Yummy Apples & the Zoo!

We got to experience two of my favorite things from home this past week...ok, maybe not my favorite, but they are definitely fun...we went apple picking and to the zoo!!

Everyone from home has been talking recently about their apple picking adventures and I was feeling a little sad that we weren't going to get to take Autumn this year...UNTIL...Lauren and Maren from our playgroup told us about an apple picking place just 30 minutes away!! Yeah!! So after church on Sunday we loaded into the car and headed to The Culture Fruitiere in Henripont. It was a beautiful sunny afternoon and a beautiful drive out to the farm...lots of open fields and even a boat elevator...haha! I had no idea what it's actually called, but there was a canal that just kind of ended and a large track type thing that apparently takes the boat from the lower canal to the higher one. And thanks to wikipedia...I just learned this is currently the tallest boat "elevator" in the world. Cool!! I'm glad we stumbled upon it. I bet it's even cooler to watch it move a boat...but nothing was happening when we drove by...oh well.

When we got to the farm we got a warm welcome from the owner...who asked if we spoke English...to which we replied yes ...we were of course assuming this meant so did see...but she proceeded to speak French with an English word thrown in every few words for good measure. Ha!! That pretty much sums up what "speaking English" means to many people around here. But we appreciated the effort. She set us out to go picking...Autumn even had her own chariot...



I think we picked about 5 pounds of delicious Jonagold apples and headed back to the barn...where we found Ali, Reagan, and Shannon! What a fun surprise! Reagan and Autumn had fun running around while the rest of us chatted and tasted some yummy apple juice! Then we all loaded up our goodies and headed home. It was a great day.

And the next day we got to join Maren & Julia, Lauren & JD, & Pennie & Griffin at the ZOO!!! Maren was nice enough to give Autumn and I a ride so we didn't have to try and find public transportation there! Planckendael zoo is about a half an hour outside of Brussels and a lovely little zoo. We saw zebras, giraffes, lions (Autumn loves to Roar!), and even a llama and some goats that we were able to pet. Autumn was not shy at all going right on up and petting the cute little goats. I was a little leary of it at first, but the goats didn't seem to mind and she was having a ball...giggling like crazy! After all that fun it was time for some lunch...so we had a yummy little picnic in the zoo cafeteria! It was a wonderful morning outing and I'm so happy the ladies let us tag along! We love getting out of the house and getting to explore our new home! And I hear you can buy season passes to Planckendael and the Antwerp Zoo...so we'll definitely have to look in to that for next year!

7 countries in Europe

We're up to 7 countries visited now...after a nice Saturday trip down to Luxembourg this past weekend. So far Jacob & I have been to Ireland, Belgium, France, Germany, The Netherlands, Italy, and Luxembourg! And Autumn has been to all but Ireland...not too bad for a one and a half year old :o) Hopefully this blog will be a good way for her to look back some day and see all the amazing things she's done...even if she doesn't remember :o) With any luck...one day she'll be able to make similar memories with her kids.

We knew we had to take a trip to Luxembourg at some point since it's so close...and I had read that Fall was the perfect setting to see the beautiful fall colors on the trees. I've heard in Brussels the leaves pretty much turn brown and fall off the trees...although even as I'm writing this I'm staring out the window at a brilliant yellow tree just across the street. So although Belgium is not full of beautiful fall colors the way Missouri is, there is still atleast some hint of fall around us.

It is just about a 2 hour trip to Luxembourg City, which luckily Autumn slept through most of...and we made it there just in time to have a picnic lunch...in our CAR. It was somewhat chilly out today...so we opted to eat lunch in the car and enjoy a little more warmth before we headed out. Here's Autumn chowing down on her hamburger...she ate pretty much a quarter pounder by herself...that girl can sure eat!

Then after lunch we headed out to see the sights...which apparently there aren't really that many :o) The main attraction we were looking for is really this beautiful valley that runs through the center of the city called the Petrusse Valley...we were hoping it would be full of amazing reds, oranges, and yellows, but unfortunately the leaves there hadn't changed all that much either :o( There was some color for sure, but not as much as we hoped. We wandered around some...found a "flea market" type event...walked down to the bottom of the grand valley, went over and under the bridges, saw the train station, a church, a clock tower...the usual. I would say Luxembourg is a nice place to visit, but probably not at the top of my travel must see lists. Maybe it will change my mind when we venture back there to meet Jacob's cousin sometime soon, but we'll see.

