Tongerin and Gartenschau (Out of Order Post Alert)

One Sunday somewhere in this whirlwind of an April, we managed to get up at 3am and drive to Tongerin, Belgium to go antique shopping.  Much to my eldest's chagrin, we drug everyone along.  It was about 3 hours away and felt like that was too far and too long of a day to leave anyone at home.  We did end up finding a prayer kneeler, a St. Genevieve plate, and a cool pilgrim silver bell.  A sweet lady gave Drew a tiny, glow-in-the-dark statue of Mary because he was begging me for it and I had told him no.  It was fun to look at everything and we ate lunch before driving back home at the same restaurant that we ate at last time we went to this famous flea market, Ben's Cafe.  I remember the name because we were there on Judah's birthday last time and his first name is Benjamin even though I typically call him Judah Benjamin when he's in trouble.  That's just because it is hard to start with a different name when you've got your momentum in the moment.

I don't have any pictures of the kneeler.  As I write this my household goods are being packed away so it is too late now for a picture for this post.  I should have taken before and after pictures of it because Brian took it to a woodworker a few villages away and had him refinish it.  We were not expecting him to reupholster it too.  It looks brand new now instead of it's one hundred years.  

When we got home, my husband was not ready to call it a day and so he took the four boys up to the Hutte for dinner of sausages and frikadelle.  They played at the playground and pet the horses on the walk back.

It seems I have missed a few local wonders due to my hesitance to go on field trips or adventures with just the kids.  I used to try to do these types of things.  I'd sign up, commit, and then dread it until it was over.  So then I decided that I would just stop doing that to myself.  It was always an exhausting day that left me with cranky, tired kids. But then time passed and they grew up and now I have big kids that can help me.  I almost didn't realize that these days would not be as hard as they once were.  In September I took the kids to a gem mine field trip and we left with crying little ones, but it was better than it used to be.  Anyway, the point of all this was to say that I have been scrambling to do some of the field trip type of adventures in these last few months because I can do it now without so much dread.  The Gartenschau (AKA the Dinosaur Park) is one of those things.  Everyone was shocked that I had never taken my kids in all the years of my life I have lived in this area of Germany.  Parking was an unknown to me there and I had just avoided it with the big van.  Turns out that parking was super easy there. 

Drew and Judah had gone on field trips with the German Kindergarten to the Gartenschau before.  They had told me a few things, but they never told me how fun the playgrounds were in there or how amazing the Lego buildings were.  We went with the Catholic homeschooling group in place of our gym day.  

I didn't take any good photos of the playgrounds because I was too busy relaxing and talking to the other mamas in the shade while the kids played.  Bobby stayed close to me for the first half and then found the sand and plopped down, without moving until it was time to go.

On our way out, we looked at the Lego display, complete with the Koln (Cologne) Cathedral, vinyards, and downtown Kaiserslautern.

Belguim Christmas Market #8

Oops!  I found another post that's out of order.  This is from before Christmas.

Godfather playing cards with the boys

The curls and the dimples are making this boy so irresistible that he's maybe a tad spoiled now.  Boss Baby may have become Baby Monster in the month of December.  I'm being super strict with him, but so far he's still a monster two year old.

On Saturday, the day before Christmas Eve, we went to Belgium for a Christmas Market.  We had some amazing hot chocolate.  I'm telling you, it was so thick, you wondered if there was any milk in it at all.  Like drinking melted (Belgian!) chocolate.

Here we are eating french fries with cheese curds and gravy on top.  Delicious!  If you can find yourself some cheese curds, try it out!  

There was a sledding hill with Astro-turf.  I was a little nervous to let Judah do it and really put my foot down about Bob not doing it.  Judah went down once and it scared him enough not to do it again.  I was very proud of how brave he was and he stayed on the sled the whole way down.  I was afraid he'd let go and roll down the Astro-turf which sounded like a painful thing to do.  Hannah wouldn't do it, but Genna, Isaac, and Drew took turns with the two sleds we rented for fifteen minutes and slid down as many times as they could.

Then before we left the Ferris Wheel was calling our names.  We all went and took up two buckets.

Brian was very happy they let him on with his Belgian beer.  I think if he was a hash tagger, his trademark hash tag would be #cantdothisinamerica.

