September and a visit from Grandma Jane!

Life is very busy at the moment.  I thought I would keep it short this post and just put up all the latest photos I have otherwise I will run out of time trying to write too much.  

 Grandma Jane is visiting.  She is in her 2nd or 3 week visit.  We have been going to parks, having daytrips out, and getting the house in order.

 Storytime with Grandma

 Peek-a-boo!!! 

On Saturday, we went to Belgium to Antwerp.  We spent the day drinking coffee, wandering the old streets, and viewing the cathedral.  The weather was perfect and it was a lovely day out.

 Today, we went to Den Haag (the Hague) on the coast.  It started out as a rainy day and ended up being a beautiful fall day.  We spent the day having a nice lunch, drinking coffee, playing in the sand, and walking on the boardwalk.  It was a lovely afternoon with the kids!

 Beautiful sculpture

Grand old hotel with boardwalk along the beach in front.  The boardwalk is lined with cafe after cafe. 

The long beach.  In the background you can barely see the kites and kite surfers.

 Lunch at the cafe....before the table was filled with our clutter and mess!

 Oh, the sun showed up!  Archie was not impressed.  This is the boardwalk with the many cafes and umbrellas.

 Playing in the sand and in the wind.

Welcome Baby Sylvie Jane

On July 17th, our wedding anniversary, our 4th family member arrived, Sylvie Jane Cooper.  She was 3 days early and born here in a Dutch hospital.  She was 3.45 kilos (7 lbs - 9 oz.).  We don't know how long she is as they don't measure right after birth.  We have to wait until she is 6 weeks old and has a check-up.  

  
Archie is adjusting well to the new addition to the house.  He ignored her for the first day and ignored me for a couple days.  Every once and awhile he gets a little needy for some mommy-time but that is to be expected.  He is busy being a toddler and beginning to express all the great toddler behaviors.......we have tantrums, time-outs, and different expressions of frustration happening on a daily basis.  So he doesn't have a lot of time to pay attention to his sister.  Here are a couple more photos of Archie.  He is still a character and making us smile every day.

The End of June and onto July

Here are some more photos of Archie.  He is making "moo" sounds for cows and "brrmmm brrmmm" sounds for vehicles.  He is really enjoying wearing sunglasses (mine of course).  So here are a few recent pics of him this week.

New friend Magda (her husband works with Campbell) and her children, Marco & Maya.

We shared some gelato and Archie thought it was a hit!

"No more photos, please."

Mmmmmm, watermelon!!!

We made it to Dusseldorf, Germany, this weekend.  It was a really nice city (at least the parts we visited).  Beautiful architecture, new and old.  We stayed in a new area with some famous modern buildings, a beautiful harbor off the Rhine, and many trendy cafes and restaurants.  Archie liked the boats.

View from our hotel room.  The bridge is a pedestrian bridge that has seating along the whole way.  The "box" in the middle is a super cool bar/restaurant that had some great night life.....that we viewed from our room. :)

Looking back to the hotel from the bridge.  Note the sculpture on the building nearby.  They are figures of people crawling up the building.

Mmmmmmm, croissants.  This is the best photo I could get of Archie munching his breakfast.  He was a big fan of the bakery we found as were we.  It was a nice night away and a city we could easily visit again.  Unfortunately I didn't take many photos but Archie can be the subject of this blog entry instead!

Settling Into our New Life

We are settling into our new home and lives here in Breda.  Our furniture and belongings arrived the 15th.  It makes if feel a bit more like "home."  It has added a little bit of chaos because of all the organizing and unpacking.  On the upside, if give me many things to do in my day.  

Campbell has been travelling the last couple of weeks and next week will be his last for awhile (at least until after the baby arrives).   He has been to Poland twice (where one of the company's factories is), England, and next week to Italy.  It sounds exotic but loses its intrigue quite quickly.  Travel for work is never very enjoyable when he would rather be home with us.

The baby is 36 weeks as of the 22nd on Friday!  So the baby is full term and COULD arrive anytime.  But let's keep our fingers crossed we have 4 more weeks.  We need a little more calm before the new round of chaos starts.  I am not sure we are ready yet for it all to start.  Luckily, all appears to be going well and no complications.  Campbell has set up the nursery.  I will attempt to put some fabric pictures up as well as Archie's name.....which I never finished!

We were planning on heading to Germany for the weekend, Dusseldorf.  Archie has been ill for the last week and the worst was this weekend.  So we, luckily, decided to stay home.  He has had a virus and has some big teeth coming in.  The combination must be painful for him as well as us.  No one has had much sleep.  We will attempt to go next weekend for an overnight stay.  I have never been to Germany but Campbell has and says the city is for a nice visit.  It should be a fun weekend away.

Attached are a couple of photos from the last couple of weeks.  We went to Belgium to the city of Bruges.  It is a wonderful old city with a moat that circles the oldest part of the city.  The buildings date back to the 1500's and 1600's.  There are canals running through the city with boats and beautiful bridges and walkways.  They had some wonderful chocolate shops.  There were many tourists but we loved it and plan to go back many times.  It is only about 90 minutes drive away.

I went to a "Mums & Tots" playdate with the International Women's Club of Breda.  I met a lot of nice ladies and will hopefully meet up with a couple soon.  They meet every Friday and have other events as well.  There are a couple Americans, lots of Brits, and some other nationalities.  It was really nice having some other ladies to chat with, some here a couple months and some for years.  I hope to make some friends out of the group.  Archie had a great time playing.  There were at least a dozen moms with all having at least one and a couple with two kids.  VERY BUSY and LOUD, but lots of fun.


Next post I will put up photos of the house.


Tot dan! (Until next time!).....trying to use my dutch that I am learning :)