Day two and we had an actual reservation for a tourist site, just like regular people!  No, I wasn't able to get us up the Eiffel Tower (still on my bucket list!) but we did have tickets to see the catacombs.  But first, a quest to find a patisserie.  I had recently started watching The Great British Bake Off and I wanted to try some real French patisserie while we were in Paris.  I don't remember the name of the place we stopped, but it was scrummy! Definitely worth the calories!

Then we went to the catacombs, in which I somehow took 0 pictures.  Or maybe you weren't allowed to take pictures?  Either way I have no pictures of bones to show you.  If you are unfamiliar with the Paris catacombs (which I wasn't before this tour), they are this vast network of underground tunnels that are full of bones.  The bones are from cemeteries around Paris that have been moved to the tunnels over the centuries for various reasons.  

A neat piece of history, a long, long time ago, Paris was a backwater on a river in Gaul while Rome was the center of the world.  Rome needed limestone for all its awesome bath houses and acropolises (acropoli? I digress) so they imported it from mines on the Seine river.  Eventually Paris was built onto of those old mines.  

By the mid 1700's, Paris's cemeteries were very crowded and they were moving old bones to put new bodies in.  People back then believed that something called miasma (vapors or mist caused from decomposing things) could cause illness and plague.  So they decided to move all the old bones into the old mine shafts for sanitation.  Every night for months they carted bones down into the catacombs.  

Now, I'm no scientist, but if you did believe that miasma caused illness, why would you cart dead bodies through the city? Wouldn't that get miasma everywhere? Anyway, germ theory was developed in the late 1800's, putting an end to this belief.  And now you can visit the catacombs and see all the bones artfully arranged.  Oh, and it isn't just regular old people that are in the catacombs.  At one point, the audio tour said the bones of Robespierre were somewhere in the pile on our left.  What? One day you are inciting the French Revolution and then you are just in a pile somewhere on the left? 

After the catacombs we had one of our favorite French meals.  Roasted chicken and potatoes from the grocery store.  It is so good!  Since it was too warm to eat it in a park, which we normally do, we ate it back at the hotel.

Feeling refreshed, Rob asked what we should do next.  Well... we've never been to Montmartre or seen Sacre Coeur... Done! And it was amazing!  

People often look at me like I've grown another head when I talk about the traveling we do with our kids.  But yes, they really do love to travel and see new cities.  You just have to have balance.  Start the morning off with a bunch of bones (awesome), then take them to a super cool Basilica (but let them chase pigeons as you climb the steps up), then find a park and let them run free for a bit.  Bonus if they can ride the carousel with you!

Once the park was thoroughly enjoyed, we were off to dinner at a cafe.

And that was it!  The next day we boarded a plane with Rob as our pilot and he flew us back to Cincinnati.  He had a day at home and then flew back to Paris, then home.  And then he didn't fly again for a year.  Although word of the virus spreading was all around us, we had no idea that this would be our last trip, or Rob's last trip for such a long time.  I am so very, very glad that I did all the work to get us on this trip.  And I am so grateful that Rob is flying again, even if it is a different plane and only in the US.  Here's hoping we can see our favorite city again soon.

Disclaimer- This trip was pre-masks in February of 2020.

When we fly overnight, we always crash at the hotel for a few hours before getting up to explore the city. The excitement of being in Paris will get us out of bed when the alarm goes off, even if we are exhausted. That's what those two sleeping beauties above are doing.  I love them.

Then we were off to our favorite museum, Musee D'Orsay.  I would much rather go here than to La Louvre.  Although, after being stuck in Kentucky for a year I wouldn't even mind standing in line to see the crummy Mona Lisa!  Anyway, the Orsay has all my favorites.  Monet.  Manet.  Van Gogh.  Degas.  Renoir. Cezanne.  I love them all!

At art museums, I always ask the kids to pick a painting they love, or find interesting, and then I take their picture so they will remember it.  Anne found this gigantic painting.  Ryan found the Monet he had studied and painted at school.  I found donuts in the Museum Cafe.  

After the museum we found a cafe for dinner.  The weather was pretty mild, and since the kids had these parkas they didn't complain once about being cold.  

We arrived home from Curacao on February 1st and Rob left on the 4th for a Delta trip that went to Paris.  He really wanted us to go with him, and I normally would have said "no way! I'm exhausted from just getting home!"  But two things prompted me to say, "yes! absolutely!"

First, this trip had a 48 hour layover in Paris.  Usually, when we join him on a trip we only get one day in the city.  It was very tempting to have 2 days to explore! Second, in our homeschool co-op we had been studying the Impressionists for Fine Arts. Every year we focus on a different 6 artists of a particular period. I knew with 2 days in Paris we could squeeze in a trip to the Musee D'Orsay and the kids could see the actual works of art we had been studying.  Sold!

