It feels as though we didn't accomplish much today, but considering that we saw most of the top tourist sites yesterday it's hard to compare!  Today was another cloudy and slightly cool day so we thought it was the perfect day to go to Aquaboulevard.  We discovered this waterpark 5 years ago and the kids absolutely loved it; it has a bunch of indoor and outdoor waterslides as well as a wave pool.  When it's nice outside there is a faux beach and a nice pool but today wasn't hot enough to lay outside, although we went on a very cool slide that was half inside and half outside which was an fun surprise!

It was interesting to see how much more the kids could do today compared with 5 years ago and they loved all of the waterslides.  They started off fairly tame and worked their way up to the bigger and faster slides.  This place also had a tube slide, a toboggan slide, and a raft slide!  The tube was good - just one person in an inner tube, but the toboggan was better - it was like a skinny two person tube and it was fast!  I went with Julia and all I heard was "Wheee hee, whoooo hooo!". ( I may have said that as well.)  The raft was interesting but only held us three girls so Jeff went on a single person slide called the Mikazee (we assume it's like the word kamikazee because Jeff said that it was insane!).  It was basically just a straight down drop and I'm glad it wasn't me who went on it.  We checked out the outdoor slides and found ourselves on what I called the Crazy Carpet ride because it reminds me of those rides at the Stampede (or any amusement park/fair) where you sit on a carpet and slide down a long and slightly bumpy slide.  This looked just the same but without a carpet, and it was fun until halfway down you realize your bathing suit bottom may have to be surgically removed as this slide is an extreme wedgie maker.  It also slams you in the face with water at the end, so although I was excited when I started it I wasn't super keen on doing it again.   We went inside where I showed off my underwater summersault skills and then had to retire to the hot tub.

We thoroughly exhausted ourselves and went for lunch - or at least what we thought was lunch until we looked at the clock and it was already 5 pm!!   We located an Apple store to buy an iPad charger (forgot it!) and marvelled at how different the Apple store in downtown Paris is compared to the shiny modern one in Market Mall.  (We had to go down an ornate spiral staircase into the basement to find the accessories, and there was an old archway covered in interesting little tiles that looked like they led to a swimming pool from long ago.)  The similarity was the blue-shirted friendly workers everywhere you looked and that happy little apple!  Coming back to our apartment turned out to be the wrong idea as we all wanted to sleep as soon as we got back.  We had a short rest (no sleeping!) but then it was rally time, which meant changing our clothes, slapping our faces and pretending we had more energy than we did.  We searched for a suitable dinner place but we were indecisive (as well as not that hungry) so we ended up walking for longer than we'd anticipated.  (Disclaimer - I wasn't wearing proper footwear for leisurely strolling).  The fresh air and walk was actually quite revitalizing and the funny thing is that we ended up at the restaurant two doors down from our apartment after walking in a giant 2 km circle!  We initially passed that restaurant up because it was an Italian pizza place that smelled delicious but we felt that as we were in France, not Italy, we should eat French food.  In the end we succumbed to the flat pizzas and bruschetta and I felt like it was the summer of 2011, not 2012.  (I have nothing but fond memories of the food in Italy…)  In any case, our dinner was delicious!

So now we're home in our cosy abode watching the Canada-USA women's soccer game.  It's tied 3-3 after regulation time and it's very exciting considering that Canada hasn't beaten the US in something like 22 games, or years (not sure which!).  Jeff is an avid soccer fan (and player) and we are stupidly patriotic so it's fun to watch this game on French national television being broadcast in fancy Parisian French.  (Ugh - just saw they lost… too bad.  Great game though, and it’s hard to believe that one can win gold and the other 4th place after a game like that.  Let's hope our girls get Bronze!)

Good night from Paris… sweet dreams to all!