Frites et Kriek Block Party

April 22

A local block party near the flat celebrated two of Belgium's food groups: french fries and beer. I think the other food groups consist of waffles, sandwiches and chocolate but I'm sure that's another party. You could tell the Americans in the crowd.

Granny Comes for a Visit

April 21 -

Ciaran & Saoirse's Granny Sidenbender flew over from Orlando to come and play for two weeks. We took her to the Grand Place for mussels (moules), waffles (gaufres) and a little "pis."

St. Andrews part 2

More photos...

St. Andrews, Scotland, April 16-19

Off to the Motherland of golf. Our first trip to Scotland was spent in St. Andrews so James could play golf at it's birthplace, the Old Course.

While the boys played golf, the kids, Nana and GP did some exploring of the town. We went to St. Andrews Castle, Chapel, Aquarium and enjoyed the beautiful town. Thankfully the weather was gorgeous (especially for the British Isles) and we enjoyed the sun, biscuits, breakfasts at the B&B and pints at the Gin House.

Cologne, Germany

We've taken two day trips to Cologne, only two hours away by car. It's a lively place and on our first trip we went to be tourists and visit the cathedral but ended up having beers, wieners and pretzels with the locals as they were celebrating Carnival. And who can say no to beer and pretzels? This made people watching all the better (and there were some silly getups). James got a new wallet at Louis Vuitton which led us to our second trip...

The second trip didn't have much in store for the kids and was more for my benefit - I got an early birthday/Christmas gift at Louis Vuitton (hey it's cheaper in Germany vs Belgium and cheaper overall than the US, and who doesn't like a bargain?). We also ate Mexican food which isn't easy to be found over here. Saoirse and Ciaran did get a few things at Toys R Us on the way home. Eventually we'll find some more cultural things to expose them to other than beer tents and French designers.