Of course, in order to make this little excursion work, I had to move heaven and earth.  First there was the mountain of laundry that needed to be done.  Then there was the packing.  Oh, and I tutor at our co-op so I had to do all my usual work to prepare for that.  ​Not to mention that we would be flying to Paris the same day as our co-op, so the daily schedule looked like this:

5:30am- Wake up, finish packing, get myself and kids ready for school
7:00am- leave for school, drop off Griffey at boarding, drive to school
8:00am- arrive at school, have typical school day
3:00pm- Finish school, change into our travel clothes
3:30pm- Drive to airport, park car, shuttle to airport, security
4:00pm- paged by the gate agent, passport info needed, got seats, boarded plane
5:00pm- Take off for Paris!

Rob's trip actually had him flying from Minneapolis to Paris, so we would meet up with him at Charles De Gualle.  What a day!  

Disclaimer: This was our last trip before the full COVID-19 outbreak.  No one was wearing masks in February of 2020.

I think I remember the exact moment it happened.  We had just returned from Kokomo Beach and the kids were running around the backyard, living their best lives ever.  The four adults were on the porch, grilling dinner, trying to rehydrate, and scratching mosquito bites.  Someone (probably me) complained about being hot and eaten alive by mosquitos (remember our house didn't have windows).  Then Rob said, "you know where they do have windows? The Renaissance hotel downtown."  Phones were quickly pulled out, reward points were examined and then BAM! We were booked to check in to the hotel the next day for our last night.  

We loved the freedom of having a house, having access to laundry and a kitchen.  It was great.  Just that particular house was lacking a few things, like the aforementioned windows.  And air conditioning.  Now we know, and I will be a lot more picky the next time I rent a house!

We enjoyed the Renaissance when we stayed there in 2017.  The pool is awesome and staying there allowed us to eat again at the Iguana Cafe!  Plus the hotel is conveniently located to get to the airport for our trip home.  To be honest, though, we realized that there are no mosquitos in that part of the island because the wind is intense!  It just blows the little buggers away.

And that was our time in Curacao.  While we there we started to hear news reports of a super flu in China.  Weird.  It will never come to the US though, right?   Then, the day before we left Delta (and all the airlines) cancelled all their flights to China.  Even after that happened, we naively believed it would be over in a few weeks.  

Over the last year+, I have been so happy to have these memories to look back on.  AND a future trip with our travel besties to look forward to.

Disclaimer- These photos are from pre-pandemic 2020.

It is hard to pick a favorite beach in Curacao.  Each one had something to recommend it.  

• Jan Thiel- closest to house, but most crowded
• Mambo- lots of convenience, beach beds
• Playa Lagun- best snorkeling, maybe too rustic
• Kokomo- bluest water, best food

That's right our final beach day was at Kokomo Beach!  Three out of four of the adults on this trip are pilots (me, I'm the non-pilot in the group).  And all three of them served together at Grissom Air Reserve Base which is right outside of Kokomo, Indiana.  In fact, the Bushes live not too far from Kokomo.  So of course, we love a beautiful, blue beach named Kokomo!

We decided to just rent chairs here because the beach beds were really far back from the water.  The restaurant next to the beach serves some of the best fries I've ever had.  Yeah, I think Kokomo is my favorite.  

Disclaimer: This trip was in January of 2020 before we even thought about wearing masks.  

Another day, another gorgeous beach! This time we were headed to Playa Lagun. But first, we wanted to explore Shete Boka, which is a National Park with a lot of lizards and what Ryan calls "exploding waves."  You should also read about our adventure with lizards in 2017!  

After the National Park, we went to our favorite cliff-side restaurant, the Bahai Beach Bar where we had a cocktail the color of the ocean.  Then we walked down to Playa Lagun.  This was the most rustic of the beaches we visited, but it had THE BEST snorkeling.  

Disclaimer: This trip was in January of 2020 before we even thought about wearing masks.  

Do you ever build things up in your mind and then think nothing could be as good as you remember?  For the Schneiders, I was afraid that might be Mambo Beach.  This is a bustling complex not too far out of Willemstad that is a combination beach and pool club (although you pay separate fees for each) with shopping and restaurants.  We thoroughly enjoyed our day here in 2017 and have always said if we could take a cruise to Curacao and have only one day on the island, we would hop into a cab and spend the day at Mambo Beach.  Would it be as good as we remembered?

It was!  First, we checked the cruise port schedule and went to Mambo beach on a day only 1 ship was in port to avoid a crowd.  Then we arrived early so we could get beach beds (ah, luxury!).  These two things together made it a great day at the beach and a lot more relaxing than our day at Jan Thiel beach.