Brussels Belgium

You can't go to Belgium without having waffles or chocolate...and maybe some french fries! A few days before Dan & Stacia took off for Russia, we drove up to Brussels, which is only a couple hours away, with the intention of doing some sightseeing and a little shopping.  We ended up eating the entire trip, and only went "sightseeing" if it was on the way to another place to eat, or the car. (Don't worry! I'm pretty sure we've all started a diet after the visit. Well...after all the chocolate we bought was gone.)

Our first stop was a Godiva store where we sampled some chocolate and purchased some truffles.

Next we walked to Dandoy for our waffles. We didn't think to take a picture of them until after everyone was through with theirs, and I only had 2 bites left of mine. They were delicious!  My waffle was the one covered in chocolate :)

 Then we headed to the Grand Place-which is a big market square surrounded by old beautiful buildings. All built in a different time period and very different from each other.

After Grand Place we walked to see the Royal Palace, we stopped for some french fries (covered in the european version of mayo, and ketchup) and then headed back to the car. 

On our way home we took a little detour to go to Jacques Chocolate Museum, but we made it there a little too late and it was closed.  What WASN'T closed however was the chocolate store! They had the normal chocolates that they made and sold everywhere, but also had the defective stuff that tasted perfectly wonderful, but that was broken or didn't look quite right.  We picked up a couple 2lb bags of chocolate for 3euro each (which is equivilent to around $4.06). I'm glad it's an hour and a half away! Otherwise I might be tempted to go back often!

Anyone tempted to come see us yet? :)

Paris

You can't see everything in Paris.  Not in 2 days.  I don't even think in 2 weeks.  It was a lot of work.  I am glad we saw the Eiffel Tower at night.  It was stunning.  It was late, though, and Riley was tired, so we didn't go up the tower.  Just sat under it for a while.

The Louvre was next.  Beautiful.  Gretchen and I were sometimes more amazed at the architecture than the art.  We were always saying, "Look at these beautiful floors!"  We are ruined for life, I know.  Some of the most beautiful parts were the courtyards, which you couldn't get to.  I think we spent about 4 hours there, and we didn't even set foot in 1 of the 3 legs in the museum.  We made sure to see the important stuff.

Notre Dame was cool.  Gretchen thought that it was a little underwhelming.  I think it was hyped up in her mind a little.  I liked it better than her.  The stained glass on the inside was enchanting.  We have heard it is beautiful at night.

Chateau Versailles was amazing.  We were there for 4 hours and only saw the main chambers.  We were so tired that we didn't even go to the gardens.  It was my favorite and I am excited to go back to see more.

All in all it was a great trip.  It was our first big trip with Riley and was a lot of work.  I think now that we have done it the next one will be easier.  We are grateful to Dan and Stacia for being our Guinea pigs.  They were great company and a lot of fun to travel with.

Cute boy!

I was transferring pictures from our memory card onto the computer so we can have plenty of room to take pictures while we're in Paris tomorrow. I couldn't resist sharing :)

 He REALLY wanted the nutter butter package. Every time there's one around he fights as hard as he can to get it.  (since I can't eat chocolate while nursing, I have substituted it with peanut butter-and nutter butters are my treat! so....there are nutter butter wrappers lying around occassionally)

 My handsome boys

By the way...

I don't think i ever posted about us moving to Germany...
Last November (the Saturday after Thanksgiving to be exact) Elden and I were in our basement just hanging out and talking. Elden was at his computer checking his email and said to me "So you want to move to Germany next year?" I thought he was joking at first, but he wasn't.  Only after a year at being stationed at Schriever we got new orders.

We moved to Germany 2 1/2 months after Riley was born.  It's taken some adjusting, but it's definitely a neat experience to be here!  I'm not going to lie...I miss living in the states! It's a whole different lifestyle over here!

I miss seeing words on a sign or something and actually knowing what they mean. I miss being able to talk to people without having to ask them first "Sprechen Sie Englisch?". Also-I miss driving on wide roads, and roads that don't make me car sick when I'm not driving. Groceries are expensive (and i'm not working full time anymore). Mostly though, I miss my family! Before we left, Caroline & Jordon moved back, Elden's sister Julia and her family moved to Monument, and right after we left Mary & Corban moved back. I try not to think about it because it makes me sad since I don't know if we'll get stationed there again.

Don't get me wrong-I enjoy some things about Germany as well.  Like, I haven't had a cell phone since June and don't really want one! We live in this quiet little village (except when there is an all night festival down the street with live music playing until 6am.).
The Autobahn! I LOVE being able to drive as fast as I want (until there's road construction and have to slow WAYYYY down). There are only a few stop signs, most of them are yield signs. We live 15 minutes from base instead of an hour, which means we can go have lunch with Elden as much as we want. The German's I've met so far have been so very sweet! I was getting my car serviced last week and the guy that was helping me thought Riley was just the cutest, he kept coming over and talking and playing with him while we waited and before we left he gave Riley a stuffed Volvo polar bear (didn't know Volvo had a mascot??).
I enjoy that stores are closed on Sunday. Sunday is still a sacred day here. You're not allowed to do yard work, wash your car, or basically do anything noisy that might disrupt anyone else. The food so far has been good (especially the ice cream!!!!) And of course, we get to travel.

Dan & Stacia are coming tomorrow on their way to Russia for Dan's study abroad semester, and we're going to see Paris, Brussels Belgium, Luxembourg City, and then some other places close by. (of course, they're all pretty close by-Paris is the farthest away which is only about 4 hours!) We're pretty excited to finally start traveling. We've not really done much since we've just been trying to get the house put together, and because we have 4 years to see everything we want to see.