Brugge, Part 2

More of our time in Brugge...there were always long lines for the boat rides.

This is what happens when Ben sits in a regular restaurant seat instead of a high chair.

This horse sculpture water fountain was a very popular photo spot for tourists.  Ben thought it was pretty neat.

There were lots and lots of carriage rides along this road.  We weren't brave enough to drag Ben onto one.

Apparently there is something very cool about bathtubs that are not at our house.  Ben was thrilled with the tub in our hotel room.

Mike took Ben on a morning walk during our last day there while I packed.  No boats in the canals before 10 am, so it was safe for the ducks & swans to come out.

More exploring on the morning walk.

We had gone inside this medieval hospital earlier in the trip.  It was pretty much a huge, cavernous room that echoed a lot.  We tried to keep Ben from shouting the alphabet too loudly in there.

The cafe where we discovered that Belgian waffles are AWESOME!  They are supposed to be dessert but we got one for Ben for a morning snack.  They are dense and have little clumps of sugar throughout.  Yummmmmmmy.

We spent a bit of time in the Salvador Dali museum in the town square.  Ben was looking at this sculpture:

He was really interested in the nose & ear switching places.

We didn't have time for Ben's post-lunch nap because of the hotel checkout time, but he konked right out in his stroller.  That doesn't happen often.

Next up: Ostend, Belgium!

Brugge, Part 1

Last week we had our first real vacation with Ben.  We started by driving four & a half hours to Brugge, Belgium.  We reserved an apartment for two days because a hotel room would have been too small & we got a kitchenette to cook some meals for Ben.  He really liked the living room, aka his bedroom.

 We unfolded one of the living room chairs to make a bed for Ben (behind Ben in this photo).  He took to it really well.  I'm glad we had gotten him used to his toddler bed a couple months ago.

Our first dinner, at a restaurant in the town square.

Ben loved his high chair.

Some awesome spaghetti from the kids' menu.  This was the first of many spaghetti-based meals for Ben on our trip.  Mike & I had some fantastic mussels & Belgian french fries.  And Mike had Belgian beer, of course.

We got there on Friday afternoon.  When we got up Saturday, it was raining, but we walked around before the town got flooded with weekend tourists.  The rain didn't last long.

We ate a traditional English breakfast at this restaurant.  I've never had baked beans for breakfast before.  The waiter was very sweet to Ben and didn't mind him dancing around all the tables.  Ben liked having the audience.

Statue in the town square.

The courtyard behind the big tower in the town square.  Ben loved the space & the echoes.  He got a lot of smiles from other tourists.

We couldn't visit Brugge without going on a boat ride around the canals.  Ben threw quite the tantrum while we waited in line.  We got some glares, and one women even shushed him.  But he calmed down once the boat started to move.

Happy boy with the wind in his hair.

This very nice man, who spoke a lot of English, helped to calm Ben down when we first boarded the boat.  He even let Ben look at his camera...and took a very cute picture of him.

Quietly enjoying the ride.

This was just the start of our trip...more pics to come!

Macaroni & cheese

This was taken a couple of weeks ago, while Mike was out of town.  I tried to get a video of Ben saying some words.  Tougher than it sounds, because he gets distracted by the camera.  He refers to mac & cheese as " 'caroni cheese."  Partway through the video, there's a sound in the background that Ben mistook for the front door opening & closing, which he knows usually means Daddy's home. 

I've had several people ask recently how Ben's speech has been going.  He is progressing by leaps and bounds, or at least it seems like that to us!  He says too many words to keep track of.  Many of them are words he hears other people say & he repeats.  He is also saying a handful of German words, most of which he picked up at kindergarten.  But the biggest development is him saying short sentences.  A few weeks ago he was saying short phrases, but now he's communicating complete thoughts.  He can tell me when his cup is empty by saying, "All done juice."  Yesterday Mike took him to the park and he saw a dog.  When the dog walked away, Ben asked, "Where dog go?"  Then he said, "Bye bye, dog."  He did the same with birds: "One, two birds.  Bye bye, birds."  Later on his walk, he asked Mike, "Where Momma go?"  He was very happy to see me after his walk...and after he got his ice cream cone.

