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?

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After Arizona, I flew to Savannah to visit some good friends and a place I would love to call home again. I had an AWESOME time there and really didn’t want to leave. I got to do everything I wanted to do and spend a lot of time with my friends; it couldn’t have been better.

Below are some pictures I took of the city. I am so enamored with it obviously, but with scenery like this, how can you NOT be?

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My trip around the states has been pretty great so far! I arrived in New Jersey on Wednesday and it was just a nice feeling to be back in the States. Until you are really removed from your way of life, you don’t realize how much you take for granted. I’ve always been a proud American and have known how great our country is, but living overseas just really cements it in you. There are so many simple things we take for granted. John (my business partner and good friend) and I went out to dinner on Wednesday night and it was so nice to just get a glass of ice water, and I knew that if I drank it all, the server would be there within minutes to refill it. I know this may seem like nothing to most people, but we don’t get to have that in Belgium. That was one of the highlights of my day!

I stayed in New Jersey for 2 days and on Friday I flew to Phoenix to see my sister and her family. It’s been over 3 years since I’ve seen them so it has been just awesome to see all of them! We’ve had a fun time getting out and checking out the stores. Today I get to watch football all day…it’s a wonderful thing. In Belgium the early game starts at 7pm and that is IF I want to watch the game that is showing. But the early game here starts at 10 am so I get a full day of football and have so many choices. I know it sounds like all play and no work, but it is a working vacation so today, while watching football, I will have my laptop on my lap doing my work.

I do dearly miss my boys back home but they are doing really great. Drew is an awesome father and there is really no one better to take care of them! It’s football time which means it’s time to sign off. I haven’t taken too many pictures yet this trip so don’t have anything to post yet, but that should change next week!

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I’m sitting at the airport about to embark on my journey to the states. I am going several places: New Jersey, Arizona, Georgia, and North Carolina…alone. You read that right folks… alone! I’ve got mixed feelings about this as sure it’s cool to have some time alone every once in a while and it’s a lot easier to travel by yourself than with kids, but I’m going to miss them! I think I’ve only spent just a few days away from the kids at a time and those times have been rare. This time it will be for a couple of weeks though. Drew definitely has his hands full. but he’s an awesome Dad so I know he will be just fine.

Getting to the airport was a stark contrast to my arrival here. When I got here not a single person would help me and I SO needed it. Coming here, I parked the car and took the train right into the airport. The person sitting behind me just grabbed one of my suitcases when I stood up and just started walking. So I walked with her. There was a head nod so I understood what she was doing. I tried to speak to her in English, French, and what very little dutch I know, to which she didn’t respond. I didn’t really need her help as I was managing but she seemed to really WANT to help so who am I to say no? We walked in silence for 10 minutes and she was walking fast, so I followed. When we got where we needed to go she nodded and I said thank you and she was gone. I don’t know who this masked woman was, but THANK YOU! It’s nice when you experience kindness when you least expected it. My flight will leave soon, so I’m off. I will update more later.

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Well, we got to take a little summer vacation a couple weeks ago, although we didn’t stray too far from home. Normandy is a region in France and is probably best known for it’s important battles in WWII. I thought it would be a great opportunity to see the area and teach some pretty important things to the boys. We left in the morning and arrived just after noon in the town of Caen. The town was heavily bombed during the war but somehow the Chateau/fortress of William the Conqueror (moat included) was left untouched. So we got to see that which was built almost 1000 years ago. It was really neat. Let me try to tell you about our trip through pictures.

Here is a picture of the boys trying to get the cannons to work on the grounds of William the Conqueror

The Cathedral

One of the places we made sure we went to was the American D-Day Memorial. It was definitely pretty powerful and even the boys felt something there.

Below are the flags of the allies

It was very interesting to see this. I wondered what Ian was thinking.

I was looking at some of the things when Ian all of the sudden called me, “Mom! Come here!”, so I go to see what’s up and he is standing in this hallway. It is very cold and there is nothing in it, but there are speakers that are saying the names of everyone who died. He was very moved by this and he asked me if these were the people who died. “Yes Ian, they are.” He asked, “Will we ever have a war like this again?”, I told him that I hoped not. He knew his Daddy went to war and I had no doubt this was on his mind. He brought it up several times over the course of the trip. After this hallway there were pictures of people with their story. He was VERY interested in this and he wanted to know what kind of “brave things” they did. So I spent the time to show him that it was okay to die for your country. I’ve never been one to sugar coat things so they don’t sound as bad, although I will avoid the gory details at all cost. It was all very heavy.

After we went through the Memorial we went to the cemetary where almost 10,000 soldiers are buried. It was a really neat site. The cemetary overlooks the ocean. Ian made the observation that it would be a great place to be buried. I agreed.

Abram started hugging the grave markers

Over the course of the days we visited several D-Day beaches. Here are some views of the cliffs from Omaha Beach.

We went to the top of the cliffs and the landscape was incredible. There were a ton of bunkers there and giant craters where artillery shells had fallen. The boys had fun running in them.

This used to be an archway but was bombed heavily

Every night we ended our evening on the beach watching the sunset.

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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.

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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

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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.

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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

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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.

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