When people ask, "are you excited about coming back to Cali to visit after 9 months in Europe" I put together slide show....

Class play date & weekend fun.

Well Connor is ALL the way better, thanks to antibiotics! Yipeee! And just in time for the class playdate.

Friday we hosted Connor's KG1 class for a playdate (13 kids). Jessica (Thomas' mom) co-hosted with me. We did a fairy tale themed scavenger hunt in the garden, face painting, lots of playing and then the kids all made their own personal pizza while the mommies enjoyed a glass of wine and supervised the chaos. 

Eating their pizza out in the garden. Jess LOVED being with all the kids. She did her best to keep up.

And I think she stole more than one pizza. HA!

Saturday we rode bikes over to the Laren Hockey fields to watch our neighbor Benine play. We wanted to show Connor a proper field hockey match while we were living here. It was really fun watching the kids. Benine's team was winning 3 to 0 when we had to leave to take Jess home for a nap.

Benine's dad Rist was refereeing (he's on the left). We loved it and I hope that Jess will someday play.

But brrrrrrr was it cold.

Look who we met on the way home. A baby colt. So cute!!!!!!

They told us baby was 2 weeks old. Awwweeee.

Daddy and Jessy doing 'stuck bug' and Connor trying to pretend he is dead. 

Chris and I had a day date in Amsterdam. Yay sunshine & love!!!!!

I was so excited that I was able to catch this guy on camera. This is the giant hair that lives in our garden. I've seen him many times but no one else in our family had. Finally the kids got to see him with me and I was fast enough to get the camera. 

Cute bug bug.

Sunday we played at Vondel Park in Amsterdam. 

These crazy kids

 This is a very busy time for our family. We are planning/getting ready for a trip back to California this month as well as Connor's birthday party, a AWCA wine tasting event at our home, hosting a class playdate, a trip to NYC next month, selling our home in Santa Barbara, taking care of a child with scarlet fever (Connor) and entertaining a very willful and defiant yet adorable 19 month old. That all being said I have not taken enough pictures lately but here are a few from the last 2 weeks.

My 3 sweets coloring on the kitchen floor on a Sunday morning.

 
Jess loves yogurt and has her own way of eating it by licking it out of the container. HA!

 My little yogurt face. Yum yum :)

Jess falls on her head at the least once a day. She  often has a bruise on her forehead but this was a biggie. Ouch!

One way of hiding a bruise :) and eating more yogurt.

With their age difference of 4 years I didn't think these 2 would have anything to fight about. Was I WRONG! They flight quite a bit but here they are doing Reading Rainbow (highly recommend this educational app) on the ipad like best buds.

Poor Connor has scarlet fever. Who knew in this day and again kids could still get scarlet fever?!?!

This is the sickest (if that's a word) that Connor has ever been. He slept pretty much for 2 days straight with a high fever on the 3rd day he seemed a bit better in the morning but only for a short time before he had another fever and this time with a rash all over his torso. I finally took him to see the doctor that afternoon and he told us Connor had scarlet fever. Scarlet fever is highly contagious and mostly affects kids from 4-8 yrs old. The doctor said it should go away in a few days and to take him home and keep doing what we were doing, lots of rest and keep him hydrated. He has not been hungry for much but he will drink one of the many delicious and nutritious shake recipes from yummymummykitchen.com 

Sadly we had to cancel his Star Wars birthday party that was scheduled for this Saturday.  

Feel better soon my lovey boy!

3 nights and 3 cities in France

Over the Easter break we took a last minute trip to France. When I realized Chris and Connor had more than one extra day off. I knew I had to "seize the day" so to speak and plan a little scouting get away.

I chose 3 cities that we could easily drive to. Lille, Reims and Calais (but we skipped Calais because of weather and headed to Boulogne sur Mer instead).

Day 1 - Lille, France

Not much to see here, just another french city but without the beauty, style and charm that I have come to expect from French cities :( 

Well we came, we saw, we ate, we shopped = checked it off.

Our 1st day poor Jess work up with pink eye. YUCK! but she was a little trooper and carried on as if she were ok.

Day 2  - Reims 

(which is located in the Champagne Region)

More like it! A charming square and a world famous Cathedral and beautiful French architecture. We have seen a lot of Cathedrals since moving to europe and this was one of our favorites! The details are incredible, it's bright and interesting. They say when you visit you must look for the laughing angel and we were all tickled when we found her.

We also took a tour of the Mumm champagne house & caves (I tried Veuve but they were closed that weekend as well as a few others). Our tour of Mumm was very nice as was the tasting that followed. We had the kids with us as always so they were going to join the tour and have juice at the tasting but Jessica . . . you can fill in the blank. 

Chris took her for a little walk while Connor and I took the tour. Connor should be very knowledgeable about champagne now. HA! Actually I learned a few things on the tour that I did not know and it made me excited to come to this part of France and explore more champagne houses in the future. 

Day 3 - Boulogne sur Mer

Upon arriving in the seaside town we stumbled on a lovely little art gallery run by the talented artist himself and his charming wife. I really enjoyed meeting Jean-Pierre Hénichart. I like knowing the person who created the art and knowing that no else has the same piece and I like knowing the actual location of the scene. It makes it all that much more special.

We bought a marvelous painting of a french market with a church. It is the market that is held in the main square of Boulonge sur Mer.

Yes all bundled up again. It has been a long long winter in Northern Europe. LONG! It was low 40 degrees and the sun was playing peek a boo. Poor Jess and Connor's skin is starting to look a little translucent . . . these kids need some California sun!

I love the light in the above pic. Connor says when God speaks to someone they see light like that. (umm I think that must be a Good Shepard quote).

We took a walk on the cliffs over looking the English channel and from where we were you could see coast of England. We all thought that was pretty neat.

And the view as we drove home was not to bad, lots of open fields.

Brugge with the Van der Meers

A few weekends ago we took a little trip down to Brugge, Belgium for a long weekend with our friends the Van der Meers. We rented a beautiful cottage with a lovely garden and tea house. It was far too cold to use the tea house but the boys did get out and enjoyed the garden and the hot tub. 

(this post is long over due and I feel like I am getting quite behind so here are the pix but not much more).

We did go on a horse & carriage ride through town that was fun and interesting. 

Jessy liked the horse.