Our First Visitors of 2012

My sister Erin and her husband Andy arrived last Thursday for a visit.  They didn't stick around long though as they headed straight to Madrid the next day for a marathon.  Then they were off to Paris for a few days and back to Belgium on Tuesday.  It was a quick trip, but a fun one.  It was so nice having them both here.  Autumn especially took a liking to Andy...she would just sit and make googly eyes at him...it was so funny.  They definitely didn't have the weather on their side though...it rained pretty much the whole time.  It even hailed and was thundering and lightning yesterday on our way home...yuck!

On Wednesday we decided to take the double decker, hop-on/hop-off city tour of Brussels.  Thank you Erin and Andy for being our guinea pigs on this one to see if it was worth it...and I think the answer is probably a resounding no :o(  Maybe it was the rain or having to wait half an hour for a bus or the fact that Autumn kept pulling out my headphones so I couldn't hear half of what they were saying, but we just didn't have the best experience with it.  We did however stop off to see the Royal Palace and their beautiful greenhouses (which are only open to the public one month each year).  Here are some pictures from that visit (including the Chinese Pavilion and Japanese Tower).

The Palace

The Greenhouse

I love the crown on top...

Beautiful grounds and flowers!

Autumn & Aunt Erin

On Thursday we hopped on a train and headed for Brugge...hoping for better weather.  The weather channel only predicted a 20% chance of rain so we thought we might get lucky...not so much.  The day was filled with some sunshine, but mostly LOTS of rain and wind.  We were all pretty miserable by the end of the day and gave up our idea of eating dinner out to just head home and order pizza :o)  I didn't take many pictures in Brugge because of the weather, but here a few.

It was so nice having family here...and we're looking forward to our next visitors, Jacob's parents next week.  But up first a four day weekend with one heck of a road trip...we will be driving through SEVEN countries in four days!!  Pray for Jacob...that is a lot of driving, but hopefully totally worth it.  Check back next week to find out how it went :o)