Our first European Adventure: Brugge

So we decided to get out of our crammed hotel room and head out on an adventure for the day. Everyone has told us how beautiful the city of Brugge is, so we decided to head up there knowing that it will probably be one of the cities we will be touring often with ALL of our visitors (hint hint.. to all of you). We headed out to the train at about 8am. Allie was very excited to ride the train. It was a beautiful hour and half ride. The countryside is so pretty. Simple. The houses are all the old brick homes. So cute. We stepped off the train ready for the day. We didn't know what time our train was to head back to our town that night so we quickly found a person that worked at the station. I stated "Bonjour" with a smile (a habit I have gotten into now living with all the people in the south who don't speak any English) I quickly got a glare back from the man. Rob asks "do you speak English?" And with a very annoyed tone in his voice he states, "I speak English much better than French." Ummm sorry sir. As we finish our conversation we walk away and Rob asks me what I said to him, in which I said "all I said was Bonjour". Rob looks back at me, "Lindsey they hate the south of Belgium here (which is the French speaking part of the country). They speak Flemish here and everyone probably speaks English as well." My bad. It felt like when I stepped out of the train I had entered into a totally new country. The difference between the people in the south and north is like speaking of someone from america and mexico. The people in the south are very "frenchy" (my word I know). A big group of them are not very friendly and most of them really don't speak English, but the people in the north know about 3 or 4 languages and are very friendly. Interesting. You learn something new everyday I guess..

So away we went to the city. I have been dying for a cute cafe with yummy lattes, a thing that is not found anywhere near our town. As we took in the beautiful sites and buildings I was secretly looking for a cafe. We arrived at the adorable street that was packed with people. Every other store was either a chocolate shop or a cute cafe. Hello I was in heaven! So we stopped for a snack and a latte. We enjoyed a yummy Belgian waffle and latte (amazing) and continued on our way. There were horse and carriages riding all down the street, which Allie was gawking at. We stopped into a couple chocolate shops admiring all the beautiful chocolates... until we came to this one shop... yup they had "exotic" chocolates... Allie was making her way over asking what everything was until I quickly say "Look Allie a chocolate bunny!" Phew.

All the buildings were amazing. The history is amazing. Allie LOVED the old Churches. She kept saying "Mommy I'm gonna find Jesus on the cross first!" Even when we got to the town hall building she searched it for a Jesus on the cross...

If it is possible to eat our way through a city we certainly did. We enjoyed a yummy lunch of; beef stew (rob), shrimp croquettes (Allie), and a sandwich on a baguette (me of course). After walking some more we had to enjoy another latte. Allie was eyeballing the horses so we headed over to see how much to ride. We found the line to be very long and cost about $45.. so we decided that would wait till next time. Allie just wanted to be a princess in the carriage :) Next time for sure. Each street we went down had a different theme; chocolate stores on one, lace shops on another, shoe stores on another and so on. We watched this woman who had to be in her late 80's making lace. It was fascinating. I have never seen lace being made and was it crazy. A skill that takes a lot of patience and looks very confusing. Brugge is known for their lace and chocolate, so as you can guess the stores had the most detailed beautiful lace. As our day was coming to a close we had to stop at a little ice cream shop for a cone and sat at the fountain. Allie of course ordered "the pink kind". After enjoying our ice cream we made our way back to the train though the park where allie states "Mom why is everyone napping in the grass?" :) We successfully found our way back and onto our train.

It was truly a great day. Rob and I just kept saying how fun the day was. Allie was amazing. We didn't get back to our room till almost 9 that night. She walked for hours that day and was just as amazed at everything as we were. She is definitely a natural site seer. I'm still waiting for my camera charger to come in the mail so I will be shooting LOTS of pictures when that happens. We are heading to Paris on saturday. Allie is beyond excited. She is very much into Madeline right now and Madeline lives in Paris by the Eiffel tower. So Allie is VERY excited to see the Eiffel tower.

We are trying to make the best of being at the hotel. It gets pretty exhausting being in the hotel, but we are trying to travel and be out and about as much as possible. We are viewing a home that we have been waiting to see for over a week now on thursday and we have high hope that this one may be it... so we wait to see. We did look at a home today that would definitely work if the other one falls through. Decisions decisions. Keep us in your prayers as we continue to look for a home; for patience with each other and for one to come quickly. :)

4 Months and growing :)

Poor Jake doesn't get much mention around here so I thought that I would do a 4 month update!

*He weighs 18.3 pounds and is wearing 9 to 12 month clothing! People always do a double take when I inform them he is only 4 months. He's a beast.

*He LOVES I mean LOVES his sister. She walks in the room and he laughs or smiles. She can do anything to make him laugh. And Allie loves him. She loves to rub his face and make silly faces at him.. its too cute.

*He is a DROOLING machine. From the time he came out of my womb he drooled. I always wondered why moms had bibs on there kids all the time cause Allie rarely drooled... now I understand.

*He loves people. He can be held or played with by anyone (the joy of traveling a lot)

*He still loves to be swaddled when he sleeps.

