Well, the new year began just a couple of days ago and we were all tucked in our beds sound asleep :D. We are all looking forward to 2008 very much. There is a lot of change forthcoming , but it is change that we welcome. I am not one for resolutions typically, but there is something I would definitely like to improve with regard to my long-distance family and friends…to keep in better touch.

Email used to be the best way to reach us, but now we got SO much email that throughout the day when I get personal email, I set it to the side to respond to at a later time and well, you’ve all seen how that goes…out of sight, out of mind. So this is something I really will make an effort at improving. I am going to get these damn xmas cards out this week if it kills me! So, i would like to apologize to all of you for being a crappy daughter, sister, niece, granddaughter, DIL, SIL, aunt, and friend. I love you all and maybe this year I will be bugging you so much you tell me to leave you alone.

Anyway, happy 2008 to everyone. I hope you have a great one!

We found out this week that we will be leaving Europe in just a few months to head back to the US! This is great news and we are all very excited. Long story short, Drew applied for an awesome program and was accepted so he has to report no later than May 15. At the latest we will leave around April 15, but I will probably go ahead of us and secure a house, etc.

Belgium has been really great for our family and we have done some amazing things here, but we are anxious to get back home! Just wanted to let you all know!

Living overseas really makes you appreciate more where you come from. There are things that drove me crazy in the states that now I yearn before: the supped up El Camino blaring the latest Nas track, the holographic pictures of Jesus on the rear window of cars that the first time I saw it I wondered if it was a sign, you get the picture ;).

Halloween in Belgium is different than in the states. It seems kids go around on different nights (which I think is dictated by the school or neighborhood they live in) and they dress as scary things like witches, ghosts, goblins, etc. You won’t find a buzz lightyear in the bunch! Traditionally large groups of kids go together from house to house and they will stand in front of your house yelling Dah-may Bon Bons (yes I’m taking french and don’t know how to spell the first word so I spelled it out phonetically. The French is going well obviously :D). The kids scream it until people throw candy on the ground from their window or doors (think of a pinata breaking). This is our 2nd halloween in belgium and we haven’t had anyone come yelling and haven’t seen any kids dressed up around town either.

There is a small population of Americans in the area though, so leave it to them to do Halloween like only an American can! On Friday night, the boys donned their costumes of choice and off we went to Trunk or Treat!

This was really awesome! I’d say there were about 30-40 “trunks” that participated! Most of the participants dressed up and really got into the spirit. There were probably a couple hundred children that walked through with their parents to get candy. The kids loved it and as parents it was just so nice to see the kids experience it. This is something that only Americans could have done (there seemed to be plenty of British and Canadian kids enjoying it as well though)!

Ian still loves the super heroes and I think always will.

And below is master Brum

How was everyone else’s Halloween

Mommy, I don’t really believe that reindeer can fly

Ian said this as we were watching “The Nightmare Before Christmas” (incredible movie). Hearing this come from a 6-year old made me sad. I think I was 7-8 when I found out Santa Claus wasn’t real. My family was getting ready to drive down to Florida for the holidays from Charleston, SC. The station wagon was loaded with the gifts and my sister and I looked at the name tags. “To Jen, From Santa” and “To Sara, From Santa”.

I’m not ready for him to not believe in Santa, but there is only so much you can do. When did you find out by Santa if you ever believed at all? Anyone still believe??

Today is Blog Action Day and the idea is that bloggers around the world will all blog about one topic. This year’s topic is the environment. I’m not a big environmentalist but I do think one of the best ways to help ensure the future of the environment is to teach our kids about it.

We’ve always been an outdoorsy kind of family. We go camping as often as we can, we love to go hiking; we’re basically trying to bring up the boys with the same love for the outdoors that we have as well as a respect for it. I wasn’t that exposed to doing outdoor activities growing up, but when my family moved to Colorado, I was just overcome with the natural beauty there. After I left home I moved to Monterey, CA, where kayaking, camping, and hiking were regular activities. Drew shares the same appreciation for the outdoors that I have.

Take your kids outside and show them what nature has to offer. Here are some great ways to to spend time with your kids outdoors:

1. Go in your backyard and look at the different vegetation and different bugs you have in your garden. Kids LOVE playing in dirt!
2. When you take your kids to the playground, take some time to just stop, look around, and point out the different trees in the area and listen to the noises that surround you.
3. Go on a nature hunt! This is one of our favorite things to do. Decide what you are going to hunt for ahead of time (as many different leaves as you can find, flowers, bugs, sticks, pine cones, etc) and go out in the trails and hunt for as many as you can find!
4. Go to a Zoo!
5. Grab a frisbee and just start up a game in your yard or in the park! You don’t need to be involved with nature to appreciate it
6. Plan a camping trip! Waterproof your tent and go to a campground, or just pitch it in your backyard! If the park allows, have a fire. Make sure to bring the marshmallows and hot dogs.

I could really go on and on. What kinds of things do you do to get outside with the family? For those without kids, what did you do as a kid growing up?

This summer we’ve been keeping close to home, but been keeping busy with work and play. We haven’t taken any trips since our trip to England so we are in need of one! Drew’s unit had an inspection so we couldn’t really go anywhere until now. And school starts on the 21st!!!

Next week we hope to change all of that though. It looks like we are going to visit the Normandy Provence of France. There is a lot of American history there and that is something we want to be able to see before our time is up here. So hopefully this time next week I will have some cool pictures to show you!

Hope everyone is well! I’ve included some pictures I’ve taken this summer.

No, not THAT Brum, but this one!

