Romantic Venice with a 5 month old

Last weekend we took our first plane flight with Mathieu to Venice, Italy. Talk about stress!! Overall, it wasn’t too bad. Mathieu was a bit difficult when the plane took off but that was mostly because he was hungry and we didn’t have warm water for his bottle and the flight attendant couldn’t give us warm water until the plane was up in the air. Mathieu will not drink cold milk. Anyway, he screamed for a few minutes and then calmed down. After he ate he was great the rest of the trip.

Going home was a different story though. On the way up and down he screamed. We couldn’t get him to suck on anything. He screamed for a solid 10 minutes. When we landed the people in front of us told us that he was so quiet. HUH!!! Were they on the same plane?? It was a pregnant lady who said this. I think she will never take her kid on a plane.

Anyway, Venice was great. We stayed in a bed and breakfast right on a park in front of the water in St Elena not far from the center. The first morning we walked from the b&b to Piazza St Marco along the boardwalk. It was breathtaking, (especially climbing up and down all the bridges with a stroller). No, but truthfully it is really beautiful. There is so much contrast from one building to the next you really don’t get tired of looking at the architecture. Unfortunately, we did not do a gondola ride. It just seemed too complicated with the kid and the stroller.

We spent the whole day combing the city by foot and then headed over to Lido by water ferry at sunset. We took Mathieu out on the beach. It was a pretty trashy beach but it was still a beach and it was his first.

Overall, it wasn't the most romantic Venetian trip but Mathieu did very well for his first real vacation and the Italians just adored him. In every restaurant he was the center of attention. So we are a bit nervous about the trip to the US at the end of this month in terms of the flight but otherwise Mathieu travels pretty well.

Check out the pics in the slideshow over on the left!!!

After a rough night of partying. Easter Party Bunny.

Traveling with Baby

2 weeks ago we took our first weekend road trip with Mathieu. It was a 4 hour trip up to Metz (In the north of France) to visit family for Easter. Mathieu decided not to sleep the first night which basically killed me and Valerie. He woke up crying every hour or so and we didn’t get any sleep that night. We aren’t sure what caused it but something was bothering him. Maybe he had a slight ear ache. The following night he was back to normal.

We did get a break on Saturday. Valerie’s godchild babysat while we spent the afternoon in Luxembourg with her cousin. Luxembourg is a beautiful city. I wasn’t expecting it to be so nice. There was even some sort of American festival going on. They were selling hotdogs (not real beer steamed hotdogs which I miss eating at Weiner Works), buffalo wings and baked potatoes with live country and blues music for entertainment. We didn’t partake in the festival though; instead we went to an American eatery and order some fish n chips and a few beers. It was pretty good but they served us way too much food and we couldn’t finish. There were no Americans eating there but there were plenty of British.

Overall, the weekend went well. Mathieu seemed to handle the trip pretty well. But the real traveling test will come this weekend when we head to Venice. The plane fight is only 1 hour 30 mins which is short in comparison to the flight we are going to take at the end of the month to the US. Hopefully, we will all pass with flying colors and not piss off too many passengers due to a crying kid.