Paris day 5: Versailles

Journal entry for Tuesday, July 23rd:

I am so grubby from sweating all day long! We went to Versailles today and it was a long one. We left our apartment at 7:20am (no run for me today, but I still got 16,600 steps). Metro to metro to train, then walk it in to the palace. We had our museum passes so we skipped the ticket line and went straight to the entrance line. It zigzagged up and down the courtyard three times when we got there, and it doubled while we stood in line. It took us an hour and a half to get through the line and enter the palace! What were we thinking? We sent Leslie over to sit in the shade to preserve her mood and energy. The rest of us suffered through the wait in the merciless sun. Thankfully we had sunscreen. The kids sat and played in the dirt/sand between the lumpy old cobbles in the courtyard. Amber got the dirtiest--she found half a discarded pistachio shell and played with it for a long time in the dirt. Jeff and I have been in the parenting game for long enough to know that there are worse toys than dirt and discarded pistachio shells.

Paris day 4: Eiffel et Invalides

Journal entry from Monday, July 22, 2019:

This morning I got up to my alarm at 6am and went on a run in the park. I was nervous about falling on my sore knees, so I stayed in the park and didn't look at my phone map once. We left our apartment at 8am, rode public transit for a solid 45 minutes and got off the last bus at the base of the Eiffel Tower.

Paris day 3: church, climbing, and a cave

Ok, so during our France trip I am doing my best to write in my journal every night so I can remember as much of our adventure as possible. My journal entries are not always quite as interesting or detailed as I'd like them to be. (travel with kids is tiring!) But there's only so much time and mental energy in the day, so I'm using my journal entries for blog posts, even if they aren't quite as carefully constructed as my usual posts.

Paris day 2: un arc, un jardin, et une chapelle

Journal entry from Saturday, July 20th, 2019

Nobody slept well last night. Stinking jet lag! We were all exhausted after our day yesterday, but our bodies were used to being awake at that time, so we were awake past 2am but too tired to enjoy it. Oh the vicious cycle! In spite of my fatigue this morning, I wanted to run at least 3.5 miles to get my weekly total up to 30 miles for the week. So I headed out towards Montmartre for a morning view.

At about 3/4 of a mile, as I was jogging along and checking Google maps on my phone, I tripped and fell on my hands and knees. Usually when I trip, there is a split second of arm-windmilling hope where I flail for balance and hope that I might not fall. This time I never even felt that fleeting hope. I fell fast and hard, right in front of an elderly Frenchman.

Paris day 1: Notre Dame and water lilies

Journal entry for Friday, July 19th, 2019:
Paris, day one! We didn't leave the apartment till after 11am because the kids slept in. We woke them up at 8:30am and had a nice slow start to our jet-lagged day. We are staying a fifth of a mile from the runner's haven of Paris: le Parc des Buttes-Chaumont, and Jeff and I joined the throngs of runners there this morning. It was lovely to run through the grotto and see the hilltop views without worrying about getting lost or dealing with loud city traffic.

London Loop

We were in London for 24 hours. During that time I slept for 4 hours and ran 15 miles. Priorities or jet lag? I ran 5 miles the afternoon we arrived, and another ten miles the next morning. After sitting in bed wide awake for four hours on Thursday morning (July 18th), I pulled on my running clothes and went out into the steady drizzle for a sightseeing run. I brought my phone for the Google maps to help me navigate to as many sights as I could find. Our hotel was two blocks from King's Cross Station and St. Pancras International Station (I chose it for that reason, since we were taking the train to France later that day). So my starting point was conveniently centrally located in London Town. It has been eleven years since I spent time in London outside of Heathrow, and it was fun to revisit all of the favorites.

The journey begins

*I wrote this at 3:05am somewhere over the north Atlantic, when we were 7 hours in to our 9.5 hour flight to London. Then I edited it at 4am London time (8pm Sunnyside time). I can't tell if it makes sense, but I wanted to get the tale of our first full-family international flight written down before the jet lag wears me out too much. At the time I edited this, it had been 37 hours since we left home, and I had slept less than six of those hours. So good luck.

We left home at 7am on Tuesday, July 16th. Dan (Jeff's dad) drove us 3 hrs to Seattle in our van, bless him. He stopped and went on a hike in the mountains on his way home so it wasn't all boring business for him. The Seattle airport was super crowded! We stood in line to check in for a while, and were alarmed to discover that our flight time had moved up 40 minutes, from 12:10 to 11:30am! I realized that I forgot to save the updated email with our flight time change waaaay back in like October. When we finally got our boarding passes, it was one hour till boarding began. "It'll be a close call," I thought, "but we'll make it ok." Then we rounded the corner and saw the massive fast-growing slow-moving security line. Nope, that was not going to work. We'd miss our flight! Desperation, determination, and deliberation set in. Jeff elected me to go seek assistance "because they'll be nicer to you."

