My Little Brussel Sprout: Real Life in the Sprouts

So as of yesterday we have officially been here a year...ummm, crazy right!?! I can't believe time has gone by so quickly. There's been ups and downs, but overall I wouldn't change a thing about the past year or our decision to pack up everything and move to Belgium. We've made some wonderful new friends, traveled to places I've never dreamed possible, grown closer as a family of three, and learned so much about ourselves and life along the way! It really has been one of the greatest and most challenging experiences of my life. So to celebrate I thought I'd give you a little glimpse in to the "behind the scenes" version of what it's really like to live in Brussels (sorry, wish I had more pictures to go along with these, but hopefully you can picture it in your head :o)...

The BOB (Autumn's stroller) is truly our shopping cart. Even though we typically go to the grocery store every day, sometimes I have to stock up on things and it's so loaded down that when I take her out the whole thing tips over backwards. Yikes!
Autumn tends to get a little car sick sometimes. So far she's thrown up in Italy, France, and Germany...ick!
Autumn turned the bidet in our Barcelona bathroom on full blast and flooded the whole thing in about 2.2 seconds. Double ick!
On more than one occasion we have been stuck out in a rainstorm that was so bad it literally turned our umbrella inside out. Try holding on to that while pushing a stroller.
Autumn is a big girl now and often doesn't want to ride in her stroller...so she gets to wear her puppy backpack/leash (see picture below). Yep, we're those parents...there's a whole modern family episode about us...ha! Hey, what would you do with a rambunctious toddler when you are almost always walking along a busy street or at a crowded place
Autumn's French is currently better than her Mommy and Daddy
I love living in the city...Jacob and I have both commented on how we love having everything so close and taking public transportation...it really is great. I have this unexplainable need though, whenever I'm going to catch the bus or the train I end up half running, half walking right before I get there because I'm so scared I'm going to just miss it (even if there is another one likely coming 5 minutes later)
Unbeknownst to us, Autumn liked the remote control from our Venice hotel so much she snuck it in to our luggage and it made the trip home with us.
Whenever Autumn is banging something on the floor we tell her to stop because the people downstairs won't like it. And now every night while saying her prayers before bed she asks to pray for "the people" Ha!
Autumn's picture can likely be found all over the web posing with many an Asian women...we have been stopped at least 20 times all over Europe and asked for her to do a photo op with them.
We're pretty sure the elevator in our building is the original dating back to the 1930's. You have to close a door and two gates every time you get in and want it to go any where.
Our building is in a pretty nice area of Brussels, but it also turns out to be one of the prime locations for the "ladies of the night." Rain or shine you will likely run in to several of them just around the corner if you are out past dark.
During the summer it gets light about 4:30 am and stays light till about 10:30 pm...but in the winter, it's dark till about 9 am and gets dark around 4 pm :o(
Autumn loves staying in hotels (I think it's because she gets to sleep with Mommy & Daddy) and she'll talk about it for weeks if she knows we have a trip coming up. On our last trip, she was dead asleep in the backseat when we pulled in to our hotel around 10:30 PM. As soon as we turn in the lot she wakes up and she screams "I see it, I see it!!" Haha...she was so excited!