Somehow Paris got suddenly hectic and I got tired and didn't have time to write anymore about our adventures so this is a final Paris recap post, probably in not particular order, with photos.

Ollie pretty much went to a playground every day and by the end of the trip I'd overhear him trying to speak French to the kids he was playing with. The last day in a playground in the Place des Voges some girls were playing some kind of tag game. They'd say something, I don't recall what, and tag each other. Ollie observed for a bit, then ran up to one girl, tagged her and said a close approximation of whatever they'd been saying. Then he ran off while I stood there kind of stunned. A few more weeks and that kid would be speaking French!

At one snack break Minna drank her first milkshake. She was sitting in my father's lap when she suddenly reached for his shake, pulled it towards her and then put her little mouth around the straw! Who knew she could do that?!

I ate steak tartare twice after never having it before in my life. I'd always thought it was just plain ground beef, but it's not, it's seasoned with mustard and capers and onions and it was so yummy. I'm craving it again and I think I'm going to have to make it myself here at home soon. We also ate a lot of macarons. Ollie's favorite was "brown", or chocolate, and he's very keen to make them at home.

I bought confit de petales de rose, a rose petal jelly, but haven't tried it yet. There are always such interesting jellies and jams, I just had to get a new one to try.

Ollie and I went on a carousel at the Tuileries. He wasn't so keen on it at first, so I rode along behind him and my father stood next to him. But after it was done he was converted and stayed on for a second ride. Hopefully he'll remember what fun it was the next time we see one.

Did I mention that Ollie is a running maniac? And that he probably ran half the time we were out on the streets? The nice thing is that each curb cut in Paris had a little bumpy mat in front of it, so he knew just where to stop at every corner.

And I'm sure there's a lot I'm forgetting, like how both kids were so good when we went out to eat. And how Ollie can climb really high on all kinds of equipment at the playground. And how traveling with kids is really great because everyone gets forced from their routine and you discover, "Hey, that routine wasn't so necessary after all!" And how fast it goes once you get there, after months of anticipation and talking about the trip with Ollie, suddenly it's over and we're home and all we have are our memories and photos of France 2010.

Highlights include the Toy boats at the Jardin du Luxembourg. And the whole Jardin itself, so beautiful today as it finally warmed up and the sun shone while we were there. We also visited the Grande Epicerie De Paris where I got some rose petal jelly and fleur de sel from Madagascar, because a girl can never have enough salt!

Ollie very much wanted an ice cream, even passing up a big macaron at the Grande Epicerie saying he'd rather wait for ice cream. And wait he did, because when we got back to the ice cream spot we'd seen on our walk, it took 10 minutes before the guy was available to scoop Ollie's vanilla cone. And only 5 minutes later, as he was rounding a corner, a girl coming by on her razor scooter collided with him. He didn't get knocked down, and he valiantly held onto his cone. Alas the impact broke the top half off and all the ice cream ended up on the sidewalk! I almost cried, but he held it together and ate the cone as we walked home.

I can't decide if this picture of Ollie:

Or this one of Minna:

is a better memory of our first day in Paris. Either way, I love them both because both show the kids out and about at restaurants being really well behaved! Ollie waited so patiently for his chocolat chaud and only spilled a small amount of it over the course of many pourings of melted chocolate and steamed milk into his cup. And Minna was so hungry by the time we got to this restaurant but she gobbled her yogurt and smiled and was so pleasant. A miracle! Of course now that I've written about it we'll never have a decent meal out again. But at least we had Day One in Paris!

For those wanting to keep up from home, I’ve got a France 2010 Flickr set that I’ll add to as our trip progresses. There are a few more from the other day, including Ollie’s first swan. Though honestly, if you’ve seen a swan before, it’s probably not that thrilling.

I’ve been drinking Nescafe Espresso on this trip and what I’m wondering is: how do they make that instant crema?! It’s really authentic looking. Though not authentic enough to make “artte lart”, which is what Ollie calls latte art. I will enjoy a proper cafe creme in Paris, but right now, being the first one up in the house and enjoying the babyless silence, this isn’t too bad at all.

Our first full day in France near the Swiss border, we tried to go to CERN but it was closed so we drove to Annecy instead. I can't tell you too much about it because we ate crepes and then ran around in the park. Ollie found several treasures, including two feathers of undetermined bird origin and one pine cone. The weather has been uncooperative so far and though we've been told we're surrounded by snow covered Alps and Mont Blanc, there's been no sightings of anything more than verdant foothills. I've got more pictures to upload, including Ollie's first swan viewing and some French cows — big hits both — but the connection is a bit slow here. As you'd expect, cheese has been fantastic, bread excellent, and every morning we've had pain au chocolat for breakfast.

Tomorrow it's the TGV on to Paris and hopefully some warmer weather. If Ollie weren't having a blast here playing with all the new toys, I think he'd be excited for the train trip. But right now all he wants to do is play with a fork lift toy that says, "Back it up!" then beeps and reverses across the room. Oh France!