Dana's Wedding

Dana got married in the Washington D.C. Temple on August 21st! 7 kids down, 1 to go (no pressure Michelle). All the siblings and spouses were able to make it including RYAN! I had flown over on my Birthday and border control even wished me a happy birthday. At the last minute he was able to get off work so he flew a day later (on Friday), got in just in time to make the end of our family gathering at the Bergeron's and surprised everyone by showing up there. Then he flew out Sunday, but because of weather issues he ended up sitting on the runway in DC, missed his connection in NYC, got re-routed to Chicago, delayed there, sat in London for awhile AND they lost his checked luggage....so really he should have just stayed an extra day and enjoyed the family :).

Anyways, the wedding was AWESOME. We are excited to have Guillaume in our family. The morning of the wedding Elise and I did Dana's hair (okay, so Elise did all the curling and I just hair sprayed and bobby pinned). It turned out great!

We have all the sibling in age order (Dana should be moved down a couple slots, but since it was her day and all...). My favorite picture is the grand kids pic (Ez and Kherington were the only ones there from the Dixon side and as you can see they added a little noise).

Inside the temple it was nice and cool, BUT outside it was HOT. Kherington enjoyed playing with the little cold water bottle that the Bergeron's were smart enough to bring along. Dad was ready to shed his suit coat as soon as pictures ended and Tricia had her personal air conditioner.

The night before the wedding we crammed into one hotel room and presented the winner of our Banana competition with the prize (Elise won, with Lani come in just a couple miles behind). We got a sweet picture of everyone there!

Ryan's Mom was able to come up and spend some time with me and Kherington also. His Aunt Kathy let us stay with them in Virginia and we had a great time. We took Kherington to a park nearby and she loved sitting on the tractors and wandering around at her own pace.

(pictures to come once I'm back in Belgium)

Kherington and I then headed over to Washington for the reception. We had the very berry salad (like Zupas), pita's filled with chicken salad (yummy), ice cream sundaes and of course Belgium chocolates.

(pictures to come once I'm back in Belgium)

We stayed for a couple weeks, enjoyed spending time with the parents and friends while Ryan finished out his busy season. It was another great trip back to the states.

August 21?

Father’s Day Present

For Father’s Day for my dad this last year I put together this fun collage (the idea came from a picture Ryan’s mom told me about that had just one kid with different body pars). We have dad draft #1 on Father’s day, but I never actually got around to cleaning it up until the night before I left for the states. Well, after Dana’s wedding I got it printed and framed (one from home and one for his office). Here’s the final product:

Brussels Flower Carpet

Every other year Brussels does a ginormous flower carpet at the Grand Place. We went down on the last day of it so the flowers were a little wilted. Kherington enjoyed finding little ledges to climb/sit on.

We also enjoyed these delicious waffles. I must say that the best waffles are still down at Stockel Market, but the topping on these were pretty good (strawberries & whipped cream and white chocolate syrup). We also visited the Manneken Pis for Ryan's first time. The first time I went there it took me a while to figure out what all the little things moving in the windows were...after raising 4 boys, we figure that some day Ryan's mom should be the proud owner of a big statue that she can proudly display in their front yard (she could even dress it for different holiday's and season).

African Museum

The first Wednesday of each month is free museum day (after 1pm). In August we joined some friends for a visit to the African museum. Kherington didn’t make it through the entire inside, but really enjoyed the steps and the elephants outside.

Upgrade

...and since yesterday was so much fun, today we upgraded Kherington's pool:

Le Crueset

One of the best perks about living in Belgium is that we’re just an hour away from a Le Creuset outlet store! As many of you know Ryan collects baseball hats but since we’re here it doesn’t make much sense to keep collecting (the hats are downstairs in storage… the hat collecting will resume when we return) SO instead I’ve started collecting Le Creuset items! During sale months (July & January) we got an additional 30% off the already outlet price AND since we went the first weekend of sale month got an additional 10% off! I use the normal size pot all the item. Very very nice since it retains heat and our store is ‘energy efficient’ which means it turns on and off and on and off. It make boiling water or simmering stuff so much easier! We did give 8 of the mini pots away for the prize of our Dixon family banana (running race) so we are down to 4, but we plan on getting 8 more :)

Ommegang Dinner

Ryan’s boss was very generous and paid for us to attend a dinner and performance in downtown Brussels. The restaurant overlook the Grand Place (main square) where a 3 hours parade/show performed that included royalty from all over Belgium. In the ally below the restaurant we could watch the performers get ready. The coolest was all the people climbing up onto their stilts....it must take skill to walk around on really high stilts on cobblestone. To be honest the food was little ‘rich’ for my taste (I love Café Rio or Pei Wei kind of places), but it was fun to have a free night out.