Spring Trip 2011

Over Easter weekend we had such a fun time visiting Belgium, Netherlands, and Cologne (Koln) Germany.

Flanders Field U.S. cemetery in Belgium, site of major WWI battle.

Our flag flying at Flanders Field.

Main square in Brugge, Belgium.

Eating moules frites.

Kuekenhof gardens near Lisse, Netherlands.

One of many windmills in Netherlands.

Tulip fields at Keukenhof.

One of hundreds of tulip fields in the province of North Holland.

Beach of Netherlands (Grant's first time to the ocean).

After overcoming his fears Grant ventured a dip and daddy had to fetch him.

Anne Frank house in downtown Amsterdam.

Cooper and Daddy standing alongside one of the many canals in Amsterdam.

Hadley enjoying boat ride on canals of Amsterdam.

Reguliersgracht, the famous "7 bridges canal".

Church of St. Nicholas in center of downtown Amsterdam.

Koln cathedral (largest cathedral in Germany) on Easter Sunday.

2 birthdays, a haircut, a castle, and dinosaurs!!!

Way too much time has past since our last post!!! The day after getting back from our Thanksgiving vacation in the states Grant was hospitalized with Croup and then a week later with a MRSA infection, presumably from the hospital. We spent January recovering from our adventures and Hadley turned 5 in February. We have had a fun trip to Trier a while back, but we will have to leave those pictures and stories for a different post.

Over the past week we have had a lot of fun!!! Grant turned 2 years old on April 3rd and requested a dinosaur cake. He is so much fun and we can't imagine our lives without him, our little Grant-dee-boo-boo.

Cooper turned 4 years old on the 10th and we had fun celebrating with some friends. Cooper requested a T-Rex on his cake. I didn't know what a T-Rex looked like and had to google a coloring pages with this dinosaur on them. Cooper loves puzzles, books, pirates, dinosaurs, is a sunbeam but would love to go back to nursery due to toys and snacks. He loves slides and could spend all day everyday at the park! Cooper the Super Duper is loved beyond measure...

Do you think it is time for a haircut?? A few months back Alan decided that he would start cutting the boys hair. Maybe this was after finding out we were having a third boy. The cost will really add up over the years. He actually does his own hair now as well. We generally have the boys sit in the tub on a stool and hope for the best.

Grant did great this time, due to the presence of 2 packages of spiderman fruit snacks.

We spent a really fun day as a family at a castle about 150km. from our home. This is a picture of the Mosel River Valley and our littlest girl Hadley. A really beautiful drive.

This was the castle called Berg Eltz. A bit of restoration is in process so we couldn't get as good a picture as we would of liked. It was a really steep wet walk down to the castle and I fell. Being this pregnant I am sure I was a picture of grace.

Inside the castle there was a spinning wheel. One of the children's favorite stories is Rumpelstiltskin, so a spinning wheel was extra interesting. Alan had fun pointing out how the wheel worked.

Over the past week we have had a lot of fun having Alan home. Most of the time has been spent studying for board exams, but we tried to carve out some fun time at the local dinosaur park.

This is the coolest basket. You climb up underneath and push it. Once Grant figured out how to get in they had a great time.

The children really loved all of the dinosaur models.

Thanksgiving trip 2010

Over the Thanksgiving holiday we came back to the states for two weeks. The first week was spent with Bonnie's parents in Poulsbo, WA, and the second week at a family reunion in Breckenridge, CO. These are just a few of the fun pictures from that trip.

Isn't Grant a cutie. This was taken at a park in Poulsbo.

One of the favorite things for the children to do was feed the birds out of the back sliding doors. If they were really quiet, and that means you Grant, the birds would actually come inside the door to get peanuts.

These were taken at the Olympic Game Park. We have so much video that is great but not as many still photos.... The animals would come up to your window and hope to be fed wheat bread. This is an enormous bison that Grant was being forced to feed.

Hadley had so much fun feeding the animals and really wasn't afraid. This was a yak she fed. Many of them came up to the car and she said and I quote, " I don't like to be crowded by yaks."

Cooper was a little more reserved with the larger and animals and wanted to head to the back of the van.

A fun family picture taken in Grandma and Grandpa's backyard. This was actually made into a Christmas card, but sadly was never sent out.

After a fun week in Washington we flew to Colorado for the family reunion. There were lots of fun things planned to do for everyone!

This is a cooking class that Alan helped with for the children.

Fun crafts with Grandma and Uncle Reese

A good friend of mine gave me a gallon sized bag of Polly Pockets for Hadley. It was a huge hit with all of the little girls.

A Thanksgiving skit with the children, thanks to Uncle Kimball and Aunt Marianne. So much fun to watch!!! Grandma put together some pretty amazing costumes.

Grant looked so cute in his costume but didn't want to keep it on. We had to hold him up to get a picture.

Sledding with everyone in downtown Breckenridge. We brought the stroller to have a place for some of the little ones to rest and lets face it be contained : )

What an amazing experience to have Grandpa Packard come to the reunion.

Alan was in charge of reading stories with the children one night. This is him reading Pout Pout Fish. He is such a great story teller.

We had such an amazing time during our entire two weeks, and can't wait to see everyone when they come to visit us in Europe.