*He has rolled over a couple times

*He loves tummy time

In the four months he has been alive he has:

*Been to 6 states.

*Been in 8 different "homes"

*Been 'on the road' for 13 out of 19 weeks hes been alive.

*Been in 2 countries

Needless to say he doesn't have a 'normal' right now and I am anxious to get to that 'normal' soon.

For the last month or so he has started to wake up at night. Being in so many different homes and being in my room his whole life it is hard to let him cry at night, cause I don't want to wake anyone up. So unfortunately I have trained him to wake up at night and assume he gets to eat. So he may not be happy once he gets his own room at our new house where he can fuss and cry a little bit... but this mom will be happy :)

He is a sweet little man. I am blessed to have two healthy kiddos. Although there are days that my patience is tested. and nights that are hard and I want to scream. I am thankful that their bodies are strong and healthy. I'm excited to see what kind of personality this little man has as he gets bigger.

No house and Thunderbugs?!?!

So we didn't get the great house we found... Just found out today that it went to someone else... So we continue to search. :( Rob went to the housing office today and called to say that there were no new homes up... This search is getting scarce. We found a cute house last night, but it was one that wont be available till September 1st at the earliest and we have to wait to see if its even approved. I'm starting to see that our stay here at the hotel may be a bit longer. PLEASE pray that a house shows up soon.

They had a playgroup at the playground today so of course we went. Allie was excited to have some kids to play with. I was sitting there chatting with the ladies when they started discussing the thunderbugs. Understandably so I ask "What are those?" The ladies look over and say they are the little tiny bugs everywhere. "Where?" I look down at my arm and I notice these TINY specks of black that look like dirt. "THOSE??" I ask. Yup, those are them. Allie runs over from the playground to get water and I look at her head and that beautiful blonde hair she now has is covered in black specks! Seriously GROSS. I assume they don't bite cause they are just hanging out on our skin and clothes.. but NOPE they bite! Yuck! The ladies inform me they are bad for about a month. So thankfully I am in an air conditioned hotel room where the windows are closed. They are soooo obnoxious and quite disgusting. Something new I learned in Belgium. Lovely. *note: I haven't informed you all that no homes or places here have air conditioning so I am extremely thankful that the weather here is not as hot as it is back in the states!!*

Week one in this beautiful country.

We had a great first weekend here. We had a lot of grand ideas of heading to Paris, but when saturday came both me and my little lady were exhausted. A couple days of crazy sleeping and no naps for her made for a very tired 2 year old. So we decided to have a day of just playing at the park and reading at the library.
The night before we headed into a beautiful town called Aht, which is about 10 minutes north of Chievers, the base we are staying on and Rob works at. It has a beautiful city center. People were walking their dogs, sitting having a beer, visiting with friends, it was so fun to people watch there. We sat down at one of the restaurants and graised the menu... Realizing that we didn't know any of the words besides jamon (ham), spagetti, and escargot. So I just picked a random thing of the menu, Rob choose one the jamon dishes and he also ordered an escargot. After trying to speak to the waitress rob and I quickly found out that; #1 She is not understanding Robs broken French and #2 When I try to speak French I end up speaking Spanish?! Which is not helpful for any of us! Need less to say.. we are lucky we even got any dinner ordered. When our meal came we were anxious to see what we ordered. I ended up ordering these meatballs in red sauce with a salad and french fries (always a side dish here)... the meatballs were very good. Rob got this ham on the bone with french fries and a salad, which he was pumped about and then we got the escargot. I took Allies plate and put some ham, meatballs, french fries and escargot on it. After tasting them all Allie looks up and says "yummy, I want more of that please." pointing to the plate of escargot. Rob and I look at eachother and laughed. Out of all those choices our 2 year old choose the escargot :) Rob then had to fight over his escargot with his daughter. After a very enjoyable meal we walked to a cute icecream shop for some ice cream cones. Rob discovered an amazing flavor called Speculaas. Its a type of cookie from here and it was crushed into the ice cream. Mmm it was good. A successfull first night in town.
We enjoyed a slow saturday at the library and playground. We met up with a couple we have met here at the hotel that also just got here from the States and cooked out with them that night for dinner. They have a daughter that has latched onto Allie and will be a great babysitter! I love to find those!
Sunday we headed out for church, but realized once we got to the town we forgot the address... so after driving around for 15 minutes we couldn't find the church so we headed back. We had a squadron function that night and got to meet a bunch of people Rob will work with. Allie was very excited to be playing with a bunch of other girls and toys! The people we met were all very friendly and accepting. Its always nice to meet people with kids that are around the same age as mine especially when Allie loves to play with them.
So now we are back to Monday. Thankfully Rob said he was going to head down to the housing office on his own so Allie could get some sleep. So he is there right now seeing if there are any new homes up on the board.... we found one house that we really like, but we are waiting to hear if we got it cause there was one family ahead of us.
Now if Jake can just get back in order, everything will be good. He has had a rough couple days. I think his stomach is a bit upset with him cause he is extremely gassy and poopy. Poor guy. He hasn't been sleeping great, waking up screaming in the middle of the night. Thankfully he only woke up one time last night so both him and I got a bit more sleep. Maybe today will be better.