France Finance

Time for an awkward topic: MONEY. We all need it. We all are able to choose what to do with the money we have. Ever since our first trip to France together eleven years ago, Jeff and I have dreamed about taking our kids there someday. During our early years of super-snug-budgeting, that day felt very far distant. Then stars started to align. We moved into an affordable rental house in Sunnyside and began adding nearly quadruple dollars to our savings each month than we previously had managed. A year later, our state passed legislation funding significant statewide teacher pay increases and our school district negotiated a whopping mega 17.5% raise for local teachers. Suddenly our dream family France trip was very possible and closer than ever before.

The Brown Villa Resort

We spent July 6-12th in Denver with my side of the family. My parents have always made it a priority to get all of their kids and grandkids together at least once a year by providing funds for travel and mountains of food for all 21 of us. Pasco, WA to Denver is a convenient 2 hour direct flight, and before we knew it, we were hugging and hello-ing a loud crowd of family members in Denver.

This was our first summer in five years gathering together in a new location. My parents sold their beloved beautiful lakehouse in Bonney Lake, WA and bought a bigger, more centrally-located house in Denver, CO, trading the backyard lake for a backyard pool. We went there for Christmas, but this was the first summer family time in Denver. I missed the beauty of the lake, but enjoyed the ease and endless kid water entertainment at the pool. Thankfully, family time is family time no matter where we meet up, and we enjoyed quality time together in the new location just fine.

Summertime in Sunnyside

We spent the first month of summer at home in Sunnyside, doing swim team and unofficial cross country summer practice. But something was wrong: I could NOT get a good night's sleep! Jeff was breathing more and more loudly. We called it snoring, but it wasn't really traditional snoring. It was super loud breathing. After throwing around idea after idea after idea and trying idea after idea after idea, (and losing newborn proportions of sleep on my part), we finally landed on the possibility that his snoring was allergy-related. Maybe he was allergic to something in our 70 year old dank damp basement bedroom. That very night, Jeff slept upstairs and felt AMAZING the next morning. We were sold. On Wednesday, July 3rd, we did the switcheroo, moving our bedroom upstairs to the playroom and the playroom downstairs to our former basement bedroom. Now we are sleeping in the large room above the garage, and Jeff has noticed such a difference. Since the room is not very well air conditioned, we sleep with a fan running. That plus Jeff's less-allergic quieter breathing has given us real sleep at last. And we love having a light airy large bedroom!

Snow Mountain Ranch Run

Our fridge was in need of Costco replenishment, and I was in need of a solo trail run, so yesterday (Saturday), I combined business with pleasure. I drove to Snow Mountain Ranch in Cowiche, WA (57 minutes away from home) and went on a run up to the top of the hill there. It was a bright sunny 76 degree clear day but the breeze kept me from getting too hot. The trail was much crispier and browner than it was when we hiked it six weeks ago in May. Most of the wildflowers were dead (and the wind rattled their dry leaves in a very creepy way), but as I climbed higher, I discovered a few hardy little blooms among the desert crust and sage brush.  For the first mile of the trail I was wondering why I had driven an entire hour to run somewhere that was browner and drier than the irrigated planted countryside at home. Thankfully the rest of the trail had enough variety in flora and fauna (however dry and muted it appeared) to feel different and worth the drive.

Swim-run-repeat

Last week was exceptionally busy, filled with all sorts of physical activity: swim team practice, cross country practice, track and field camp, and two swim meets. We are all worn out. No lazy summer days for us! Our daily breakdown for June 24-28th:

• 7:30-8:30am: Swim team practice for Jay and Rose, cross country summer practice for Jeff and/or Shaina, bike riding practice for Amber
• 10am-12pm Kids track and field camp for all five of us.
• 5:45pm-9pm Tuesday and Thursday: Swim meets for Jay and Rose.

We barely had time to catch our breath all week! When I wrote down our activities, they didn't look as tiring as they were in real time. But we are a family who prefers to take life slowly and minimize kids' commitments, so swim team plus track camp plus swim meets felt super busy for us! The longest days had Jay and Rose outside at events for nearly seven hours total! They handled it quite well. We made sure to have long relatively quiet afternoons with movies and computers to recover from the rigors of the day and rest up for the next activity.