The Eiffel Tower!

I’m writing on the blog because my mom told me that I can’t go to bed until I do…  slavery.

But anyway, my job is to write about my favorite part of Paris! Looking back on the four days spent in there, I seriously don’t even know where to start! For me, probably the best day was visiting the Eiffel Tower, so I guess I’ll start there.

Not knowing that we wouldn’t get into almost one o’ clock the night before, we planned on visiting the Eiffel Tower the first day in Paris. This would require us to get up at seven in the morning... which was definitely not what I wanted. When we got to the Eiffel Tower, the lines were ridiculously long to ride up to the top on the elevator.  So, of course, not wanting to wait in line for five hours, we opted to the stair option.  This was actually great, because since Europe has the best food in the world (literally), we could all use the exercise.  So yes, we climbed all 760 stairs to the very tippidy top of the Eiffel Tower! Which by the way was a killlllllllllller work out.

Livi and I were about ready to die!

But after all the stairs were stepped, we finally reached the top. After taking the last step, and looking out at the city of Paris I came to two conclusions: One, that there are two different kind of people in the world; people who’ve seen and been to the Eiffel Tower, and people who have not.  Two, Oh my gosh am I REALLY here? Everyone always talks about how magical it would be to visit the Eiffel Tower, and when I actually looked out at the city, it was literally a slap in the face.  I AM really here.

No one exaggerated when they said the Eiffel Tower was magical. The view was
B-E-A-U-tiful.

For me, the EiffelTower was just one of those things that you only really dreamed about visiting.  Everyone has the “Go visit the Eiffel Tower” on their own bucket list. But for me it’s “Kiss someone under the Eiffel Tower”.( I think that’s one that’s gunna have to wait till I’m married (: haha ) For Sam though, his bucket list was eat French bread at the top of the Eiffel Tower! So we did!

The little kids loved the donuts for breakfast at the top!

After we spent some time on the top of the Eiffel Tower we started the long track down. But we all started at different times, and there are four different exits. Since there were almost a million people on the top, we all got separated. Which was a very bad idea, because we were all lost and in different places. We ended up waiting an hour to locate everyone, and since the Smiths all love soccer, they pulled out their ball and started playing.

Since Charlotte is so little, she got a little restless. Let’s just say she got a little mad…

But overall the Eiffel Tower was an experience never to forget. As I said earlier, people always dream of coming to visit it and having the opportunity it reminded me of how blessed and lucky I am. I’m so grateful that I have the chance to be with my family in this beautiful country, visiting these beautiful places.  The memories we make together will hopefully last a lifetime!

Here are some random pictures:

Me!

Europe in a Whirlwind!

So, it has taken me like forever to update this blog. We have had the worst luck with internet. It is certainly not for a lack of trying. I will quickly try to get a couple of entries in to catch you up before we move on this morning.

We flew into Milan to start our quick tour through Europe. It was really like a flash! We started off by going to see the original painting of the "Last Supper." It was awesome and then we went and toured the Duomo de Milano. It is the 4th largest gothic cathedral in the world and the largest cathedral in Italy.

Without being told, our boys knew what to do when they saw the benches.

After eating in 3rd world countries for so long--we almost drooled at the food we saw in Europe!

What would Venice be without a gondola ride?

"The hills are alive with the Sound of Music!" We loved Salzburg!

"I am 16 going on 17................."

I love those boys!

We loved the Neuschwanstein castle in Fussen Germany. It was amazing! It was the castle that Walt Disney built Magic Kingdom to look like!

Doug and I took a horse and carriage ride up while everyone made the hike.

We took a tram up Pilatus in Lucerne, Switzerland and got our first taste of the Swiss Alps! It was beautiful!

Great place to stop and play on the way down.

The next stop was Grindelwald. We took a train to the top of Jungfrau--which is the highest spot you can go to in the Swiss Alps! It was cold, windy but we had a great time!

Waiting for next train!

We loved the ice caves!

We stopped at a random lake in the mountains in Switzerland. The kids needed a little break from driving. It was beautiful!

Best of friends!

Ashton turned 6 in Switzerland!

We got to go to the temple in Bern, Switzerland and do some baptisms.

Lion's Monument in Zurich, Switzerland!

We loved the pastery shops!



We got to see the Mona Lisa at the Louvre!

We took a river cruise along the Seine River in Paris. It gave us a taste of the sites to see!

Unfortunately, some of us were very tired......

Hmmm..... How much did we get out of that? Oh well......

Doug and girls at the top of the Eiffel Tower!

On Easter weekend, we got to hunt for Easter eggs in the Tuileries in Paris!

The Arc De Triomphe in Paris!

We loved Versailles! We had one of those "wish we had a cell phone that worked" moments! We were driving in a van with them following. We had the GPS. We got within a mile or two and a van pulled out in between us that was the same color as ours. Emily made the comment that we hoped they realized that wasn't us. They didn't. The van turned off and so did they. We didn't realize it for a block--but then didn't know what to do. If we went after them, we could be searching forever and they would never find us. So, we just pulled over and waited. And waited. Finally, we decided to go forward and hopefully, they would realize what happened and find their way. We felt so bad. While we were there, we kept looking and looking. And wondered if they would know the address back to where we were staying--without the GPS???? Finally, as we were leaving--among all the thousands of people there--we found them! Yeah! Life is an adventure, right?

Stay tuned for Emily's entry on the Eiffel Tower!

We loved our two week trip through Europe. These have been the highlights!