Bruges, Belgium

Bruges is called the "Venice" of the north. Um. Okay! I guess they do have a Michelangelo sculpture. It was a lovely city-- but catered to the 60+ tour group crowd, which made it difficult for us and our crew of romping, energetic monkeys. I did love the canals through the city though and there were a lot of interesting things to see.

While N and a friend went inside the Church of Our Lady to see Michelangelo's Madonna and Child I stayed outside with the kiddos to let them run around.

"Mom, we're being snakes!"

N, Andre and my kids.

I just thought this was funny/cool. We saw several nuns right when we got there. I wonder if this is really their place. ;)

Am I the only one who thinks this is bizarre advertising?

This is one of the best street performers I've seen. His face painting was shaded perfectly! My kids were intrigued-- and freaked out. William wouldn't go anywhere near him. haha!

This is the Basilica of the Holy Blood. Inside this church is the Relic of the Precious Blood-- a vial of dried up blood, said to be Christ's. It was brought to the city around 1150, or so and the story goes that the blood would turn to liquid every Friday for 100 years. Fascinating.

Villers-la-Ville, Belgium

Isn't this spot amazing? We had never heard of these ruins before and at N's aunt house we just happened to see a little advertisement for it. I'm SO glad we went. It was a major highlight of the trip (seriously-- way better than Brussels).

It was a community of monks and lay-brothers, but was left to ruin in 1796... I still don't get quite why or how. It's incredible to visit though-- probably more impressive and interesting than had it never fallen apart.

Fall colors, gorgeous light, and a few beautiful boys = one giddy photographer.

The older he gets, the more I feel like I'm looking at a mini-Nathaniel. He'll look just like his father and grandfather!

Checking out the prison. Why there was a prison in a monastery-- I don't quite get, but that's alright. ;)

Big boy! We were nearly the only ones there so Andrew got to have a lot of freedom. He was a happy boy to get out of the stroller!

Hey, good looking.

Ick. I had to put it in because Nathaniel took such care to take a ton of pictures of me-- most turned out horrible (not his fault-- his subject is not as photogenic as he is!).

Our kids were remarkably awful travelers for this entire trip. I guess we were due for this to happen-- they'd been so good and flexible the rest of the summer. Even so, this picture is hilarious.

Remains of the cathedral looking out the back...

... to the side...

... and to the front. So cool.

We've got SPIRIT, yes we do!

Dang it all! We're so cute! ;)

Part of the reason we went to Belgium was to see the US Soccer team kick the Belgium Devil's teams bums.


Only. They didn't. (0-1)


We were disappointed by the lack of enthusiasm on the field, but, even with the rain, it was still a cool experience. Many thanks and bisous to Aunt D who braved our boys so we could go solo! :)

Yikes! A welcome invitation from the stadium for its visitors.

Our view.

Belgium's keeper blocking one of our few attempts at goal. We actually did score, but it was called off-sides. Lame with a capital "L".

These enthusiastic fans sat right in front of us. We felt pretty lacking in our patriotism when we saw them. Even though we lost, and we were freezing from the cold rain, it was pretty awesome to be able to flaunt our USA pride for a bit. Living abroad you have to keep it pretty tame. Safety first-- you don't want to become a target for someone who hates the US for one reason or another.

Belgium's "GOOL".

Bless them. We need lunatics like this at every event-- keeps up the losing teams moral. ;)

It was a "covered" stadium, but we were on the edge of the covering... so the rain blew had no trouble drenching us. I felt pretty good about my decision to bring my German rain pants. These guys know how to dress for weather!

This was immediately after our goal, before it was called off-sides... and our victory dreams were shattered. haha!

After the game. About 1/2 the players strolled part way to our barbed-off section to wave at us. Nice notion guys. Next time, just work it on the field! Give us something to really cheer about. Never fear though, you still have our loyalty. U-S-A!

Belgium

... or, you know, Belgie (with a squiggle on the E).

A few weeks ago we packed up the car (again!) with just us and the kiddos to visit some family in Belgium (Love you Aunt D!) and to see the US play Belgium in a soccer game (more about that later). The drive went pretty smooth-- even with a newly potty trained Cameron!

Andrew was super excited to enter Belgium!

... and so was Nathaniel.


;) Just kidding. He just didn't know I was taking his picture. Good driving, Honey!

I saw this cool door!


But, I thought it would look even cooler w/a poser in front of it...

Ahh. THERE we go.

*giggle* He is so cute.

We're a team. I'm have the vision, and he makes it happen. Dream Team, right here!

My sweetheart got me a waffle. We had to! We're in Belgium! Belgian waffles, y'all! I've gotta tell you, though. They were a bit disappointing. Still. When in Belgium, do as the Belgians do. Eat Waffles. And-- visit their famous statue in Brussels:

Manneken Pis. And- pose like one of the bussed-in tourists in front of the silly thing.

I have to admit, the first thing out of my mouth when I saw him was "is that it?" He's really a short statue... but apparently so novel, that people flock from all over the globe to admire this naughty boy taking a public potty break.

Traveling in style-- as always. I think one of these days I'll need to set up a camera on the front of the stroller to capture all of the looks that come our way.. Especially when all THREE are having tantrums (like they were 5-minutes before I took this picture).

Cameron's 1st day at SCHOOL!

This picture looks about right for our family. Always chaos! ;)
Cameron walked into school like he always belonged there. He's been wanting to stay with William at school for the entire past year! He loves school... as long as William is there too. He won't stay if he isn't. I'm sure he'll outgrow that, but I am happy that they're such good friends. How do you like his outfit? He picked it out himself, and wore that cape the entire first week. ;) I love this kid and his personality!

Cameron's Birthday

I know I did a little post earlier on his actual birthday-- but here are some more pictures of my big three year old!

He asked for a Winnie the Pooh cake... I did my best. Cameron was excited, though... Pooh didn't turn out quite like I planned...

See? haha!

The close-up and a description- I did the outline with melted chocolate chips, froze it, and then went to fill it in with colored white choc chips. But. The melted white choc chips melted the outline-- leaving us with a poor smeared Pooh Bear. Oh well. Birthday boy was delighted, and that's all that matters.

Here is a hilarious little video I took of Cameron. I took it on my iTouch and the screen was facing him so he could see himself being filmed, which should explain some of it and why he was such a goofball. It is hilarious. He acts like he's drugged! High on life, I guess. hahaha!

Trier

Tamar flew in and out of Luxembourg, which is about two hours away. To break up the drive and to get in one more tourist stop she and I took the kids to Trier to visit the city and stay the night-- then we took her to the airport the next morning (it was so sad to see her go!).

Porta Nigra-- The largest Roman city gate north of the Alps. It's pretty impressive. Unfortunately, we got there after everything was already closed so we couldn't go up and explore, but it was still pretty impressive from ground level!

Trier is such a cute city! One alley full of shops had these guys hanging every few feet.

Childhood simplicity. Chasing pigeons is top-notch fun!

Palace of Trier

I started drafting this post a few days ago, but got SUPER discouraged when I realized that I'd managed to lose 1/2 the pictures from this trip (awesome pictures). I know it's hardly life-threatening, but I hate making mistakes like that! Live and learn?
Anyway... Trier is awesome. I think we'll have to take a little family trip down there with Nathaniel too and spend a couple days more thoroughly checking everything out.