Jumping for Joy!

Isla's is more of a hop...

We are so glad to have our Boss and Phi back into our lives! It's been a long boring Summer without them running around entertaining Isla. Every morning Isla would come down and ask for "Where's Boston?" checking everywhere! 

We have had a busy week already filled with coloring, bubbles, walks, parks, and hot dogs (they love hot dogs) Boston will start Kindergarten this year so I'm excited to plan some more girlie stuff while he's away at school; tea time, dolls, nail polish...

Paris Part I

 We left from Brussels to Paris on August 1. The only problem about the high-speed train is that we went backwards the whole way. So all of us sat back and tried to look at the countryside. 

We pulled into Paris and got on to another mode of transportation, busses (let's just say at this point all of us were tired of sitting from airplanes and trains!) we went through a sketch part of town that kind of worried us all, I'm talking about swarms and swarms of peoples and flies everywhere. But we quickly exited that part of town and got into the center of the city to our hotel "Le Grand Hotel" that sits next to the Opera House.

We got settled in and LOVED the view we had from our hotel room:

Woo-Hoo for the Eiffel Tower :D 

They had a very nice welcome dinner that was in the hotel we were staying at. The food was delish and pretty sure we couldn't get enough of our favorite dessert the chocolate cup pictured below:

They went all out with music, a singer, 4 course meal and the company wasn't bad! We made some really great friends on this trip, and being alone with Micah was amazing - we knew Isla was being spoiled to death back in Utah and we could stay out late, act like we were teenagers, go wherever we pleased, and sit at a dinner table for more than 40 minutes! 

The next 5 days were busy busy busy with tours, food, and walking! That part is still to come...

Belgium

So if you haven't noticed we've been gone for awhile. Micah had an amazing opportunity to earn a trip to Brussels and Paris, so along with his co-workers and Micah's hard work we were able to head to Europe for 9 days :D

Miss Isla hung out with the fam back in Utah.

Our journey started out to Brussels. What a beautiful city that has some great history. They have a reigning King and they just adore him and his Queen. Everywhere we went on tours they couldn't say enough about their King and Queen. 

We headed to Bruges, Belgium which was 1.5 hour away from Brussels. 

The tour guide said that the city hasn't changed street structures since it was built in the 13th century. 

Bruges is known for it's lace. The cutest elderly ladies would sit out on their doorways making the lace. Such a great trade that takes an amazing amount of time, and patience!

They also have horse carriages that go all around the city. We took a ride and it was so nice to see the quaint old town with cobblestone streets. 

Here is my everyday go-to outfit over in Europe:

The temperatures were perfect at 70-80 degrees. The tour guides usually talked through a microphone so that's what that black box is hanging from my neck. Then the perfect accessory: the orange wristband. This was all all-access pass to cutting in front of LONG lines, food, discounts. I loved this accessory.


Our last day in Belgium I was sad because it looked like I wasn't going to see a very good friend I had made when I was an exchange student to France back in 2003. Micah came to the rescue and suggested that we just rent a car and drive to her.

So at 7:00 pm that night we rented a car and headed to Lille, France which is just on the border of Belgium and France 1.5 hours away. 

Let's just say that I got a little taste of "The Amazing Race" and I am a horrible navigator with a map. Since we didn't have our phones, we had no GPS, and we just printed out a paper with some simple directions. Navigating through European streets is quite interesting...

But we finally made it!

Meet Juliette Berthier. She is one of the sweetest girls I met on my studies in France all those years ago. We have always kept in touch and I am so grateful for her friendship. She cooked us an amazing meal, we chatted the night away, Micah and Jeremy (Juliette's boyfriend)got along great, and we got a great insight to a normal French family's life. 

They teased us saying we were "So American" for out split-decision in renting a car and driving to them that night. Ha ha.

We pulled into our hotel at 3:00 am and packed for our departing trip to Paris at 7:00 that morning. We felt so young and single staying out that late!

We couldn't leave Belgium without having belgium waffles. Delish!