Leuven, Belgium

This is Evan. In May I took a trip to Leuven, Belgium, with some of the professors I work with. Leuven is an old, beautiful, small college town near Brussels. My Dad was a missionary in Leuven in the 1970s, so it was pretty cool to walk around the streets he would have walked.

In front of the Town Hall

A view of the Town Hall from one of the narrow streets

The Town Hall, adjacent to the Grote Markt (Great Market)


Looking down Brusselsestraat from the Grote Markt

Along one of the main residential streets

The Klein Begijnhof, one of the streets with houses hundreds of years old

A canal view

My dad's old apartment building - #28 Vaartstraat
I wonder if he will recognize it?

A view down another section of Vaartstraat

A house in the Groot Begijnhof, which was once a complex for nuns but now is used by Catholic University Leuven for student and faculty housing

More Groot Begijnhof

More Groot Begijnhof

What a beautiful town! I'd like to visit again sometime, hopefully with my Dad.

My New Hobby...

I think I can now officially say that one my hobbies is gardening. This is a new development for me, but I think it's so fun and even relaxing (isn't that what hobbies are supposed to be? relaxing?). Evan and I have had such fun planting things in our little yard this spring and watching them grow.

The people who lived in our apartment before us had these rose bushes that were a little sickly. Well, we were able to salvage three of them and the first one has bloomed in the last week or so. The others will probably bloom any day now. So fun! :-)

Gladiolus bulbs...they haven't bloomed yet, but I think they will soon. We can hardly wait! :-)

This is my favorite thing we've done to our little yard. When we moved in this section of our lawn was completely dead and had a bunch of lawn furniture on it. Well, we decided we'd rather have a flower garden instead of the furniture on dead lawn. We kept one of the benches and turned the rest into this little piece of heaven. We brought in new dirt and put in the stepping stones and have added some plants as our budget allows. We're not done yet, but we got a good start!

Okay...I LOVE our Fuschia hanging baskets!! They're so pretty...I told Evan that as long as we live here in the Northwest where they grow so well I want to work these into our budget every year. He agrees...yeah!!! :-)

Bowls of Fun...

Sam likes to get my mixing bowls out of the cupboard and line them up on the kitchen floor, biggest to smallest. Then he usually will stack them back up in the cupboard starting with the smallest and ending with the biggest. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't (like in this video). :-)

Giggles

This just makes me happy! :-)

Walking the dog...

We go on walks around Greenlake all the time and see people out walking their dog. Well, Sam has a little doggie pull-toy that he loves to take on a walk. The other day he was walking up and down the hill outside our house with the dog...it was too cute! :-)

Blog-Slacker

I've been a total slacker with the blog lately...my only excuse is laziness. Here are some recent pictures of the kids with an update on each...


I love this picture of Sam and Lauren. Sam likes to get in the port-a-crib with Lauren after she wakes up from her nap. He gets in there and they just lay there and giggle at eachother. It's cute and fun to see them bonding...makes this mama's heart happy! :-)

Lauren is super mellow...most of the time. She can get fiesty if you take something she's playing with away from her (which her brother does every now and then), but mostly she's a happy little girl and growing like a weed. She's in the 90th percentile for height and the 40th percentile for weight...tall and skinny.

so cute...

Sam still loves to read and our new favorite place to get books is the D.I.. We've found some good ones there lately and they're always only $.50! One of his other favorite things to do is go to the zoo...He loves the zoo! I have to be careful because if I say the word "zoo" outloud he's running to the door and getting his shoes while exclaiming, "Okay! Let's go! I go get my shoes on..."

He's learned how to smile for the camera. If I tell him to smile when taking his picture...he does! It's great and I love it. He's just so darn cute...I love my little boy! :-)

Love the sunglasses...

Sam's new favorite way to eat an apple...climb up on the table, eat it whole and straight out of the fruit bowl!

Some things just don't change...:-)

Like father like son...On this particular Saturday morning, Evan is reading a research paper for school and Sam wanted to join in on the fun. Sam is turning out to be a lot like his dad. It's fun to see the similarities even at such a young age! :-)


Lauren is still cute...She ate rice cereal for the first time today. Even though she's smiling in this picture she didn't like it too much. We'll keep trying. :-)

Sam still is a picky eater...I was so excited yesterday because Sam ate EVERYTHING on his plate for lunch (see the above picture). I couldn't believe it. I really don't remember the last time he did that. However, he was back to his old antics for dinner (see the below picture). Hardly ate a thing on his plate. This is the part of motherhood I think I'm failing. Sam won't touch a vegetable and he's totally finicky...one day he likes cheese, the next day he doesn't. I seriously don't know what to do. Oh well...I'm trying to remember what my good friend Heather always says...Everything's a stage. I hope he grows out of this one soon!


Why is there ALWAYS a load of laundry to wash or put away?!?!?! Can't we ever just be DONE with it?!? Seriously...it makes me crazy!

to be washed...

to be put away...