3rd B-day - Disneyland Paris

Disneyland Paris is celebrating it's 15th year through the rest of 2008. I was there for the first time during the summer of 1997, during the 5th year celebration (the 15th year celebration has been going on since early 2007 - how do the French tell time?!) Somewhere in between, I was there again, (this time with the High Speed train to take my sister, Andrea) and last year, I stayed at one of the hotels in the park without ever aucutally getting to the park itself.

Since Kevin loves Winnie the Pooh, Remy the rat and Mickey Mouse so much, I thought a great b-day present would be to take him to Disneyland. While there is alot he can't do yet ride wise, I thought there would be enough for a few days fun. Before he's 3, he has free admittance to the park (for a 2 day ticket, that's 85 euros). I traded in my Spain week for points, booked a resort with a free shuttle to the park, and we were all set!

I didn't want to manage Kevin and a big park with just the two of us, I wanted Kevin to be able to expereince the park with other children he knew. Since I had booked a two bedroom apartment for 3 nights, it seemed a shame to let all that space 'go to waste' so I asked his Gastouder, Anky, if she and her family would like to come with us. They accepted, so it was 6 of us - Bas, Valerie, Anky, Gertjan, Kevin and myself for two days fun.

We drove on Thursday night, which seemed like a good plan when I was still unemployed, but made for a very long day after working a full day, driving home, packing the car, putting Kevin in the car and then hitting the road at the tail end of traffic jams at 7pm. 533 kilometeres or 5 1/2 hours later, we arrived at the resort outside of Paris, on the Disneyland golf course.

We all settled for the night around 2am, set the alarms for 7.15, and got a few hours precious sleep before waking up the next morning to start the Disneyland tour. We packed a lot into the first day...but there were long lines, and we had less than ideal sleep to get us through the day. we called it quites around 6pm and headed for dinner at the Rainforest cafe. Kev feel asleep in the buggy he never sleeps in, and didn't wake up until rain blew in his face when we got off the shuttle bus back at the resort.

The next day, we started off at Walt Disney Studios. Anky and co went off to ride Crush's coaster (from Finding Nemo)and Kevin and I went in search of characters to have our photo taken with. Remy the Rat was the only one we waited in line for, but we also saw Mickey Mouse, and Minnie and Chicken Little.

Walt Disney Studios had a lot less to offer than Disneyland, but on saturday were were winding down, the lines for all the popular rides were insane, and event fast pass were for 8pm by 1pm in the afternoon. Not a whole lot of options, really, so went off to the playground near the Pirates of the Caribbean to let the kids run off energy and enjoy the break in the weather. That afternoon we didn't do anymore rides - the lines were just too long. We talked about staying in the oark for the evening parade, but the little ones were also done for the day, and the adults too by this point. So, rather than stay until tempers frayed completely, it seemed best to call it a day and head back to the villa.

That evening, we did Pizza in the oven back at the apartment. We were all pretty worn out. it's a lot to cram into two days, and Sunday we needed to wake up and drive back up to the Netherlands. Sunday morning we managed to extend the check out till 11am, and Anky took the three kids swimming. That was almost as exciting as the whole 2 days of Disneyland - getting to swim in a hotel pool!

Last week was a week of Parties - Party at Anky's on Tuesday, Party at school on Wednesday, lots of singing and presents....This year he's had some trouble understanding his birthday is really 'just' one day, but at least he's stopped asking about Christmas?!

Maybe Easter will divert the attention from his Birthday...but then what will save me?

He's doing so well, and growing up before my eyes....it's just amazing to me how he's blossomed into this little person in the space of a few short months. The ideas about time and age and 'being the boss' are real things to him now that were meaningless just a short time ago. What a great time to be a Mommy!