Here are some pictures from the day...













Stay tuned...hopefully more countries to come soon!!

Halloween came early in Brussels

They don't really celebrate Halloween in Belgium...although it is starting to become more popular, but definitely nothing like how they celebrate it back home! No trick-or-treating, no costume wearing, no scary music, no pumpkin carving...boo :o( Halloween is always so much fun...I was really going to miss it, but lucky for us the American Women's club throws a Halloween celebration every year! Yeah! And it just happened to be this past Sunday!! I was excited!! But before we get to that...let me back up a bit...

We were looking forward to a nice weekend at home...maybe a trip to Ikea...cleaning the apartment and getting ready for our Mommy group luncheon that we were hosting on Monday...unfortunately the weekend got off to a bad start when Autumn threw up Saturday morning. Poor thing...she hadn't even had breakfast yet. So needless to say, she was pretty unhappy all weekend, and probably should have not even gone to the Halloween party...but it was probably our only chance to celebrate the holiday here so I dragged her and Jacob down there anyway...promising we would leave as soon as she seemed like she was ready. It was a great time...

There was pumpkin decorating....

Games and dancing...

And trunk-or-treating

And a delicious dinner with tons and tons of yummy desserts! I was glad we braved it, even if our adorable Minnie Mouse was a little under the weather.


She is definitely feeling better now...and is starting to get back to her lovely self again. She even did a wonderful job hosting the play date at her house yesterday. She is so great at sharing and getting along with other kids. I really hope that trait sticks with her...because as a Mom there is nothing better than seeing what an amazing person your little girl is!! She makes me smile...every day!! My little sweetie :o)

Beautiful Cinque Terre Italy

This past weekend we had a great opportunity to visit Italy for the first time (and I'm sure not the last time as it is wonderful!). We found some cheap tickets to Pisa, Italy on Ryan Air...only 6 euros one way and 12 the other...of course when you add in all the fees it isn't quite as cheap as it sounds, but still an awesome deal! So we headed down there for a 3 day weekend! We arrived in Pisa at 12 Noon on Saturday, picked up our rental car and headed straight for the leaning tower. The weather was absolutely perfect...mid 70's and not a cloud in the sky! This was quite a blessing coming from cold, rainy Brussels. Pisa itself was not much to write home about, but it was pretty spectacular as you made your way through the old wall surrounding the tower grounds and took in the Leaning Tower and the surrounding structures. Here are some pics from our time here.

And taking our turns holding up the tower of course :o)

Autumn almost got it...haha!

And here's a pictures looking through the wall I mentioned.

After walking around the plaza and meandering the many vendors around the tower we headed back to our car and towards the coast for our next stop...the Cinque Terre (pronounced CHINK-weh TAY-reh)!! I had read about this spot on my favorite Brussels blog so when we had the chance to go we just couldn't pass it up. The Cinque Terre is five small fishing villages nestled into the coastline of the Mediterranean sea and it is seriously one of the most beautiful landscapes I have ever seen. There are hiking trails that connect the small villages and the plan was to hike all of them. I'm pretty sure people thought we were crazy for taking Autumn on a hiking trip up in the mountains, but Jacob was such a trooper and carried her on his back for most of the hike (I attempted it for about half a mile and then gave in and let him carry her...it was no easy feat for sure!).

We ended up finding a hotel in between two of the small villages (Vernazza and Corniglia). The hotel Locanda Valeria, was a little B&B WAY up on the hillsides! Check out the view from this place!

As you can imagine getting there was quite tricky as well. The roads are so narrow and winding I really feared for our lives at many points! I felt sick with worry by the time we arrived and hoped we would never have to get back in to that car (but unfortunately we did as we were out in the middle of no where)! So two things I recommend for anyone hoping to hike the Cinque Terre in the future...find a B&B or hotel IN one of the towns (not up in the mountains) AND take the train there. I know now we could have easily taken the train from Pisa and saved some of the stress that came along with the driving!

