A Day at Belton House with Mom and Dad

Today was supposed to be absolutely beautiful so I thought we better head out on a little adventure. We accidently left the SatNav in the rental van, so I had to pick a place that I knew how to get to. Since we had just been up to Belton House in Grantham a couple weeks ago, I thought I should be able to find my way back up there. We packed up a nice picnic lunch, headed to the market in Stamford and then on to Grantham.

We had a great day visiting the gardens and the house again. This time the children's room was open so we got to see something new, plus when Kevin and I went we must have gone out the wrong exit because we totally missed the basement kitchen, which we got to see this time. Afterwards we got an ice cream and went to play at the big adventure playground for a jolly good time.

Here are a few pictures from the day:

A Trip to the Market in Stamford

Today we drove up to Stamford to the Friday market. On the way we drive through a village called Helpston and my mom loved the traffic calming breaks in the road so she snapped a picture. Just an interesting thing that have become normal to me but thanks to mom's fresh eyes we captured this.

Mom and Dad just love the markets and are amazed by all the things that you can get. I think they are most impressed by the fresh fruit and veg that you can buy. Simple things like being able to buy a bunch of carrots with the tops still on...

...and potatoes that are so big that you could feed three people with one are just an amazement for them to see.

I found a few fun things at the market myself that day...some banoffee flavored fudge and a few travel post cards from France that I'll use some day in my "European room" when we move back to the US. Plus I bought a head of broccoli and cauliflower that were both bigger than the size of my head for only a pound each!!!!

My mom got super excited to see a Curves sign as we walked through town as she has been going to a local Curves back home. Dad made comment to mom that he thought it was pretty neat that you could just walk into probably anywhere in the world and do a work out.

Spring Has Sprung In England

When we got back from our trip, spring had certainly sprung back home. The blossoms on the tree by the church were out and brightened up this gloomy looking day.

The kids and I took Grandma and Grandpa on a walk up towards Addison's preschool to show them where she goes to school. On the way back (via the park of course) they got to stomp around in puddles in their wellie boots.

Caught Addison mid-air on this jump!!!! Addison loves to jump in puddles and she says she's just like Peppa Pig who jumps in muddy puddles and Harry is like George, Peppa's brother.

A Few Fun Extras from Holland Trip

Just a few random things from our Holland trip that I thought would be fun to mention. The other night we got our grocery store supper and my mom just thought that the peanut butter and jam jars were so unique that she took a picture of them. I forget that odd things like this are so normal to me, so I'm glad she snapped a shot. It is funny how important packaging is when you go to countries where English isn't the main language as you rely on pictures heavily to let you know what something actually is. I have experienced in the past that the picture isn't always right but it's still an adventure.

Again I go on about architecture as there were loads of interesting old buildings to see, but this was the most impressive new building. I don't know what the building was used for but it had this massive statue of a man sitting in it and when I say "in" it the statue goes through to the glassed in part of the front of the building too.

Signs are always fun to remember as well. These are just ones from the trip home from Amsterdam to Leiden where we stayed. It was the perfect location because it was out of the city and only a 25 minute drive to the Park and Ride into town where we only had to pay 6 Euro to park and got free tram rides into and out of the city centre. Also we were only 15 minutes away from the Keukenhof gardens.

The kids were champs in the far back seat. We rented a Ford Galaxy to take on the trip and this duo got along pretty good. It was a challenge to find a central place to put the DVD player, but they were so cute.

We did end up eating McDonald's one night and I have to say that I love global companies like McDonald's, Coca-Cola and such because you can always count on them being everywhere when you need one. In Germany I took picture of the cup and here I did as well because it's fun to know how to say "I'm Lovin' It" in different languages. We didn't do McDonald's too much in the States other than a quick McMuffin here or there, but now with kids we are there more than normal and we have gotten so used to the options in the UK that my kids expect every McDonald's to have fish fingers and Fruit Shoots when sadly they don't.