House hunting we go......

Day 2/ Day 3

Well I'm happy to say that we slept MUCH better last night. Allie slept all the way through. Rob was up for about 2 hours. I was up for 1 hour. And Jake slept all the way through minus one feeding.. I think one more day and we will be good to go. Yesterday was a day FULL of military hoopla. We were at the base from 10am to 4pm.. Let me say the base here in Belgium is different than ANY other military base. Since its a NATO base we have to get all sorts of new I.D's, passes, etc. So we spent a lot of time in lots of lines and in a lot of different offices. Can I say my little lady was a rockstar?? She didn't complain all day and just hiked around the base with us.. Praise the Lord for these little princess dolls that she earned from her sticker charts.. cause she would just sit on the chair and play with those all day. We came back to the hotel after getting all our passes and walked down to the BX and commissary (grocery store on base).. which Allie was MORE than happy to find an indoor play place there! To Bed we went....

Today we started our house hunt journey.... We got put into the house system and started looking at LOTS of photos. The problem here is that no one is in one area and the towns are all spread out... So we have a lot of options.. So heres the plan for the next month probably. Get up at 7:30... make our way 20 minutes down to SHAPE, which is the NATO base where we do our housing, and check out the housing list since right now we are living at a hotel on the base Rob will be flying out of its and Air force and Army base, about 20 min north of the NATO base. Almost every day there is a new house available on their housing wall and its like Christmas at Walmart... everyone is racing for the best house. We then make an appointment to see a home and then decide whether or not we even want to get put on a list for the home and THEN we wait to see if we get it. So need less to say its a bit of a process especially with two small kids you have to lug around with you. So this next month may not be the funnest month for her or Jake but thankfully there is a fun playground to end each day on...

Tonight we had a church come in a make us a great dinner at our hotel. It was fun to chat with everyone and meet some new people. And now we have a church to visit this Sunday. Yahoo!

My camera battery charger is not with me and I have to order a new one so it may be awhile for photos... I'll have to close with this one from 4th or July because it makes me smile :)

and this one cause I couldn't resist! Allie experiencing a chocolate fountain for the first time at my Aunt Cris and Uncle Bob's.

Hello Belgium!

Well yes we have arrived! After our 8 and a half hour flight we landed in beautiful Belgium. Both of my kiddos were rockstars, although Allie only slept for about 3 hours of the flight she did well. Jake slept for 7 and a half! Yahoo! I slept for 30 min. Go figure. It was definitely an easy trip over. We arrived at 8am in Belgium (which was 1am in chicago) Allie was more than confused. I just kept laughing cause she was totally a walking Zombie, but wanted to check everything out even though she was making no sense of herself. Our sponser couple met us at the airport and away we went to the Airforce Base. We arrived at about 10am to our hotel, which has been newly built and is very nice. Rob dropped the bags off and away he went to do some improssessing stuff. My goal was to keep Allie and Jake up till noon so they could get on some normal schedule so we decided to trek our way down to the playground outside the hotel. I was pleasently surprised when there were about 10 moms and 15 kids outside. The second I walked out there I was greated by 4 other moms introducing themselves. Allie was just excited to run around.. even with bloodshot eyes and a bit confused. For the next hour I got the low down of housing, base info, playgroups, etc. It was a perfect beginning to our new home here. I met a lot of great women who have kids around the same age as Allie. Come to find out they are actually a part of a church here and do Bible studies and play groups on tuesdays... so I'll definitely be looking into that! Noon quickly came and Allie was unraveling so we made our way up to our room. Rob came home and we all crashed. After a good long nap, by all except me, we took a walk over to the BX on base (which is like a little walmart), walked the isles and came back to the hotel cause a woman was bringing by dinner for us. A lady showed up around 6pm with a great pasta dish and salad. I am continually amazed at the military family and how great they are at making people feel welcome and have an easy transition. Our sponser couple has been incredibly helpful in making this an easy transition and now a great dinner to add to it! Allie was pumped to have "noodles" for dinner. Dinner, Bath and bed. Jake crashed at 7.. Allie and I at 8. Rob at 9.... At 10:00pm I woke right up thinking it was for sure 10am. You see I quickly found that it does not get dark here till about 11pm. Rob and I hopped out of bed thinking we were late for a meeting... Oops only 10 at night. Ugh. So confused. Jake woke up about 10:30 wide eyed and smiling. So now I'm here in the computer room at 11:30pm wide awake with Jake... while rob and allie are quietly dreaming up in our room. This may be a long couple days.... But all in all its been a great beginning to our new chapter here. Everyone seems incredibly nice and so helpful. I'm excited to venture out tomorrow to see the towns around here to figure out where we'll want to live. The land here is gorgeous. Thanks for the prayers they were felt as our flight was as easy as can be. Please pray as Jake and I try to get our bodies on schedule here and as we go through the housing process.. I guess the base here makes life very difficult for you to find housing.. it is different than any other base.. weird. I'll try to keep this blog updated and take some photos soon.