We had hoped to hike the trail from Vernazza to Monterosso that evening (it is said to be the hardest of the four trails), but we didn't make it down to town until 5:30 or so and the parking attendant was adamant that we not go up on the trails this late...so we decided to just wait and do it the next day. It turned out to be just fine too because one of the trails was closed due to a rock slide, so we probably would have regretted breaking it up like that. We ended up just driving to Monterosso for a quick dinner and then back to the hotel (again a terrible decision...now we were far from our hotel and it was dark...ugh...I'm still cringing about driving down these roads at night)! But we made it...and we all cozied up in our tiny room and turned in for the night.

As a funny aside...Autumn was just sleeping in bed with us...and she woke up at one point screaming. I grabbed my watch and looked at it blurry eyed to see what time it was and said...oh it's 6:15 AM...we might as well get up and around for our day of hiking. So I jumped in the shower and got all ready to go. Just as Jacob was about to jump in and I'm putting on my watch I realized I must have looked at it upside down...it is now only 1:45 AM! Oh my goodness...whoops!! So we all jump back in to bed and sleep till 8...ha! We definitely got a jump on the day :o)

So here is a map of the Cinque Terre so you can get an idea of what we were doing.

We drove down to Vernazza to take the train to Monterosso. We ended up buying an all day train/trail path...so we only needed to validate it once and could get off and on where ever we needed. We had planned to hike all the way from Monterosso to Riomaggiore, but unfortunately the third leg was closed...boo. We did hike all three of the other trails though and our bodies were probably grateful we couldn't do the fourth. Ha...there were LOTS of steps...lots of up hill...LOTS of hard work, but I would do it all again in a heart beat!! Here are some of my favorite pictures from the trip (Note: unfortunately I had my camera on manual all day thinking that would give me the best images, but because of the beautiful sunshine some of them got a little washed out...I did a little editing and they are better, but they still only give you a glimpse of how amazingly beautiful this area is!!)

We're off!

Are we there yet?!?! Too bad we just started :o)

A look back at the first village, Monterosso

It's getting smaller :o)

Overlooking the second village, Vernazza

More of beautiful Vernazza!

Spectacular Views!

Entering Vernazza where we had a quick lunch

and lots and LOTS of Water!

Headed to Corniglia...looking back on Vernazza

and even Monterosso far in the distance!

The first views of Corniglia...up on the hillside!

You can just make out Manarolo in the distance too.

Almost to Corniglia...

I just love how they hug the hillside...

can you imagine living here?

Manarolo from the train station...coming and going...

we were kinda bummed this part of the trail was closed,

but we enjoyed a nice break on the 3 minute train ride!

Our last hike along the "Via dell'Amore" or Lover's Lane

Similar to what we saw in Paris...you secure a padlock along the

bridge here to seal your love forever! What a beautiful idea :o)

And at last we had finally arrived...

Riomaggiore...the last of the five villages.

We had planned to then take the Ferry back to our car in Vernazza, but the winds had picked up and they had stopped sailing for the day. I thought that would have been a great way to see all the villages one last time from a different perspective. Instead we hopped on the train and eventually made it back to town (someone pulled the emergency alarm on the train so it took quite a bit longer than it should have).

The next morning we headed back to Pisa and the airport...back down the winding roads...ugh! This time poor Autumn even threw up...I told you they were bad...but we all survived and are home safely now back in cold, rainy Brussels :o) I'm very much looking forward to our next adventure as a family! I wouldn't trade these experiences for the world!!

For reference in case anyone is interested...the first hike from Monterosso to Vernazza was definitely the hardest...lots of stairs! It took us approximately 1 hour and 45 minutes. The second hike to Corniglia was only slightly easier and took us 1 hour and 15 minutes. And the third hike was an easy stroll along the Via dell'Amore going from Manarolo to Riomaggiore and took only 15 minutes.

Click here to view the full album of Pisa and the Cinque Terre.