Ben vs. The Peacocks

A couple weeks ago our friend Ali invited us to the Kaiserslautern Zoo.  It was our first time there.  One of the first displays we came across was this big bird cage.  Ben fell in love immediately.

A birdwatcher just like his daddy.

He saw a peacock walking around outside the cages and made a beeline for it.  Don't worry, that peacock could run.

He escaped into the pen with the chickens & roosters.

In addition to this lion, we saw a sleeping tiger.  Ben did not care about either of them.

Once he figured out he couldn't go IN the cage, he lost interest.

In a different part of the zoo, chasing another peacock.

This was right outside the reptile & monkey house.  He had a great time inside, and an even better time when he discovered this fella.

He really liked the owl exhibits and said "owl" over and over.  There was a petting zoo area with goats.  I bought some food pellets and tried to show Ben how to hold them out in his open palm.  He preferred to hold a single pellet between his fingers and feed it to the goats that way.  He was really tickled by this.

Wildpark

A couple weeks ago (yes, I'm still that far behind) my friend Amy invited me & Ben to go with her & her girls to the Wildpark in Kaiserslautern.  It's a serious of trails in the woods where you can see animals like deer, bison, and even wildcats in large fenced-in fields.

It was a bit of a walk from the parking lot, and Ben insisted on holding the hand of Amy's youngest daughter.  She was a good sport.  Especially when he wanted to be carried.

The first display we came across was this area with a bunch of trees surrounded by wire.  Didn't quite know what to make of it, but we took a picture anyway.  Amy's girls are used to posing for photos, unlike Ben who just wants to run.

We saw a whole bunch of deer running a bit back from the trail, but this little straggler decided to check us out.  This makes for a cute picture until you find out that about a minute later the deer charged the fence where the kids were standing.

Bison.  Ben didn't care one bit about them.

This was toward the end of the trial we were on, right before we turned around to walk allll the way back.  Ben decided he was tired of walking.  All the ladies took turns carrying him because I wouldn't have made it back to the car carrying that large sack of potatoes.

Strasbourg, France

About two weeks ago we drove to Strasbourg, France, just over the German border.  The drive was only about two hours and it was a gorgeous day.  We took the train from a park & ride into the downtown area.  Pretty sure the train was Ben's favorite part of the trip.

There was some kind of agricultural thing going on that day - lots of booths and farm animals.  That's a huge inflatable cow in the background.

Ben actually did okay holding Daddy's hand (for a bit, anyway).

We saw lots of animals: goats, rabbits, chickens, roosters.  Ben didn't stay still long enough at any one spot for me to get a good photo.

Ben seems to find ice cream cones everywhere we go.

Musicians in the middle of a little bazaar.

We only stayed for two or three hours.  It was starting to get hot & Ben was reaching his limit.  We grabbed some delicious sandwiches from a deli before we left.  The bread in Europe is just awesome.

Ben had a great time on the train ride back to the parking lot but screamed and hollered at our stop.  He calmed down on the walk to the car & even turned around and pointed to the train at the station.

May Catch-up

We're halfway through June and I'm just getting around to posting photos from May.  Oops.  This is a view from our kitchen window.  I was trying to show the yellow field in the distance but didn't do it justice.  There were vibrant yellow fields like that all spring.  Now they're back to green.

I got this inexpensive play kitchen at the BX and was afraid Ben wouldn't play with it.  I was wrong.

Mike spent six looooong weeks at NCO Academy (to teach leadership skills to airmen of a certain rank).  Luckily it was a half-hour drive from our house so he was able to commute, but it took up most of his time and energy.  He was in a great class and made some new friends.  This was from their graduation dinner.  He wowed everyone by playing the German national anthem.

Two of Mike's co-workers had a birthday party for their 4-year-old son.  All the kids got a swing at the pinata.  Ben swung at it very gently...

...until the birthday boy's daddy showed Ben how to take a good crack at it!

The birthday boy's little brother, who is almost a year younger than Ben.  This is proof that Ben can play with (or at least near) other little kids.

These two go to the same kindergarten and seem to play well with (or near) each other.  I wasn't feeling well that day, and then Ben ended up running a fever and had to leave the party early.  We've been sick so many times in the last year.

Just the guys, hanging out & watching some TV.  Serious business.