So, we didn't technically make it to Paris on this day. We arrived and a sleepy 1:30am the following day, but I chose to blog about Friday in order to document the incredibly difficult time we had starting our trip.

Ben had a 4 day weekend that started today, but I had to work, no students today, just professional development. Coincidentally this was the only day that the dentist could work me in for my followup filling and sealing for my tooth. My appointment was at 1pm so I took a half day of leave.

The plan was to leave as soon as my appointment was over. It couldn't take more than 2 hours, so I would be home by 3:00 and out the door by 3:30. It's a 5 hour drive to Paris from here, so we would arrive around 9pm or so. This way we could get a good night's rest and be up, bright eyed and bushy tailed, ready to start a day of sight seeing. There were four things on my list that I wanted to accomplish this weekend and that was all we had officially planned. We've discovered that while traveling with young children, it's better to plan less then add sights if you end up with more time. That way you aren't leaving disappointed because you didn't see everything on your list. My list for this trip included Notre Dame, the Louvre, the Eiffel Tower, and a short river cruise on the Seine.

I left work at 11:30, excited that there was only one more hurdle to get over before our trip began. I came home to crying and whiny children, loud music (Ben had been cleaning), and a cranky husband because he was catching a cold. Nothing was packed yet, but thankfully I had put piles of things aside that I knew we wanted to take. I coaxed Ben into digging the suitcases out of the garage (amidst all the boxes that we haven't unpacked yet) and finding the umbrella strollers. We spent the couple hours before my dentist appointment packing and I felt pretty good about our progress when I left. We were pretty much ready.

There is never any parking at the medical clinic on post and the office is only a few blocks away, so it was easier to walk. When I rounded the corner I saw 3 fire trucks parked outside with lights flashing. People were in the building, so I walked in and entered the waiting area. There was quite a line and nowhere to sit, so I stood around for about 15 minutes before anyone came to get me. The dentist, who was a very friendly, but not particularly well groomed man informed me that they had just had a fire drill. I was nervous about getting my first filling (more nervous about the shot than the filling), so I wasn't much for small talk. I guess even hospitals need to practice emergency evacuations, so I just leaned back and let them get to work. As I was sitting there with my protective eye gear on I closed my eyes, which must have made my other senses more active, particularly my sense of smell. It must have been a very rigorous fire drill, or else this guy forgot his deodorant today. Please let this appointment go quickly. Little did I know, that luck was not in store for me today.

About 15 minutes in to them working on my teeth the fire alarm rang. Between sighs and grumbles the dentist mentioned that there was construction happening on the top floor and they must have done something again. So, this "fire drill" was not planned. I got up from the chair, dizzy, feeling like a chipmunk with my numb cheek, and spitting out pieces of metal that were falling out of my half filled tooth. We stood across the street, waiting for the fire department to come back and clear the building before they let us back in. The dentist quickly got back to work and I quickly started holding my breath again. After another half hour or so, he mentioned that we were almost finished when.....you guessed it.....the alarm went off for a second time!! So, out I went, staggering around the yard, spitting out more metal, and waiting in the cold.

Even with all these complications I was still finished with my appointment by 2:30 and on schedule. When I walked in the door Ben had the kids fed and everything in the car. 
"Are we ready to go?"  I asked him.
"Almost, I just want to update the gps maps," he said.

Three hours later we were still waiting for the maps to download!! It was killing me. I huffed and puffed and stomped around the house blaming Ben for not doing this last night. I couldn't believe it was taking so long! We were never going to get there! So much for being ahead of schedule.

Finally it finished downloading and Ben stepped outside to turn it on and let the satellites connect. A few minutes later he came back inside....no maps....the gps was wiped clean and the download didn't save.

ARE YOU SERIOUS!?!

He plugged it back in and started the download over, but there was no way I was waiting another 3 hours before we got started. It was almost 7 o'clock, we should be over halfway there by now. I almost said to forget it and let's not even go, but then I remembered that the hotel room was nonrefundable. We were going no matter what. We'll do it "old school". I sent Ben to the shoppette to buy a map and looked up direction on mapquest. We've both driven all over the US without a gps back in our younger days. We could absolutely do this.

But, we're new to this area, so as I was reading mapquest I realized that I didn't recognize any of the highways or road names that they mentioned. I didn't even know where to start since it wouldn't recognize our address in the system. Hopefully we could figure it out with the road map Ben picks up.

No such luck. The only thing they had was a road atlas of all of Europe and it wasn't zoomed in close enough to Paris to find the road that our hotel was on, or even where to get off the highway.

I put out a distress call on facebook to see if any of our friends had a gps we could borrow for the weekend.   A few minutes later the Ski's wrote me back and saved the day.

I rushed over to their house, grabbed the gps, and off we went....6 hours late.
The boys soon fell asleep, and Ben and I listened to our Eragon book on tape in peace. We made it to Paris, were able to check in to our apartment (even though they marked us down as a no show), and were snuggled up in our beds by 2am.

Not quite what I was planning, but "all's well that ends well."