The nice thing about Dutch McDonald's is that they offer fruit as a dessert along with French fries, so Harrison enjoyed his little three course meal with real OJ. He was so cute with his little set up at the table in the hotel room. We just set the food in front of him and he eats. Addison on the other hand we almost have to sit and feed her at times because she gets so distracted.

Harrison is also quite the copy cat these days. This morning he and my dad went for a little walk before breakfast. He saw my dad put the key in his front pocket and after that Harrison threw a huge fit until Dad figured out that he wanted the key for himself to put in his pocket. He does it quite well and I just get a kick out of his antics.

Another thing we found out is that Harrison is yet becoming more and more British everyday. The boy LOVES baked beans for breakfast. It is a common item on a full English breakfast and he will eat a whole bowl full of them.

Ahh....Amsterdam!!!

You know about a year ago I wasn't all that excited about ever going to Amsterdam because of its reputation, but in all honesty I am really glad that we have been there. My overall impression of the city is one of amazement that there can be so much beauty in architecture and the canals and an amazement of how sex and drugs create an awkward ambiance in parts of the city. Yes, we did make our way through the tip of the Red Light District and stopped in front of various drug paraphernalia stores, but I didn't let it disrupt the awe I had for everything else I was seeing.

Here are some cool things we saw in Amsterdam that I haven't really seen anywhere else in the world:

#1 - Bicycles, bicycles and millions of more bicycles and these guys are compounding loads of them for what looks like a lack of registration I guess.

There were bicycles with large wooden baskets in the front, bicycles with baskets in the back, people riding doubles on bikes and some with just one passing by. There are no rules for bicyclists in Amsterdam so pedestrians beware. In the first half hour walking about my mom had a life shattering scare with a bicycle sneaking up behind her and not knowing where to turn as he zoomed up behind her. Luckily she wasn't hit but we made a rule from that point on that if you hear a bell just stop in your tracks until the bike is past.

How cool is this...a bike ramp right out of the front door of this house!!!

#2 Architecture

Our first stop was the Dam Square and The Royal Palace, one of the few beautiful buildings in the square, was completely covered up in scaffolding and plastic...now nice!

But in all honesty, I LOVED the buildings, the colors, the windows, the bridges, the canals, the brick roads, loved it all. It was all so different to anything we had seen in a European city and it was everywhere and got better with every corner we turned down. We walked a lot of the city and it truly is the best way (other than a boat in the canals) to see Amsterdam.

We walked by Anne Frank's house. I had started reading her published diary before we left but didn't get to finish it. The best way to see the hidden annex where she and her family lived for over two years is to order your tickets online, otherwise you have to wait in a 2 hour queue to get tickets. Disadvantage to that is that you have to set a specific time to come which we couldn't nail down before going. I got to at least see the building and picture in my mind this little girl running down the very same streets I was now walking on.

We walked through an area called the Jordaan which used to be all warehouses but was converted into a high end housing area. It was a look into more how the average Amsterdamian may live, but we saw a few surprises. How about this giant water faucet coming out the side of a building???

The white house is Klein Trippenhuis (aka “Mr. Trip’s Coachman’s House), but ordinarily known as Kloveniersburgwal 26. At only 2.4 meters or 7 3/4 feet wide this white fronted house has an interesting story behind it. Across the canal is the widest house in Amsterdam No. 29 at 22 m wide and built for the Trip Brothers in 1660. The story goes that the coachman exclaimed one day "Oh, if only I could be so lucky to have a house as wide as my master's door," and I guess he did.

The narrowest house in all of Amsterdam is Oude Hoogstraat 22 which is raved about in all the travel books and online and it is nothing but an abandoned old place with nothing inside and you can't even really see the No. 22 on it, but here it is measuring at only 2 meters wide.

#3 Bridges and Canals

Every corner you turned lead to a new canal and new bridges to cross. Oneneat thing that most of the bridges had where their names written on them in white metal lettering (good thing too because it was the street name and sometimes those were hard to find). Again the whole scene with the bridges, canals, and old bicycles is just classic.

