Shawn Johnson East Gets Tattoo Tribute For All 3 Kids!
The 2024 Paris Olympics brought countless shows of strength and speed on the track, in the pool and atop pretty much every gymnastics apparatus inside the city's Bercy Arena.
And then there was the little-celebrated feat taking place just steps away in the stands. In the event of traveling with three kids under 5, Olympic gymnast Shawn Johnson East and her husband Andrew East have a strong case for gold.
"We will be a circus walking," Shawn, 32, joked with E! News before making the trip from Nashville to France with daughter Drew, 4, and sons Jett, 3, and Bear, 8 months, "but we will be there."
And, dare we say, they totally stuck the landing—sandwiching their visit to the Games with jaunts to London and Sorrento, Italy.
"It actually exceeded any and all expectations," admitted Shawn. "It was chaotic, but actually manageable."
A definite highlight for the athlete—who flipped her way to four medals at the 2008 Beijing Olympics—was attending the gymnastics all-around competition in Paris with Andrew, 32, Drew and her mom Teri Johnson.
readShawn Johnson Reveals 4-Year-Old Daughter Drew's Super Sweet Nickname for Simone Biles
"I didn't know she would last two minutes or 10 minutes or the whole time," Shawn acknowledged of her preschooler, "and she actually really enjoyed it."
Particularly the part where she got to watch Simone Biles do her thing.
"She kept asking, 'Mama, where's The Best?'" Shawn revealed. "And it's because I kept talking about Simone, how she's the best. So instead of calling her Simone, she's like, 'Mama, where's The Best?'"
Shawn Johnson East/Instagram
And though Drew is still pretty committed to her dream of figure skating, noted Shawn, "She thought it was so special and it was. It was just a really cool full-circle moment."
But as much as Shawn would give their experience at the Games a perfect 10, "Some of our favorite times were outside of the Olympics," she acknowledged. "I will never forget there was one night where we had finished dinner and we were running around, playing chase in the yard, looking at the most beautiful sunset. We just got to be a family and experience a new place, which is really fun."
Leaving behind the habits of their Nashville life—which includes late afternoon snack boards, Jett taking on sous-chef responsibilities for dinner and the busy parents saving any leftovers in their go-to Rubbermaid Brilliance containers—allowed them to vault into the unknown.
"It was fun because we're pretty routine-oriented at home, so each day looks somewhat the same," explained former NFL long snapper Andrew. "But just taking a little trip outside of our normal routine unlocked a lot of really precious memories where we're doing dance parties in the living room in the morning and at night."
And they offered E! News a peek inside the magic, sharing an exclusive look at photos from their "amazing" European getaway.