Welcome to our Garden

A friend of mine gave us some of the left over articial grass she had from doing her entire backyard. It was about enough to cover about 3x4 feet or about a third of our terrace. The kids love it!

Tour de France/Independence Day

We celebrated the Fourth of July watching the Tour de France come through Antwerp. Our friends, Amelia and Rajat hosted us and several other friends at their apartment that directly overlooked the route. We decorated their balcony with American flags and were so loud that just about everyone along the street was looking up at us. Craig was not very happy about celebrating Fourth of July with our British friend, Richard, and wanted to know who invited him.

I think it only took all 197 cyclists about 45 seconds to pass us. It was still so exciting. Rajat taped it on the TV so we watched it and cheered again like it was the first time we saw them.

First and Last Day of School

Happy Father's Day

Below is Colin's gift to Craig that he made in school, a handkerchief. In case you can't make out what it is, it is a picture of Craig floating on a leaf in water. Behind him is a sausage. We are so proud.

In Training

Colin's Finger

We had to make another visit to the emergency room the other day, and this time it was for Colin.

Craig accidently shut Colin's finger in the bathroom room and it was bleeding so bad, it was hard to see what was going on. Colin was very lucky because X-rays determined that there were no broken bones and he did not require any stitches. They wrapped it up nice and tight and sent us home. I keep him home from school the next day so he could take it easy.

Road Trip: Days 11 - 14 Swiss Alps

Saturday, we woke up and made the 8 hour drive to the Swiss Alps. Switzerland was more beautiful than I could have ever imagined. There were waterfalls everywhere and even Chloe was pointing them out by the time we went home.

We stayed in a small town named Lauterbrunnen and our hotel that had a great view of Staubbach Falls. In the field underneath the falls were a herd of sheep with bells arounds their necks. Being there made you ask yourself - "where the hell am I?".

The following day, we walked to the train station to make the 2 1/2 hour ride up Jungfrau mountain. The train brings you to the highest train station in Europe at 11,333 feet. When we left Lauterbrunnen it was 73 degrees and it was 37 degrees when we got off the train. The mountain top was snowy and desolate except for about a thousand tourists. I really enjoyed watching Craig tell off a little old Indian woman in a traditional sari as they walked through a revolving door together. A portion of the tourist area was carved into a glacier that we walked through. It was very cool.

The next day, we took a cable car from the valley to the very small town of Gimmelwald where we bought landjager and cheese. Unfortunatley, this was where Chloe had a close encounter with a cat that left her looking like someone punched her in the eye for the rest of the day. From Gimmelwald, we took another cable car to Murren at about 5413 feet. We had some lunch before taking another cable car to the top of Schilthorn mountain at 9744 feet. It was a little scary but totally worth it. This is where the James Bond movie On Her Majesty's Secret Service was filmed. There was hardly anyone there - they were all at Jungfrau.

When we got down from Schilthorn, we went to see Trummelbach Falls. The Falls drains 3 of the surrounding mountians, including Jungfrau. The water drains at a rate of over 5,200 gallons per second. It is really loud and intense and Colin was scaried.

We really loved Switzerland and look forward to going back. The long drive home was surprisingly uneventful considering our DVD player was broken. We covered about 2000 miles!