house and only half an hour from Paris, yet it's such a wonderful country experience. You can pick your own produce year round. Apples are in season right now if you don't need a giant pumpkin and the farm also runs fun classes for kids and has a wonderful café and shop complete with live laying chickens that Florence loves to visit. It's one of those places we don't always remember is on our doorstep, but this year I am going to try and get there as often as possible. Without doubt we will be back in time to pick out a Christmas tree.

P.S. My photographs of Florence (and the big girls) are getting better thanks to another photography class I've been taking over at Nicole's Classes this month. Babies, Toddlers & Kids. I am so thrilled that one of my homework submissions made it onto their blog this week. Florence enjoying ice cream for breakfast. One of my most treasured photos that I could not have captured before I started taking the classes. (She was in the shade, I had to adjust the exposure big time. Photography geeks reading this blog will get it!!)

Mini France

More Eiffel Tower pictures for you today. With a twist. No we haven't turned into a family of giants. This is the Eiffel Tower at France Miniature a sweet little park about half an hour west of Paris and just a short drive from our house.


The main feature is, like the title says, Mini France. A 3D map of France filled with models of all the top sights in France from the Eiffel Tower to the boats in St. Tropez harbour. This is Versailles. Still not that mini - can you see the girls peeking over the west wing?

A pretty village in the South West that I thought we could visit on our way down to Spain next week. Forgot to note which village though. Anyone recognize it?!


That's Mont St Michel over there on the right. I could go on, but the models are not the only thing to see at France Miniature. The main reason to go as far as India, Georgia and Savannah are concerned are Les Attractions. Fairground rides conveniently located just off the coast of 'Brittany' which give you great views over all of 'France' and more importantly are fun and included in the (quite high) entrance price.

We were there on an overcast Monday and although the park was pleasantly busy it wasn't at all crowded and the girls got to play on as many rides as they liked for as long as they wanted. Florence even took a long nap in the stroller, Keith dialled in to work for a meeting he couldn't get out of on his day off and I finished off my photography homework. A typical family day out!

Dubbed the washing machine by the girls this ride spun you round and round and they went on it about ten times.

The prize after a difficult climb up this bouncy climbing wall...


...was to slide down the tallest and steepest slide I have ever seen. Georgia did get a bit stuck and had to rescued by a kindly French teenager thankfully saving me from the humiliation of having to try and get up there myself!

A surprising detail that the girls had remembered from their visit last year is this poubelle that talks to you every time you drop a piece of rubbish in it!


Perhaps the best part, or most alarming depending on your point of view, is that you get to operate the rides yourself. I can't imagine that ever happening in the USA but the system worked, everyone stayed safe and it developed a nice camaraderie between visitors as kids waiting for the ride would help out complete strangers to keep the line moving.




The girls first visited 'Mini France' as they like to call it with my Mum when we were house hunting last year and they fell in love with the place. The atmosphere there takes me back to my childhood holidays in France when parks like this seemed to offer so much more excitement than tiny Jersey. It might not be as thrilling as Disneyland on the other side of Paris but in it's own way it's just as magical. Well worth a visit if you are in the area. Even the café serves decent food. Well it is France after all!

In other news, I am thrilled to have been invited to be a guest blogger at Farm Fresh to You's blog. Hop on over there to see my review of the Capay Tomato Festival and lots of other gorgeous farm stories.

Lunch. Lakeside

It's time to show off again I'm afraid. This is the heartbreaking time of year, when people we hadn't even heard of last year, but who are now friends for life, get posted to another assignment in another country. Aside from packing up all their belongings, finding somewhere to live and registering their kids in new schools, they have their Paris bucket lists to get through and what's a good friend to do other than accompany them on trips to see and do all the things they planned on doing while they lived here, but were too busy with the laundry and supervising maths homework to get around to?


Checked off the list yesterday was Le Chalet des Iles, a restaurant in the middle of a lake in the Bois de Boulogne.


A ferry takes you out to the restaurant. It's easy - you just show up at the water's edge and the ferryman sails you over to your table.


This was quite a spur of the moment outing for me and my friend. Mostly we wanted to see what it was like to take a ferry to lunch, we hadn't thought that much about what the restaurant would be like when we got there. It turned out to be quite the white table cloth affair - a sign I usually take to mean best avoided when out with Florence, but the waiters weren't phased and as soon as we were seated brought us out a colouring page and crayons for the little girls. Nothing special you might think but it was a first for us in Paris. The menu included a menu enfant which you don't see in that many nice restaurants either. We ordered one for both girls and when it arrived we wished we had ordered one for ourselves. Check out that mini (saignant!) burger and the tomato and mozzarella brochettes. Starter and main course on one plate which kept both girls content while we enjoyed our excellent plats du jour.

