Summer has finally arrived!

I know most of my friends back home will laugh at this post when I say I've been missing the warm, sticky days of good ole St. Louis (especially since it's been over 100 there lately), but until just recently Brussels weather has been cold and rainy and blah!  It's really not helping with the funk I've been in either...ever since our whirlwind travel/visitor schedule ended I've been feeling kinda down and just not motivated to do anything!  It doesn't really help that everything here virtually shuts down during the summer.  No more music, no more playgroups...many of our friends aren't even in the country right now :o(  Our schedule that was keeping us busy and entertained since we got here is just missing and I'm kinda bummed out.  But enough of the blues...the weather is changing and I think summer has finally arrived!  We've even had a couple days in the 80's!  So we're trying to get out and take advantage of it...

Here's Autumn playing in the fountains at Flagey (where our outdoor market is on the weekends)...

And yesterday we visited one of the provincial parks (Zwembad Provinciedomein Huizingen) in the area...this was our first trip to one of these parks and my exact words were "I think I kinda love this place."  It was amazing...beautiful landscaping...tons of open space, kids playgrounds, a mini zoo, paddle boats...and a water park!  You probably think we're crazy for going swimming when the temperatures have barely gotten out of the 70's, but the pool was heated...and we had so much fun!!  Lots of areas for the little ones...which was good because Autumn is still a little timid about swimming...but by the end, she was blowing bubbles in the water and venturing out on her own a little bit.  It was a great day...and we will definitely be going back!

So hopefully nice weather will stick around so we can get out more and make the most of our time here.  After all who knows how long it will last.  One thing that will definitely help is we now have our trips planned out for much of the rest of the year...yeah!!  In two weeks we're headed to Prague for a long weekend, in August we're spending 5 days exploring the UK including Scotland, in September we're going to Istanbul, October...to the lovely US of A :o) for my sisters wedding, and November we're off to Seville, Gibraltar (as in rock of), and Morocco!!  Woohoo!