Europe Trip - DAY TWO

Day 2
{Brugge and Ghent, Belgium}
Back at the hotel in Brussels, we make plans to get up by 7……that didn’t happen. We got up at 9 and by the time we got ready we didn’t leave until 10:30. To get out of the hotel parking garage you had to go up a big steep incline and stop towards the top to insert your parking ticket…..well it took us a while to get out…….we then headed back to the airport to get an automatic car!!! (well worth the EXTRA $300, in my opinion). So, getting up late and trading in our car really set us back in getting to Brugge. Once we did finally get there we LOVED it. It was a quaint little town. This was more of what we imagined Europe to be like. It was full of tourists, which made the little streets packed, but we didn’t feel as much of a language barrier here. When people found out we were Americans they would stop speaking French and talk in very good English. I would have a lot more pictures by our camera batteries died :( I was so bummed. Of course, we enjoyed a belgian waffle covered in belgian chocolate and we had the BEST hot chocolate I've ever had.



Bruges has a lot of canals. It is sometimes referred to as "Venice of the North".

heading to our canal ride

Belfry


Grote Markt (Big Market Square)
Belfry after it started pouring on us!
Inside the Basilica of the Holy Blood
We spent so much time in Brugge we didn’t even get to our hotel in Ghent until after dark. The hotel we’re in is super nice! It’s right along the canal on the Graslei and Korenlei. You know how I said we love Brugge, well, we LOVE, LOVE Ghent. It’s definitely our favorite so far. We could totally live here!

View right outside our hotel! Graslei and Korenlei streets.
another view
Our meal....yummy. We've noticed that the food served here is all about presentation. Almost looks too good to eat, lol. @ the Down Towner Restaurant
City Center
inside our hotel

Europe Trip - DAY ONE

Bonjour! I can’t believe we’re in Europe. Some might think I’m crazy for updating the blog while we’re over here, but it’s been raining on and off and since Derek is away at his conference I don’t want to be out and about all day by myself. A lot of our readers might just want to scroll down to our pictures instead of reading my ramblings of our experiences…just a heads up!

Here we go……….so the flight wasn’t all that bad. We flew into Atlanta and then from there into Brussels, Belgium. The flight into Belgium was 9 hours and I think I must have slept most of the flight because I don’t remember a whole lot about it! I know I watched a movie and ate dinner, but that’s about it. Even though I got a lot of sleep on the flight, the jet lag, change in time and lack of sleep the day before definitely has taken a toll on me. We both crashed around 2:00pm the first day and slept until 4:00. We’ve been getting back to our room around 8 or 9 and I always fall asleep as soon as we get in……..this would be around 2pm or so back home. I’ll sleep for a little while and wake up around 2 or 3 am and not be able to get back to sleep. UGH! Hopefully, I’ll get rested up enough to be able to go to sleep and wake up at the right times while we’re here.

DAY 1
{Antwerp and Brussels, Belgium}

We arrived in Brussels at 8:30am, got our manual car, and headed to Antwerp. I note manual car because I cannot drive a manual and it has been a LONG time since Derek has driven one. Being in an area that we aren’t familiar with, tiny roads, crazy drivers, etc on top of being rusty with the stick makes for, well, a headache……some stalls, lots of jerking, you get the idea. We didn’t actually get to Antwerp until noon and by the time we finally figured out the parking we were ready to eat. Being overwhelmed, mainly with the language barrier, we ate at…..McDonalds! haha.

Cathedral of Our Lady

By the time we got to our hotel in Brussels, we were ready for a nap. We woke up with barely any sunlight left in the day so we basically saw Brussels nightlife. We didn’t really care much for it. In fact, on several occasions we both said we would never want to live here or be stationed here (at NATO). We will admit that it is fun to see and experience though. After walking around and getting lost over and over again we finally found our way back to the car and went back to the hotel. I have to say, by now, Derek is getting to be pretty decent with the stick shift. We haven’t had nearly as many people honking at us. [Derek says this is a lie. There was only one person that honked at us]
Grote Markt (Grand Place) ~ city center
Cathedral St. Michael
Belgian Chocolate!!!