There were also sun hats to borrow. Definitely a first for me, although I have seen blankets on the backs of chairs in some Paris cafés. Luckily for us after a week of dismal weather, yesterday was finally a day for hats not blankets.


The nice weather brought out the ducks and their babies too at which point our leisurely lunch was somewhat disrupted as we tag teamed eating dessert whilst watching that the girls didn't fall in the lake feeding their baguette to the ducks!




I often hear or read that it's impossible to eat out with kids in Paris, but this doesn't have to be the case. This restaurant was especially welcoming to the children, but we haven't particularly sought out kid friendly restaurants since moving to France and we have had lots of enjoyable meals out with the family. Our trick is to arrive early, just as the restaurants are opening for lunch or dinner that way you get served much faster, but you also need to allow time for a leisurely meal if you want it to be a nice one. If you don't have time for a three course lunch grab a sandwich from the boulangerie and take it to a park bench! We check out the atmosphere in the restaurant before we sit down, if it's all white table cloths and fur coats we move on, there's another one at the corner. We've never been put off by the lack of a children's menu, Florence is always happy with a plate of frites and the girls have learnt to love rare steak in France and now choose that wherever they go. There usually aren't highchairs, but we took a portable one that clips to the table while Florence needed one and no one ever objected to us using it. Inspired by this post a long time ago, we taught Florence to drink out of a glass as soon as she started weaning and it had been such a helpful skill for her in France where cups with lids are never brought to the table. Most of the time she drinks her water out of a wine glass and she now insists on drinking Orangina straight out of the bottle. That's right, we're perfect parents, we give our two year old fries and Orangina so we can get a nice meal!

Not every time we eat out with the girls is a raging success, but part of the reason we enjoy life here is that we have been prepared to give it a try. If we had given too much thought to going out to Le Chalet des Iles we might not have gone, but it turned out to be the perfect afternoon out. Good food, friendly service, pretty scenery and perfect company!

Hunting animals at the Louvre

It's been a while since I posted about anything remotely French and if you come here for the French life, I apologize.


To make up for it today I bring you the big one.


The Louvre.

We were there on Saturday with 10 other families from the girls' school for THATLou a Treasure Hunt At The Louvre. Quite possibly the most fun you can have at the Louvre with kids, THATLou treasure hunts have you chasing all over the museum looking for art and artefacts from the vast collection with only a photograph, a brief description and the official Louvre map as your guide. Discovered for us by my friend Laura, the treasure hunts are a relatively new Paris activity run by THATLou founder Daisy de Plume. She and Laura worked together to customize the experience for our vast collection of kids and I believe with 40 participants, this may have been the biggest hunt Daisy has ever planned!


On arrival the parents were assigned teams of kids and handed out the game manual. The rules are simple, find as many items on the list in the manual in two hours, photograph your team in front of each one you find and never get more than three metres away from your team mates. The harder the items are to find, the more points you get. Easy!


Get your Converse on because you will be covering all those miles of corridors at a furious pace.


I had Georgia & Savannah, three of their friends and two other parents in my team. A quick look at the map and we were off, searching for art containing animals which was the theme for the day.

We had our first success within minutes Louis XIV on his horse by Francois Girardon. The girls were thrilled and rushed off enthusiastically to find another treasure.


The European sculpture galleries proved to be a good hunting ground for us and we quickly added more finds to our list. This was my favourite, Cupid playing with a Butterfly by Antoine-Denis Chaudet. Love those cherubic hands although the fingernails could do with a good scrub!

I believe we covered every inch of the never ending Egyptian galleries to find the Apis Bull hiding at the end of a corridor.

And then we ran round them one more time to find King Nectanebo II's falcon. Our eighth and final find, he was worth 40 points so we really wanted him, but as you can see exhaustion had set in by this point! One final nerve wracking sprint ensured we were the first team back to the meeting point with just one minute to spare.

And if that has you feeling exhausted, spare a thought for Keith who did the whole thing carrying Florence in the baby carrier. Despite that handicap, his team still beat us, but this really was one of those times when taking part was just as much fun as winning. Either that or all of our feet ached too much for us to care!

In two hours we saw more than we could have ever hoped to have persuaded the girls to see without the incentive of the treasure hunt and while of course, they didn't spend long looking at anything, they had their eyes peeled the whole time for their treasures and noticed plenty of other things to interest them along the way. Enough that they have asked to go back.


Although Keith took the girls to the Louvre at Christmas, this was my first visit since moving to Paris. I've put it off partly because there is so much to see it's difficult to know where to start. THATLou was a great way to get familiar with the museum. I left feeling like I knew it but with plenty to go back and explore.