Making Progress

The sitter told us the other night that she was speaking to Colin in Dutch and he was answering simple yes and no questions back to her Dutch. Also, yesterday Colin was watching a cartoon in Dutch and he answered YES out of nowhere. He definitley does not understand a lot but I think he is starting to learn some words.

Chloe has been practing standing on her own and took a few steps yesterday. I think she should be walking in a week or two. Yesterday she also got up onto the couch twice by herself!

And sorry about all of my spelling errors. I am not a great speller (or proof reader) and even though I have set the blog to be in English, it often brings my dashboard and spellcheck back to Dutch.

Fun with Tattoos

Paris

It was a holiday weekend here in Belgium so we set off for Paris on Thursday morning. We made it there in about 3 1/2 hours and squeezed in the Louve and the Eiffel Tower in the second half of the day. I couldn't believe how big the Louve was. Colin definitley did not find it as interesting as I did.

We were so bummed that the top floor of the Eiffel Tower was temporarily closed while we were waiting in line. It was still awesome to be able to go up to the second level. Chloe loved it and giggled everytime she looked out. Colin keep referring to it as the Dajangit Tower. I took us a while to figure out that he was really calling it the Giant Tower.

Friday we went to Notre Dame. We are so glad we were able to see it, it was really beautiful. We wandered around the Latin Quarter then took a sightseeing bus to see the rest of the city. Paris is so big, it is not possible to walk from sight to sight. Colin kept falling alsleep on the bus but Chloe was wild. My arms were sore from trying to hold her. Craig thought she was out of control and was wondering if they had boarding school for babies to try to tame her.

Saturday we went over to the Arc de Triomphe and were able to get some great pictures before heading home.

I feel like people were looking at us and thinking why in the world would they bring 2 kids to Paris. It was nice to hear Americans talking. It is not often that you hear American accents in Antwerp.

On our way home, we stopped at a food store to try and find vodka, which does not seem to be very popular here. Craig ended up coming out of the store with 18 bottles of wine, a 6 pack of beer and no vodka.

It turned out to be a typical weekend trip - the kids were a handful, Craig almost got into a fight with a kid and we almost ran out of diesel on our way there. The big difference on this trip was that we actually had a decent hotel room despite having a small swarm of nats hovering in the middle of our room one day. It was quickly cleared up, screens are a novelty here. It was a good weekend - Happy Memorial Day!

Baby K the Elephant

We saw the baby elephant at the zoo today and it was soooo cute. Here is a video:

There were so many people there to see her. Once again our trip to the zoo was cut short because Chloe accidently had her fingers shut the bathroom stall door. I brought her to the emergency room to make sure her fingers wasn't were not broken. She is fine. I wasn't sure how the hospital worked here and was a little nervous when they said I had to pay the bill before I left. Our bill was only 22 Euros (about $30)!!

We are headed to Paris tomorrow!!

Bruges and Baby Elephants

On Saturday we went to Bruge. It is the biggest tourist city in Belgium and is only about a hour drive from us. Bruges has the same feel as Antwerp but with canals.

There were so many interesting things to see. The Basilica of the Holy Blood is home to a a few drops of blood said to from Christ. The tube with the blood is only allowed to be seen by one person at a time and is watched by someone who wipes it clean after each vistor. We also went to The Church of Our Lady which has a statue of Madonna and Child by Michaelangelo on display. There were many other sites that were not able to fit in, we will be going back another day - maybe when someone comes to visit (hint, hint). We did come home with huge chocolate rice krispie treats, which is enough to make me want to go back.

As usual, the weather was a little bit of everything. It changes so quickly. The storm clouds move in out of nowhere. It was raining when we arrived and left and there were beautiful blue skies somewhere in the middle. I use the Weather Channel forecast on the side of the blog for the tempurature but you can never trust the cloud/sun/rain graphic.

We just heard that the elephant at the zoo had her baby yesterday, so will be heading over there again on Wednesday to see it. Wednesday is the first day vistors will be able to see the baby, so I expect it to be crowded.

Wednesday night, Craig and I are going to dinner with a woman from Campbell's who is here from Camden. I am trying to arrange a sitter. I am really hoping that we can get out without the kids! She is also bringing us a new camera! I can't believe the post it notes have worked this long.

Colin has been doing really well at school. He has been making some friends, other than Lilyanne (his English speaking friend). Colin told me today that his friend, Alesandro, does not listen to him. Well of course he doesn't, he doesn't speak English.

This weekend is a holiday weekend - not sure what holiday. I think we will be heading up to Amsterdam for a few days. It should be less than a 2 hour drive.

Where is the Belgium Zoo?

I finally made it to the Antwerp Zoo yesterday and bought a membership. Colin thought that we did not know where it was and has been asking everyone where the Belgium Zoo was.

School lets out at 12:15 every Wednesday, so I packed lunch, picked up Colin and brought him to the zoo. It is about a 20 minute walk from our apartment, next to Antwerp Centraal Station.

In typical Colin fashion, he ran most of the zoo. We wants to see the animals, but spends about 3 seconds looking into each cage. It is exhausting for me and since it takes Chloe about 10 seconds to find the animals in the cage, she only get to see about a quarter of what we see. Our visit to the zoo ended when Colin peed his pants and we had to go - it was fun while it lasted.

Happy Mother's Day!!

We want to wish all of our mothers a Happy Mother's Day - Mom-Mom, Grammy and Oma!! And of course, the godmothers - Chris and Amy.

We spend the day wandering the city and eating lots of treats, like french fries with mayo, crepes and speculoos ice cream (my new favorite). It was a beautiful day, so we ate dinner outside at an excellent Thai restaurant around the corner. We thought it was so funny that they served Colin's soda in a wine glass!

Yesterday, we drove about 45 minutes to the town of Ghent. It is a beautiful city with several canals running through it. We took a boat ride thorough the main canal to see several parts of the city including it's castle. We also went up into the Belfry in the center of town.

Colin made sure he showed us the statues birdie.

Disneyland Paris

I thought of so many things that I could have named this post, but I thought I would keep it simple. Let's just say, it's good to be home. It is tough traveling with the kids and I think Disneyland can bring you to your breaking point. On Saturday, Craig said to me, "I think this is going pretty well so far". We laughed after we realized that was after Colin had an accident in his pants and we had already been to the first aid office.

We had a lot of fun on the rides and walking around the parks. While waiting in line for a ride, Colin said to Craig, "They play music for excitement, right?". He has been ending EVERY sentence in "right?". It was a little cooler than we would have liked and the weather seemed to change as quickly as it does in Antwerp. Colin was not interested in getting his picture taken with any of the characters.

We have been finding that people are rude here. At Disney and Keukenhof, people would bump into you (or the stroller) and keep on going. Craig almost got into a fight with a little kid.

We also have not had very good luck with our hotel rooms. They seem to be getting worse as we go. Our room this past weekend was barely tolerable and that is being nice.

We are not planning on doing more than a day trip this weekend. This trip wore us out.

Happy boy!