We walked out to see the famous Magere Brug which is a traditional double leaf, Dutch draw bridge. I misunderstood the books to say that it still opened every 20 minutes to let boats go through, because in reality it is lucky to open once or twice a day we found out. It's just a pretty bridge!

#3 - Drugs and Sex (Yep, got your attention with that one)

Across from the narrowest house is one of Amsterdam's finest drug paraphernalia stores where you can actually look at marijuana seeds under a microscope to check out the purity. The only reason we know this is because we were in search of a pocket knife for Harrison as that is what we collect for him from each country we visit. Sadly enough the only ones Kevin could find had "Hemp Cutter" written on them, so poor Harrison didn't get his souvenir knife. I personally don't approve of all the promiscuity involved with the reputation of this city, but you can't help but be amazed how it seems to surround you from all sides once you get into a certain part of town. We also had a short walk through the Red Light District, which was loaded with sex shops and a few working girls standing in shop windows. Kevin and I didn't say a word to each other until we got out the other end and turned to each other and said "Well, that was interesting." Some how my mom had missed the display of scantily clothed ladies in the windows, so my dad casually brought her back through.I have to say that this wasn't the most attractive parts of Amsterdam but if you don't focus on it and let your eyes skim past it all, it really is an amazing city.

#5 Things We Missed and Could Have Missed

We made our way to the Albert Cuypmarkt area as my father loves markets and this was to be a treat for him. Unfortunately because it was Easter Monday, the market was closed for the day...we we made a 1 mile trek in this direction to end up seeing "Euroland" instead as it was the only place open. We didn't actually go in the store, but we joked about Dollar General stores in the States, Poundland in England, and now we see Euroland to round it all out.

Our walking journey also brought us past the Heineken Brewery. They found out that they don't actually make Heineken in Amsterdam anymore...interesting....

#6 Parks and Play Time

Our final destination of the day was the park right outside the Rijksmuseum. The kids had been real troopers all day and so we let them have some much needed play time. Traveling with little ones can be challenging sometimes and we can't always do all the touristy things we would like to do but it also gets to experience some other things that others might not. We have to find parks and wide open places to let them play about and sometimes those relaxing times and play times that remind you of being in your own home park make the world seem smaller because this is what parents all over the world do with their kids.

One of the coolest parts about Amsterdam though was experiencing it with my mom and dad. How wonderful it was for me to just sit in a park in Amsterdam with my dad and watch my kids run around and play. It could have been any where in the world, but we were enjoying our little space at the time in this unique city.

Of course no day is complete without having ice cream as it seems to becoming tradition for us. It was freezing cold and windy, but my daughter insisted on eating ice cream and her brother won't say no to it either.

At the park I saw this on the rubbish bin and thought it was cute...a little "Trash Can Therapy" can't hurt.

As we got back to the Olympic Stadium where we did the Park and Ride we saw a little Easter Bunny band playing outside a little carnival. My parents were completely amazed how we got two little kids through the carnival without having to put them on a ride. We do have amazing powers of distraction I told them.

We did take a quick look at the Olympic stadium before we left. We have always tried to see the Olympic parks in cities that have them throughout Europe. Kind of interesting to see what they look like now being so many years later.

It was a long day with lots of walking, cool weather, and lots of interesting things seen, but I do give Amsterdam a thumbs up on all the new things we saw and experienced.

Easter Sunday at Keukenhof Gardens

Our special treat for Easter morning was to visit the world famous Keukenhof gardens which is the showcase for spring flowers in Holland. Well as we soon found out and feared, spring was about 3 weeks behind in Europe because of the unusually cold winter we had this past year. So with only the daffodil fields in bloom and about 15 % of the garden's flowers in bloom we still found the gardens to be amazing. It was a cool day with some chances of rain so we were prepared and had open minds.

Here is a daffodil field in full bloom. Love the ominous clouds in the background???!!

We had to deal with a little temper tantrum right as we got the gates and eventhough I was horribly frustrated with the two kiddos at the time, my mom captured my lesson giving experience in a picture and it does look a little cute.

