End of July and off to the States

As summer started getting warmer, we planned our usual trip back home to the States.  I will try and split the visit up into a couple of posts as there are a lot of photos and we were very busy while there!

The beginning of our 10 hour flight.  Flying there is always so much better than flying home.  Luckily there were not photos of the flight home but I will have it seared in my memory for a long time.

Flashback from last year.  Sylvie loves the baby swings in Seattle.  We don't have them in Holland.  So she LOVES to go for a swing at every playground we go to.  This is one of our favorites.

We headed to Uncle Jimmy's house to see his beehives, wind chimes, garden, and many other fun things.  The kids had a great time and Sylvie really warmed up quickly to Uncle Jimmy (which is not usual).

Checking out the flowers and vegetables.

While in Seattle we were lucky enough to attend our friends Matt and Laura's wedding in their beautiful backyard.  It was a really great event to be included in as well as see our good friends.  This is Eric, Garr, and Campbell looking daper.

And the lovely John and Katie looking good and well rested despite having a new baby!

And here is Sarah, another good friend and Eric's wife.

We also made sure to visit a few of the great paddling pools the city has to offer in the public parks.  

Then the kids and I spent one morning at Auntie Mary Lee's house.  It was so great to see her and spend time just chatting.  The kids had a great time as well as I did.  Sylvie and Mary Lee made some breakfast for us!

One more paddling pool.  We had such a good time and didn't take many photos while there!  We saw several other friends and had a great backyard BBQ at Sarah and Eric's house.  

On the day we left, we spent some time with Katie and Baby Jack.  He is 6 weeks old and a cutie.  This is a cute photo with our boys!

And this is the best photo we could manage with all the kids.  Jack was the most camera friendly!  Ours were a little wiggly!

And then we were off to the airport.  We had a short time in Seattle but it was a great trip.  We look forward to being there again in 2015.  This is Sylvie dancing to a flute player at the airport.  She is our little dancer.  She and Archie love music and sing quite a lot.  We are very lucky to have such happy kids.

My next post will be the week and a half we were at The Lake.

A Birthday & Visitors in July

I am a little behind on my posts so I will be trying to do some catch-up.  So here is July!

The kids in the back garden/yard in a blow up pool.  The weather had turned hot and we needed a way to escape our hot house.  So the kids enjoyed the water and being outdoors most of the day.

The weather was warm enough for Sylvie to start wearing her pretty dresses without sweaters, undershirts, pants, or tights.  We were all loving the warm weather and being in the central park/playground in Breda.

Sylvie had her first haircut....or trim!  After 2 years, I figured it would be fun for her to have a trim and be a "big girl".  Archie had his first at 5 months and that was too late!  So it was fun to enjoy this moment with.  We go to a little salon that does kids hair on Wednesday afternoons.  She and Archie enjoyed getting their haircut together.  What a big girl!

Birthday breakfast Holland style!  Since we are here, we enjoy the traditions they have.  So mini-pancakes (poffertjes) with sprinkles and candles.  She enjoyed us singing to her.  And the big bonus was her Auntie Daphne and Uncle Doug visiting from New Zealand were staying with us!  So she had a special celebration.

Splashing with Daph in the pool

A nice summer afternoon nap together

Opening presents!

Archie didn't quite understand that the presents were for Sylvie.  He had a great day too!

And then there was cake

An afternoon out with Mommy and some ice cream.  It is smurf flavor, whatever that is!

We went on a great bike ride with Doug and Daph through the Dutch countryside.  We were gone for 3-4 hours and enjoyed the ride together.  It was our first outing with our bike trailer with the kids.  It was a great time.  We even crossed a canal on a bike ferry!  We had to push a button and a hagard old Dutchman smoking a cigar showed up to ferry us across the canal.  It was super fun!

The kids in their new ride!

And then the real fun began.  Not only did we have Doug and Daph, we had Auntie Heather and Uncle Bill come to visit.  They were all on a big European tour and met up in our town to visit us.  It was a great time and we had some really good laughs.  We feel so fortunate that they were able to see us and spend several days with us.  It makes it hard being this far away from them when we are reminded how great they are and how much we enjoy their company.

Pirate Archie off to the grocery store

Enjoying an ice lolly in style

Sylvie the Shark chasing Archie the Pirate

Archie's imagination is starting to bloom.  He is enjoying dressing up and pretending to be different creatures.  It is so much fun to play and hear him create these storylines for us.   

We brought the groceries home and were unloading them together from the stroller.  Archie picked up the papertowel rolls (wrapped in 2) and decided they were binoculars.  The he told Sylvie they needed to go on a dinasaur adventure and look through their binoculars.  It was SO cute and funny.  They were giggling the entire time.

More world cup fun!  Holland made it to the final match and we enjoyed getting into the spirit along the way.  It was quite fun to be here and get into the orange spirit

We went to Ghent as we do at least once a month.  We like it a lot, besides the fact that it has a Starbucks.  It was a hot day and we had dancing to a jazz band, ice cream, and a great lunch together.

Sylvie dancing

Great photo of Doug and Daph from their trip! 

Archie and his best buddy Italo.  I will have more posts about the duo when I get to my September posts!