Cousins Visit

Kirstie and Candace were our last visitors here. Everyone always told us lots of people end up coming the last year, but for us our big year was year 2. We love visitors. Having them is the perfect excuse to go do some site seeing. It worked out especially well since there we were able to visit places we haven't been in awhile.

The day they arrived we did some planning then tried to go to the top of the Cinquantenaire. Sadly, it is closed on Monday's so it didn't work out, but Kevin did get to ride the cannons. We took the long way (straight through the city) to the chocolate outlet to taste some chocolate. Then we went to Gaasbeek castle to walk around the grounds. It was a beautiful day and there were quite a few people enjoying strolling around the forest. However for us, Kevin had one of his meltdowns. Kherington went too far ahead of him and he got mad. Then was mad that I was sitting on the bench instead of picking him up. Well, I let him scream it out for a good 30 minutes. What surprised me the most is people would stop and watch him, then act concerned that he is alone when I am obviously just chilling on the bench and can see him and talk to him. Once he finally cooled down, it was like nothing happened. We wandered around the backside of the castle. The kids climbed the hill and had a blast rolling down. It was pretty funny.

We picked Kirstie and Candace up at the trains station after they had spend a week and half exploring Europe on their own and headed from there over to Aachen to have more of a down day. Of course we stopped for kebabs. It's a good thing we had decided to take it to go because about 30 middle school kids came in right after us. I have never seen the place so packed, but then again it is so delicious so it's not super surprising.

Next we wandered around downtown Aachen. We started at the huge steep slide.  I wiped it down the best I could with my hand, but they both ended up with wet bums.  Good thing I had a change of pants for both of them (which is why Kherington is so styling in her sweats under the dress). They hadn't get changed out the ice cream shops for cookie shops (they do it each winter) so I got the kids some ice cream. I normally try to push Kevin's ice cream down into the cone, but when I tried this time, the entire cone crumbled. He wasn't too sad because I got him a new one and he got pink just like his sister instead of the chocolate I had talked him into. Last up was a quick stop at the 3 corners.  Kherington really likes taking pictures now so there are all types of fun ones floating around on my camera.  On of my favorite is the one of Kevin at the 3 corners.  He's a little Belg boy (in an Italy jacket)...standing complete in Belgium instead of the Netherlands or Germany.  In the evening we went down to the Grand Place and walked around.  Kherington was super excited to take a picture of a black taxi.  Not sure why but she really likes black taxi's.

The next day we had a relaxing morning, stopped at Stockel market for waffles, then headed up to Brugge. We did our normal walking tour and explored some of the shops. Since it was raining we didn't spend a ton of time. Rain really does put a damper on site seeing.

Our last day trip was up to Amsterdam. We left early thinking we could get a little sleep in the car. However Kherington was singing along to music on her iTouch and man is she tone deaf and it is even more noticeable when she's wearing her headphones so we can't hear the music. Pretty funny...especially since I wasn't sitting right next to it :).

Kirstie, Candace and I waited in the Anne Frank house line (tickets were sold out online) so we could tour the house. I was amazed at how large their living space actually was. It was really sad to think that just outside their curtain draw windows was a beautiful canal. Definitely a cool experience.

We met up with Ryan who had been keeping the kids entertained for a couple hours and walked over to our canal boat ride. On the way we found a candy shop and the kids talked Ryan into getting them pop rock type candies.  Both of them love listen to them pop.  The canal boat ride was fun, but not as cool as I was hoping. I really think hearing everything in 3 languages detracted from the ride. It was fun to see all the crew boats out practicing especially since there was such a large variety of ages.  That would be fun to try.  After our ride, we wandered the streets (I love Amsterdam) until we found the big huge wooden shoe. In the process we saw the flower market and tasted a lot of different cheese. My two favorites were natural baby gouda and garlic gouda. Fun to taste, but in reality I just miss my Colby Jack. Haha. Pretty sure people there wouldn't even consider it cheese. Oh yes, and Kevin had another big meltdown at the flower market. It definitely sucks the fun out of poking around different shops when you can hear your own kids screaming at the top of his lung over ginormous crowds of people.

We took the tram back to the park and ride (parking here is way cheaper than downtown and up to 5 people per car can get a free tram pass to/from the city center) where we grabbed some turkish kebabs at a place right above the garage.  They must be pretty authentic because the place was packed with Turkish people.  Yummy.

We had a blast with Kirstie and Candace.  The kids loved being about to hold their hands as we wandered around and Kherington made sure they played rock paper scissor to decide who sad between the car seats in the car.  Here they are in our parking garage (kid are ready for church).