The theme to this year's gardens was From Russia with Love, so everything had some type of Russian theme. Now with not all the flowers up it was a bit hard to imagine all the colors we could have seen but we found some fun little things that stuck out amongst the vast green colors of leaves. I really want some of these little feet for my garden...I'm not much for lawn ornaments but these were cute!

This was a really cool tulip design on the side of a hill made up of what looked like white and purple snow drops.

Explosion of color from these hycinthias!!!

We caught some of the gardeners tending to these beds of tulips. You can see the daffodils in the back and these little babies are about a week and a half from popping!!!

The layouts of all the flower beds were just amazing and the walkways, the trees, the fountains and everything still made this gloomy looking day feel romantic and special.

Out in the middle of one of the ponds where little lily pad platforms to go out on. They freaked me out a bit, but I did get my mom to venture out on them and caught about 5 other people trying to pose on them.

Mom caught Kevin and I getting ready for our pose in front of the fountain in fine form...as you can see though, I added a lot of color to our pictures with the absence of flowers with my bright yellow, navy and green rain coat!!!

On the east side of the grounds there were loads of beds with early blooming flowers so the three flowers of our little group all posed together in front of them.

Addison and I tried on some "XL" wooden shoes for fun.

We had really light lunch in one of the cafes and ended up sitting with an older couple from Germany. They had visited the States quite a few times...actually drove from coast to coast once, but they love Florida which most Europeans do. I got a real kick out of my mom asking them if they had heard of the Amana Colonies in Iowa as it was an old German settlement near where I grew up, but I think they thought she said something about California...it was a bit confusing because they didn't speak the best English, but we obviously didn't speak any German. After lunch we found it to be a bit cooler than before so I even had to pop my stocking cap on while we admired the swans.

Our family pic....

We made our way back around the the windmill and got another nice family picture there as well.

There was a guy actually carving up some wooden shoes and wood burning names into some of the souvenir little shoes from the gift shop behind him. Very interesting to watch and I bet even more interesting to wear for real.

Here is my little human tulip, Addison Marie, as she matches these lovely pink tulips with her pink camo hat and green rain coat.

I absolutely loved the inspiration gardens and got loads of ideas for the future. Now I probably won't put big cutouts of Russian dolls in pots but this cute picture of Harry and I, I may treasure forever.

I saw this birdhouse inspired tree house, but didn't realize there were feet on it until I was looking back through my pictures...how bizarre!

It was nice to be able to let the kids run around a bit at the gardens, but that little Harrison...we had to keep close reigns on him because he wanted to run out on the grass and pick flowers for mommy the whole day.

This won my vote for best water feature at the gardens...a zig zagged stair case over the water. Dad and Kevin had a go at it.

Our very last stop was in the indoor garden which showcased all the different varieties of tulips they had and we used that as our reference to what it should have looked like outside if things were in full bloom. We got the names of our favorite ones and hope we can find them when we get back home. It was so amazing to just see all the different colors!!!

Harry found a pair of wooden shoes too!

So did my mom and dad...

That night we made strong attempts to find a supermarket to get a few bits to make up our super as it was Easter Sunday evening and nothing was open except for McDonald's and the buffet at our hotel was 29.50 Euro per person (yeah right! for a buffet? really??). With whirlwind tour through Leiden which is a really pretty town we found market across from the train station. Mom, the kids and I stayed in the car as the boys fought through the masses to get us some sandwich supplies and other goodies. Dad was so fascinated with the chaos in this market and he thought I would have just freaked out if I would have gone in. I do have to admit that I was a bit nervous letting the boys pick out dinner, but they did a pretty good job.

Sad part about the evening was that little Addie was running a fever. She seemed to be in good spirits but had the chills so we nested her up in bed and her brother joined the fun.

We thought that a good way to get her cooled down was to go for a swim in the hotel pool. She had gone the night before with Kevin but we wanted to give Harrison a try. Now Addison is my fish and Harrison holds on for dear life in the water which is crazy because he is normally fearless. We did manage to have a little fun before heading back and settling in before our big day in Amsterdam.