What Sam learned in Europe

In Brugges (and Brussels and Ghent)

I'm formulating...

Chateau Rouveroy

Okay...here we go. I decided that rather than blogging along a timeline that it might be easier to blog by location. If you'd prefer to dispense with my dorky and wordy descriptions feel free to hit up my Facebook photo albums here and here.

So...home base was my Aunt and Uncle's Chateau, entitled Rouveroy, that is outside of Mons, Belgium. My Mom has been living with them since July...lucky duck, and my brother and his wife arrived a few days before we did. Added to that were my cousin David and their (insane) dog Cody...it was quite the full house!

Here's the view from our window the first morning we were there:

These next are of Sam wandering the grounds:



My brother was the official Christmas photographer so when I get pictures from him I'll have more in that dept. Here is the awesome workbench that Tio Juan and Aunt K got Sam. He's a little scared of the drill but otherwise loves it!

My Aunt could rival probably any of the chefs on the Food Channel or decorators on HGTV. We ate incredibly well the entire time and couldn't have possibly wanted for anything. Here are some pics of her Christmas decor.




My Uncle shuttled us to and from all manner of stations, posts and towns and never uttered a word of complaint, except maybe about the failure of vehicular space heaters. He'd been through 2 or 3 and none have worked. When it's well below freezing at night, and no more than 40 during the day you can see how this is a problem. The heat hasn't worked in his Durango for a while. They also have a cute yellow Mini Cooper that has seat heaters and everything but it becomes something of a clown car when you think of all of us fitting inside it :)

We were so sad to leave everyone to come home. We miss the food, the gorgeous towns and countryside, and maybe most of all, the trains. Every time we get in the car Sam says "Toot-toot" because almost every time we got in the car over there we were headed to the train station. Poor guy.

When is it?

I'm not kidding. Jet lag is a terrible thing. I've spent most of today thinking it was Wednesday. Yesterday we spent just about 24 hours traveling home from Belgium. Since we played timezone hopscotch it was one VERY long day.

Sam didn't sleep as much on the plane as he did on the way over since the flight from Brussels to Chicago was during what he thought was nap-time, not nighttime. That was pretty inconvenient and made for a looong flight back. In Chicago he played for a little while, I took a power nap on top of our carry-ons and then after we ate dinner, he crashed. So he slept from about 6:45 pm to 4:30 am, with a few very brief wakeups for changing cabin pressure and moving from the carseat to bed. For most of that time I had to hold him, and I am eternally grateful that my sling works up to 50 lbs. Right now he is "toot-toot" ing in his crib resisting his nap.

We have so many pictures and stories to post, I promise to start getting to that very soon. I doubt I can blog-post as many pictures as I want to so there may be a link to a Picasa album in addition to those that make it up here.

Seeing my family was just wonderful, as were Belgium, Paris and London. I can't hit on one specific thing that was the "high point" of the entire trip, but one of them was being with my Mom, David and Sam at the top of Monmartre at Sacre Coeur at night. It was so beautiful.

But, for now, I need a nap too. :) Especially since I'll be up late watching UT beat 'Bama...I hope...