Giants Festival

We had the opportunity to head to a town just 5 minutes North of our base named Ath. Every year they have a festival of "Giants". It has been going on for over 525 years! Pretty impressive. The 'youngest' giant was 125 years old. We went with some good friends we have met at the hotel. They have two girls 11 and 13 that adore my children and are just great to be around. So it was fun to have the company. We headed up around 10:30 just in time for the parade to start. The parade was about 3 hours long and was very cool to experience. Each giant weighed on average 130 pounds and was carried by one man under it. Except for the horse pictured in the first picture, which weighed 1400 pounds and was carried by 16 men. A couple of the giants had children riding them. Can I say that I was more than impressed with the kids? These kids literally sat on these giants and horses for the whole parade. Not only did they sit on them, but about every 20 feet each giant would stop and do a little 'dance', meaning they would spin and spin and spin in circles, how those kids didn't get sick is beyond me. We went into the Grand Place (the center of the town), which every town here has, and experienced and whole different part of the parade. There were people E-VER-Y-Where. It was so fun to people watch and just soak in the event. We were definitely happy we went and will for sure go in years to come. Allie loved it. She just stared the whole time mesmerized by the whole event, as was I. Jake slept through most of it :)

Well the great news is we officially signed our lease! PRAISE THE LORD. We move in September 21st, which is exactly 5 months from when we moved from our Wichita home :) We will be having an early Christmas as our home, opening all our boxes, especially for Allie! Now to order curtains, rugs, etc.. The fun of decorating a new home! We will get to go in the home in about 2 weeks to measure things and look around to see what we may need to order. I am more than anxious for that. Allie is doing MUCH better with her potty training. We had a minor setback and whenever she was stressed she would have lots of accidents (which frustrated this mother), but thankfully we are doing much better, which also means Allie isn't as stressed. Jake is a beast as always. He is now fully wearing 12 month shirts. This boy is growing exponentially. He is not sleeping well though, which also frustrates this mother. The most frustrating part is that he used to sleep through the night. Since he was gaining weight so fast after he was born that they allowed me to let him sleep through and he did. He was sleeping through the night at about 8 days old... I was so excited.... Then we started traveling... dum da dum dum... being in so many peoples homes and not wanting him to wake anyone up caused me to pick him up whenever he cried, which caused him to get used to it so now 4 months later he is waking up anywhere from 2 to 5 times a night! ahh. But I can't let him cry now cause we are in a hotel where everyone can here.... sooo needless to say this mama is TIRED and ready to have her little boy in his own room so he can sleep soundly, as can I. So prayers are greatly appreciated :) Rob is planning a trip to luxembourg right now for us, I think we will try to head there next weekend. Man its fun being able to travel Europe! Come along with us.. starting September 21st we have LOTS of room for guests :)