Christmas and Tuscany

We are all back to our normal schedules now after a long holiday break. We ended up having a white Christmas in Antwerp. It continued to snow off and on until about Christmas Eve. The kids were so excited for Santa. The bike shop across the street hung a decoration of a Santa hanging from a Christmas tree above their door. It was in perfect sight from the kids bedroom windows and Chloe keep saying, "Santa is watching me!". She still doesn't understand that it means she should behave. At least Colin was trying. There were so many presents left under our tree. We received great packages from Grammy, Aunt Chris, Mom Mom and Bobby and Al and Joan. We spent most of Christmas day playing with all of the new toys.

We had planned a trip to Tuscany that we ended up canceling because of our friends schedule. After talking with then on Christmas night, we decided to continue on with our plans. We managed to pack up and get on the road by 9 am the next morning. After getting caught in ski traffic in Switzerland, we made it to Milan for the night 12 hours later. The next morning, we continued on to Tuscany to the same villa, Le Torri, we stayed at in May. As before, our accommodations did not disappoint. There were just a few towns that we had not covered before. One of the towns we went to see was Cortona, where they filmed Under the Tuscan Sun. The woman still lives there a few months of the year, I never realized it was a true story. We also went to Montepulciano, which is a big wine town. New Years Eve, we went to Siena. They had a big concert going on the the main square. We were back at the villa for the New Year.Tuscany is so beautiful and Craig is looking forward to going back already. Chloe and I are not big fans of the winding roads that make us car sick. We managed to make the drive home in one day - 12 hours!

The following weekend was the New Years Toast that the city hosts in Grote Markt. Just like last year, they had rides, free beer and frites and giveaways with the city's logo. It was a beautiful day and relatively mild. We meet up for several of our friends and their kids. After the toast was over, we continued the party back at our place until that night. I was considering it a 'vacations over party' and I was happy to send the kids back to school the next day!