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.