And We're Off!- Monday, July 15, 2013

     Now we're starting the BIG trip of the year, and it is supposed to be a big one indeed.  This trip has been at least two years in the planning and will be a month long.

     For a long time we had said that this would be the year when we would take Anastasia back to Russia to see the land where she was born, but she didn't have any interest in doing that.   Even today, when we passed a big ad for Aeroflot and Russia in the airport, she said she'd rather go to Paris.   So we put the Russia trip aside for now.  We can take her when she gets older, if and when she gets an interest to go.

     Instead, we planned a trip to Great Britain and Ireland.  Anna was taking 7th grade French last year, and asked early enough on if we could go to Paris again.  Since it would be over her 13th birthday, and Julie never says no to a chance to go to Disney, we added a few days at the beginning of the trip to start in Paris.   That's where we're off to today.

   We took a couple of smaller trips last year, but instead of taking a few weeks to go somewhere like we have been doing, Julie worked through the summer last year at Southeast Works with young adults with special needs. We took all the money she made there to pay for the airfare.  Through the winter, we've been making reservations, and even paying for hotel rooms in advance when we could.   We've got a full schedule ahead for the next month, with most of the days planned in detail.

     We packed over the weekend, and boiled what we need down to four backpacks and a carry-on.  We've each got our own Rick Steves backpack with our own clothes that we're responsible for carrying, plus Scott has the carry-on with the many electronics that we've got.  We've got the iPad for blogging, the girls' iPad minis, the cameras, several iPods, and all the chargers and adapters to go with them.  We even downloaded new maps for Lizzie (our affectionate nickname for our GPS), so she should work when when have to drive in the UK.  Scott regretfully decided to leave his mandolin at home.  It was a painful decision, because he was looking forward to playing it in Ireland, but we don't have our own vehicle for the first ten days or so, and we've got enough to carry for the planes, trains, taxis and whatnot, so it's probably too much of a problem.  The girls did bring puppy and blankie, so we'll have to keep an eye on them.  Anna is glad she will be able to Facetime on her iPod with her friend Taylor with when we have WiFi, so she won't go through total withdrawal without her iPhone at her side

    Scott tried mowing the lawn this morning but the shell of the lawn mower had become so rusted-out that it cracked, and he couldn't finish the front lawn.  We left home at about 11:00 this morning because we had several little stops to make and everyone knew Julie was too excited to stay home very long.  We had lunch at Mighty Taco and dropped some things off at Matt's.  We made our way towards Toronto.  Because of our AAA membership, we had managed to get the best ticket prices and a direct flight from Toronto to Paris.   It's not scheduled to leave until 8:45 tonight so we're really early.  We stopped at Chapters Bookstore to browse to kill time.  Emma got a Pinkie Pie book that she already finished.  We parked the Flex with a longterm parking company and rode the shuttle van to Pearson Intl. Airport.  We had Pizza Pizza for dinner, and now we're sitting at the gate, looking out at the skyline of Mississauga passing time and waiting for our plane.  Wish us "Bon voyage!"  We're a day or two late for Bastille Day, but tomorrow we should be ready to storm Paris!