Into the Woods

Yesterday, Lindy--Andy's mom--arrived. Yeah! Hence, the new sleeping arrangements here! I fell asleep singing to the kids, so there is the reason for no post yesterday. But Lindy and I took the kids to Sacre-Coeur at 6 pm to hear Evening Song with the nuns and the priest. It was enchanting.Today, we set out for the Bois de Vincennes--the Woods of Vincennes. They are just around Paris' SE border, and used to be the king's hunting grounds until Napoleon gave them to the city of Paris. Once we got off the Metro, we saw this cool fountain/play area and stopped off for awhile. It reminded me a bit of the Mesa Arts Center's gardens.
The toys were so innovative. We enjoyed trying them all out.

This is the City Hall of Vincennes. Pretty amazing. It was right by the play area.
Back to the play area/fountain...

After we bought some lunch and ate it near the park entrance--the bread here is SO good--we walked around Parc Floral, a park within the Woods. I let the kids feed some of the old bread I'd brought along to the geese. Check out how happy that made Warren.
Warren doesn't seem capable of just standing naturally in a picture anymore. Oh well, why be natural when you can be a samurai warrior?
Avery strides confidently along the garden path.
Lindy and I were awed by the color in this little nook of the woods.
The Parc Floral didn't get it's name for no reason. Check out these tulips. There were beds of them all over. The kids really enjoyed running around in all the color.

There is a huge children's park within Parc Floral. This is, without a doubt, the coolest kids park I've ever been to. Look at this slide! That's me about halfway up and Abigail in the pink jacket at the bottom. All the toys were amazing, and there were so many. We will definitely be back. I was having such a fun time playing with the kids that I didn't take many pictures, but there are 2 cute videos at the end, both from this park, if you want to watch them. Truly, when was the last time I ran just for the joy of it? Um, never. This park had me running all over and racing Warren. My cheeks hurt from smiling.

At the entrance to the Woods is this chateau. We walked around the Chateau de Vincennes, a great castle, complete with moat, drawbridge, towers, archers holes to shoot through...It was closed for tours (French Labor Day) but just walking around was impressive.

This gives you a bit of an idea of what it looks like.

Abigail and Avery on the fence in front of the moat, with a really great church in the background. The next photo is this view without the girls--or the bars--in it.

Check out that moat! It was so impressive to see. I can't fathom the manpower it took to dig the ditch with the tools that were available.
We walked on the wide boulevards carved out through the woods for about an hour after this. I didn't take pictures, but just imagine Fairytale woods and you've got it. The only thing missing were the dwarves and gnomes.
Yesterdays step total: 11,750
Total steps today: 26,337 (about 9.1 miles)
French word: pelouse: lawn (as in, Get off the lawn!)