Happy birthday Abram, Abe, Brum, Brummy, The Great Destroyer, and every other name we call you. It’s hard to believe he is 3. Since we did such a big trip around Ian’s birthday for the both of them, we stayed close to home this weekend but still had some good times. Abe really wanted to see a castle and there is no shortage of castles here in Belgium. We actually ended up going to a citadel in the city of Namur. It isn’t quite a castle but more a fortress protecting the city. We saw some buildings that were built in the 11th century. Here is a picture from across the river:

It was a really cool series of buildings lining the hill. There was an old roman amphitheater there too, but a rock concert was being held there that same day so we didn’t get to explore the amphitheater. Here are some pics from up top:

Well, we all know how I like birthdays and I think they should be celebrated, so of course we celebrated all weekend long. On Sunday we spend the day at the zoo and playgrounds and out to dinner that evening. Ian even let Abe play his Nintendo DS.

Here is a pic I took of the birthday boy!

And here is a picture that Abe took of his big brother

Most of our friends and family know that we don’t do birthday parties. That doesn’t mean we don’t love attending YOUR parties, we just don’t have them ourselves. There are a lot of reasons for this so lets see if I can name them.

• They can be pricey
• It’s usually VERY stressful on the parents and quite often the kids
• I see a lot of parents just drop their kids off at parties and when your kids are ages 3 and 6, I have ni desire to babysit 20 of them
• I don’t want people to feel pressured to buy the kids gifts. If you want to get them a present, then that is awesome and very generous of you, but you should never be obligated
• Utter chaos
• If you have a party for one year, they will always expect them for every year

I’m sure I could list plenty more, but what it comes down to is personal preference and probably our lifestyle. If we are going to be spending money on a party, I would much rather take that money and DO something with it. Have some fun for a couple days, not just a couple of hours. Every year we have always done something special, whether it be go camping, spend the day or week at the beach, go to a hotel spa (and yes this was Ian’s suggestion, not ours), etc. Since the boys birthdays are just a month apart we took the time this year to try and experience more of Europe… so we went to LegoLand!

Legoland is located outside of London in the town of Windsor. We left bright and early one morning and drove to France. It took about an hour and 45 minutes to get to the French side of the chunnel. We drove our car onto a train which was an interesting experience and about 40 minutes later we were in England and driving on the wrong side of the road! That was pretty interesting. From there it was about another 90 minutes t0 the park. We got there 45 minutes before opening so it was really perfect timing. The park itself was really cool. So many things made out of legos, etc. What I liked about it versus other parks like disney world or 6 flags, etc., was that it is for little kids. You don’t have teenagers running around and you don’t have adults there who aren’t there with their young children. We bought two day passes to the park and spent two full days there. The kids had an awesome time and we had a lot of fun too!

One night we also went to the town of Windsor and toured the castle. It was impressive to say the least. The last day we went hiking around the White Cliffs of Dover. This was probably the highlight of the trip for me! Here are some pics of our adventure!

Ian and Harry Potter

Abe and Harry potter

One of the scenes created from legos

For most of the rides, they had a huge lego center so the kids could play while the parents waited in line. We were very grateful for this!

Abe really wanted to go on this swing and Ian amused us. They both had fun.

We finished our day in a few rooms that just had tons of legos to play and build with. Here is Ian

and here is Brummy

Below are some pics of the castle.

And Dover. It was just gorgeous there.

So yeah, the vacation was a couple months ago but I finally got the rest of the pics off the camera. Yes, I suck. So, where did I leave off?

After getting more acquainted with nature, we decided to head to the city! Munich was only an hour away so we went for it. It was a pretty cool city; very busy! People were everywhere and it was really alive. We walked around the city alot and just kind of took it all in. It was definitely some place I would like to visit again and explore everything it has to offer. We only had one day so we did the important things; we went to a beer garden for some pretzels and beer. YUM. I don’t have any pictures of this as my camera decided to crap out on me. Just my luck.

The next day we decided to head to a city in Austria called Innsbruck. Some of you older people may know of Innsbruck as it hosted the winter Olympics in the late 70s. It was all the home of Maximillian I. The city was completely charming, I’d love to spend a couple of days there. It is also home to Swarovski Crystal and we took a tour out of their “Crystal World” which was really odd like something out of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, specifically the tunnel scene. To say it was odd would be an understatement.

Some pictures of innsbruck:

We went on a tour of the salt mines and we needed to get our finest on for the tour and the rides

a funny sign

some pictures from salzburg

On Thursday, we ventured up Germany’s tallest mountain, the Zugspitze and it was absolutely amazing. We did not climb it as it is still covered in snow and even through from the peak we were warm in short sleeves, there were plenty of people still skiing. If only Abe wasn’t 2! Before I tell you about the day, late me start by saying that none of the pictures I took saved to my camera. When we got home last night, I was heart-broken! So for my story, I will use other people\’s pictures to help illustrate the day.

We got up and decided to go hiking around a lake called Lake Eibsee. This lake is an alpine lake and it was just beautiful. The water was crystal clear. It was mating season so we saw plenty of wildlife which was just awesome to watch. The boys loved the lake and loved seeing so many animals.

Here is the lake with the Zugspitze in the background:

After about 90 minutes we decided we wanted to go to the top of the mountain. So we rode this lift up to the bottom and saw the most incredible views. Because we were on the highest point in the bavarian alps, we could see everything. It was Ian’s favorite part of the vacation. Here is a view of the lake from above:

and a view from the top:

After all of that, we decided to go down these alpine slides. You sit in a toboggan looking thing and it takes you to the top of a hill and then you control how fast or slow you go. If you to too slow, it generally pisses off the people behind you, but at first it’s scary! Ian and I went together and Drew and Abe were behind us. The slide takes you through all of these twists and turns. It was so much fun. For the second time, Drew and Ian rode together in front of Abe and I. Ian apparently told Drew, “Mommy screams like a little girl!” He left off the part that he does as well! We rode that about 10 times that day. It was a blast.