Believe it or not, we left and drove straight to a Christmas party.  There was gingerbread house decorating, food, Christmas carols, and even party favors.  Fancy and fun!

Belgium Brewery Weekend

After Judah's birthday we had a weekend trip with some friends of ours and we traveled around a bit, staying in a micro brewery/B&B that is one of Brian's favorites.  We had one room between all eight of us which sometimes works, but this time was a bit too tight.  The second night, Brian ended up sleeping on the floor which he does quite nicely since his back seems to like hard surfaces.  It only had two full sized beds and one twin.  Judah slept in a sleeping bag on the floor and Bobby was in a pack-n-play.

Just a picture from before we left when I was packing and Isaac was spending some quality time with Bobby, reading to him in the rocking chair.

 Anyway, we arrived Friday night and just let the kids play in the garden.  That day was really just a travel day. 

Saturday we had breakfast and then drove to Beauraing, Chimay, and Orvall.

The B&B we stayed at had a house where the rooms and dining hall were, and then had this cute little bar across the driveway.  This was Saturday morning before leaving on our day trip.

I got to braid somebody's hair at breakfast!

We have already been to Beauraing, but our friends hadn't so we stopped there in the morning and looked around.  We had not previously been down into the crypt with Pope St. JP II's relic, so we were able to do that this time and to see the cloth that had his blood on it from when he was shot.

We had also been to Chimay last time we lived over in Europe, but it had been so long and I have good memories of it.  We ate at the restaurant there across from the monastery first and then went to the monastery.  I spent most of my time in the gift shop trying to buy gifts for a few people. 

Unfortunately, by the time we got to Orvall, the place we had not been to yet, it was closing in ten minutes.  We would have had to pay for entry and it was not going to be worth it.  We looked around the outside and went in the gift shop there as well.  We stopped at a friterie on the way home to get food to go.  We had a weird and scary run in with a crazy driver.  Basically, a guy pulling a trailer got angry and started trying to block our friend's van so he could get out and confront him, but luckily we were both able to get around him.  Then he caught up with us all again and tried to run our friend's van off the road repeatedly.  Eventually, I guess he was satisfied with the degree they had to swerve off the road into the grass and left.  This was all on farm roads and no one else was around but us.  We were behind our friends and so we saw the whole thing.  Very bizarre! 

The next day, we had planned to have breakfast and then go to Tongerin to the flea markets, where we'd also find a church and have Mass with our resident priest with whom we travel (AKA Godfather Brian.)  However, plans were quickly changed since Genevieve got sick and threw up all morning long.  Instead we had breakfast and then had Mass an hour later in the gardens of the B&B.  Tongerin was abandoned and we just headed home.  No sooner had we pulled up to our house then our resident priest got sick and started throwing up too.  During the month he stayed with us this was the second time that we got him sick.  Poor guy!

Here are the relics of JP II.

This is a terrible picture of us, BUT I think it shows how much we look alike and have a similar non-smiling resting face.  Really, it's like in those magazines at the check out counters when they take pictures of famous people when they are just walking on the street and they look horrible.

This is apparently the only real picture we got at Chimay.  I love eating outside with the bright green scenery that goes on for days.  You feel like you are the only ones in the world.  There are two big playgrounds for the kids which made it a perfect break from all the driving for them and us.

Orval Monastery

Getting too  big!

Setting up for Mass in the garden

Right before we left, we got a group picture with one of the owners of the place.

Trips Without Me

 I feel like I am never home.  Really and truly, I am gone all the time.  I am supposedly a Stay at Home Mom, but so much for the promises of that title!  Part of it is keeping up with the activities of the children because if they weren't in activities they wouldn't have friends or time with peers, but a larger part of it is all our traveling and general sight seeing.  Any weekends that I used to have to catch up on things and clean are mostly filled.  So occasionally when trips come up that either a) I've already been on or b) I just am not that interested in, I will decline and stay home.  In these cases it was reason a that I chose to stay home.  I have been to Cologne and Bruges more than once.  I did take the opportunity to send kids with them though.  Hannah and Bobby stayed with me for the trip to Cologne.

Only Isaac was able to go with them to the overnight trip to Bruges.

Canal ride in Bruges.

Top of the bell tower in Bruges!

Eating waffles on the streets of Bruges.