beloved bel

Dear Isabelle You are now 2 years + 2 months old, and more importantly, you are a big sister!  As anyone can imagine, mummy and daddy have our hands full with both of you kiddos but you have eased into your big sister role with much ease.  When you first met Gabriel, you pointed at him and called out "baby brother!"  And when he cried in the hospital crib, you looked worried and said "baby's crying!"  You are talking so so much now baby girl (and yes you will always be our beloved baby girl).  We can have conversations with you and most of the time we understand what you are talking about.  Your childminder keeps telling mummy that you are talking so well, and you often make them smile with your comments. Big sister This was a FaceTime screenshot which my aunt took. So happened both were looking into the camera. The other evening, mummy and baby Gabriel came to pick you up from the childminder and on the way home, as usual, you were m...

Our holy grail for this trip The very reason why K planned for this trip - Euro Disney. He loves themed parks in general and loves thrilling rides.  He was really excited for the trip and made sure he packed Izzy's Elsa dress in our luggage so that she could dress up whilst we were there.  I thought it was really sweet of him when he whispered to my ear before we left, that Elsa dress is safely packed in our luggage.  Good heavens, it didn't even occurred to me then to bring it along with us.  Also, this was a bit of a special one in that the very first overseas weekend trip K and I did together was right here, at Disneyland Paris.  I tried to find a pic of us taken here then, but it was pre iPhone era and Cloud backup, so I am unable to locate any photos. Elsa has found her castle The plan was to visit Euro Disney over 3 days and stay overnight in one of the hotels near to the resort.  K chose the Davy Crockett Ranch which was a 10min drive away to Disneyl...

By now we were headed south towards the direction of Paris and our third stop was Chantilly, a small town within the metropolitan area of Paris.  This town is known for Chantilly cream and lace.  It is also known for the Chateau de Chantilly and the Great Stables. The beautiful chateau behind us We arrived late morning and found some off street parking which thankfully turned out to be free.  The plan was to have an early lunch, and then explore the chateau.  The chateau looked very majestic from afar and we were excited to explore, and we saw it as a preview of what was to come, which was Palace de Versailles the next day.  Pushing our two buggies on the gravelled path was very challenging.  It was also very dusty.  We bought our tickets and decided to take the little train around the estate to save us pushing the buggies.  We walked a lot that afternoon, and the walk back to the carpark was easily another 20min from the entrance of the chateau, ...

Having been to Paris a few times, K and I have not explored beyond Paris to visit the Palace of Versailles before.  Hence we decided to put Versailles on our itinerary, as friends who have been there have said it is definitely worth a visit. From Senlis it was more than an hour's drive to Versailles.  We had to drive around Paris to get to Versailles.  We were careful not to enter the boundaries of Paris as it is a low emission zone and we didn't have any sticker/ pass that allows us to drive through it.  This was to be a big day for us as we were expecting a full on day of walking and exploring.  Arriving at this magnificent palace with real gold on the roofs Whee! And... we were right. Versailles is a city but most people go straight to the palace and that was what we did.  We simply had no time to look outside the palace walls because this palace is massive!  We walked so much that day and barely covered half of it. As we had a time slot, we had to ...