"A" Field Trips

So, remember in my previous post about school how I said I've taken Allie on a couple of field trips? Well, here are some pictures....Air Force Museum (Airplane, Astronaut) and Cincinnati Zoo (Animals)











And one more random pic from one of the soccer games - I Love this one of Avery! -

Fantastic Four.....

together again

Lone Star State of Mind

Well, ya'll, we found out where our next pcs (permanent change of station) will be.........Lackland AFB, Texas. Lackland is right by San Antonio and was #1 on our list of places to go (for the job). Needless to say, we're excited...and nervous...and sad all at the same time. Excited and nervous because it will be new, but we are ready for a change. Change is always a little scary though! Sad because we really won't be anywhere near any family and we'll be moving away from a couple really good friends. I'll miss them all like crazy!!! *sniff, sniff* Not sure exactly when we'll be going, but late spring is a good estimate.

I haven't really done any research on the area yet but some things I do know about our new "home" is:

• we'll most likely buy a house
• has a much talked about Riverwalk
• warm weather all year round (although probably miserable in the summer?)
• The Alamo
• a family we've met and hung out with a lot here lives there and will be moving back around the same time as us!
• we do have some friends in Texas (an 8 hr drive away) but we'll surely visit them several times :)
• short drive to Corpus Christi
• very short drive to Schlitterbahn Waterpark in New Braunfels!

Anyway, so those are some of the things I know about the area and look forward to. I'm sure I'll be doing a lot more research on it after the holidays. If anyone knows of some fun places or things to do around there let me know!

Can I get a yee-haw?!

School

First of all, props to all of you teachers out there........I now realize, even more, how important and time consuming and frustrating and rewarding and etc etc etc that your job is! You have to have sooo much patience and put a lot of thought and creativity into your lessons to keep the kids focused.
Recently, and I say that very loosely, I started up a "preschool" for Allie. Okay, so I started back in September and we're focusing on the alphabet (one letter a week)....we're on the letter "B". Yeah, I haven't got very far (thanks, in part, to my new hobby of couponing!)Anyway, so mainly I'll have Allie practice writing the letter and then we'll do a little art, math or science. Each day I'll sort of focus on some thing or object that starts with the letter of the week. We'll maybe even throw in a few field trips here and there (stay posted for some pics of a couple recent ones!)
I had always thought that I would want to be a teacher, but I'm really glad I didn't become one because I don't think I would have been all that great at it :) I do love making up lesson plans, but they never go as planned. And I cannot, for the life of me, figure out to keep this girl focused!! I don't want to give up because I know Allie needs and wants to learn this but she just gives up soooo easily. Hmmmm, kind of sounds like her momma :)

Any suggestions on what I could do to get her (and me) to keep at it and stay focused???

hApPy HaLLoWeEn

This year Allie was Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz and Avery was a witch. Now, Allie had no idea who Dorothy was when we first got her costume so we went and borrowed the movie and she's been hooked ever since. We've been to a few functions where the girls could get dressed up....gymnastics...trunk or treat at our church.....a Spooktacular Parade/costume judging contest and then the ever talked about Trick or Treating!!

So, first was Trunk or Treat, which wasn't actually a "trunk" or treat. But, anyhow, it was fun for Allie to get dressed up and walk around the church to go trick or treating......and play a few games. (she won a cupcake on her first time around in the cake walk!) Poor Avery was still feeling really sick from whatever kind of bug she had so it was just Allie and I out that night. unfortunately, we didn't actually take pics at the event.....but you can tell Allie was excited to be in her costume
Next up was the Spooktacular Parade! This actually exceeded our expectations. We got there for the girls to be judged and almost immediately we knew there was no way our cute little girls would be winning anything. There were so many AMAZING costumes....and the age groups our girls were in were definitely the stiffest competition. Then, little did we know, we were a part of the parade! It was cool to walk down and have everyone along side the streets looking at US. It reminded me of the good ole' days in Stockwell when we always went to our costume contest/parade....great memories!! So we get there and sign the girls up and go sit down....the guy next to us has some popcorn so Avery goes and mooches some off of him :)
Daddy went and got her her own after that

here you can see the Cinderella Coach that won 2nd place in Allie's age group. Cinderella was in there......everyone that won had a prop like this.....they were really cool.
Foy's is a big thing downtown....they are so into Halloween!
Trick or treating was so fun for Allie this year. We went along with her best friends, Adeline and Abby. She was literally running from door to door this year! Too cute! And little Avery enjoyed her first trick or treating experience too. Although, I think she had had enough after just a couple of houses....it was just too chilly out and her bucket got heavy fast! THE GROUP
trick or treat!
The cutest witch there ever was :)

Here are a few pics of the pumpkin Allie painted and one of the pumpkins we carved...



Hope everyone else had a Happy Halloween as well!!!