We love The Park

I am posting yet more pictures of our kids at the park.  I said I was going to do some more "every day life" posts, and the park is definitely an almost every day occurrence for us.  These are three of the parks we visited recently, over a 4 day period.  I have to say, The Netherlands, has some really cool and inventive parks, and A LOT of them.  When I take the kids jogging with me I have to choose my route very carefully.  If I pass too many parks, they start whining to get out of the stroller.  

This is the little play area that is right outside our apartment complex. I call it Our Little Park.  It is not the most exciting, but you can't beat the location.

heading home

This next park I will call The Ikea Park, because it is on the way to Ikea.  Of course, there are quite a few parks on the way to Ikea, so I may have to refine this, oh so creative, naming system in the future.

We converted our trusty bike trailer, into a jogging stroller so, we could jog there.

This was scarier than it looks.  There was a handle on the other side that Johnny was hanging on to and spinning us in a circle.

This next park is Speelpark De Splinter. I didn't name this one.  In Dutch, "speel" means "play".

sand table (rained in the morning, so more like mud table)

satellite dish toy

big lego cage

This park has a lot of animals for the kids to look at.  This is definitely not one of the most attractive.

birds nest swing

Home Improvement

While cleaning my kitchen yesterday, I was thinking about blogging. So, that is how this post came about. When my dad was here visiting in May he spent a lot of time helping us out by fixing things up around the apartment. My favorite improvement, by far, was the re-grouting of the kitchen and shower tiles. They were so nasty. The grout had kind of an orange and brown moldy thing going on. Now, it is a clean and lovely, white and gray. I notice it every day. It really made the kitchen and bathroom so much more liveable. So, this post is to thank my Dad for a job well done.


BEFORE (I don't really have a good "before" picture, it is not something I wanted to photograph)


AFTER

Our Year Anniversary

We have hit our year mark!! It has now been just over a year since we moved to Eindhoven. Johnny and I have had a lot of fun reminiscing about how much things have changed for us in a year. I typically blog about our travels and other "camera worthy" occasions, but for the most part our life here is pretty normal. You know the drill- work, school, cook, eat, clean, entertain kids, sleep, then do it all again the next day. It is fun for me, however, to share with our friends and family what life is like for us here. So, in honor of our year anniversary I am going to try and do some more posting about our every day goings on here in Holland.

THEN


NOW

Playing Tag

Tagged
These are the rules:

List 3 joys, 3 fears, 3 current obsessions/collections, 3 surprising facts and then tag 5 other people. Leave a comment for the people you tag so they know they have been tagged.

Joys:

1. My Family
2. Family vacations
3. Listening to my kids laugh

Fears:

1. Cavities and more trips to the dentist
2. Catching a cold, then giving it to my kids (at different times of course), so it takes about a month until we are all healthy.
3. Diving boards

Current obsessions/collections:

1. Vacation Planning
2. Figuring out all the food on the shelves at the Dutch grocery store
3. Trying new recipes with the newly acquired ingredients

Surprising Facts:

1. It has been about a year since I last drove a car.
2. I would go insane without my DVR and my webcam.
3. I can't think of a third one (is that surprising?)

My baby is an Olympian

I am officially an Olympics junkie. I have been watching tons of Olympics coverage. Maybe, being in another country has made me crave it even more. Whatever the reason, I have had so much fun watching and cheering for team USA. It has also been interesting watching the European coverage, instead of the typical NBC coverage. It really gives you a different perspective on the whole thing. Collin and I had a lot of fun this morning playing around with these videos.

Paris Day Three

Day three was for our visit inside the Louvre.  First, we went inside to buy tickets and to take Collin to see the pyramid from the inside.

Then we went back outside to eat lunch and to wait for Ethan to take his nap.

As soon as Ethan fell asleep it was time to go inside.  Ethan slept through the whole thing.  We were so happy.  We were dreading the idea of chasing him around the museum and telling him not to touch things.

Me and Collin with- Venus de Milo.  He liked that the arms were missing. He thought someone cut them off with a sword.

The ceilings are so amazing

We stopped for a bit so I could put a cartoon on the I-pod for Collin.  A lot of people chuckled when they saw him watching Mickey Mouse Clubhouse while we looked at the art.

Everyone should have a room like this in their house :)

Johnny viewing- The wedding feast at Cana.  It is hard to see him because the painting is so massive, but you can see his black hair there on the left.  It almost looks like he is in the painting.

 posing with- The Winged Victory of Samothrace

Johnny reading his tour guide while viewing- The coronation of Napoleon

In front of- The raft of the Medusa

Paris Day Two

Our sightseeing for the day began at Notre Dame.

Then we took a walk through the city on our way to Luxembourg Gardens.  Collin liked this fountain with the "spitting dragons", so we stopped for awhile.

Next stop was Luxembourg Gardens

I stopped in to a pastry shop along the way.  I can't pronounce the name of what I chose, but it was layers of pastry with vanilla cream and chocolate.  It really was delicious.

mmmm...  you can practically see me salivating

We stayed at this little play area for a few hours.  There were a lot of tourists there, but also a lot of local children.  It was fun to hear them all trying to speak to each other in different languages.  I think I heard French, English, Italian and Dutch.

After a rest at the gardens, we were ready to walk again.  Saint Chapelle cathedral is in the background.

Then it was another stop off at the Louvre.  Our feet were aching and it felt sooooo good to put our feet in the water

Next stop was a stroll up the Champs-Elysees to the Arc de Triomphe.  We don't have many pics, because we only made it about half way.  Our feet couldn't take it anymore.  So, we just admired the Arc from afar.

So, we started to make our way back to the boat to catch a ride back to the hotel.  We stopped here at the steps of the Grand Palais for another rest.  As you can see Ethan was ready for a break.

 The Petit Palais