Jessi and Jack Visit - Part 3

Here is a recap of the rest of Jessi and Jack's time in Gent. Side note, maybe now is the time to admit that I have a problem when it comes to pictures...maybe I need an intervention, but I can never have enough! :)

Friday: As I mentioned at the end of my last post, we all slept until at least 10:00 in an attempt to recover from our trip to Paris. Needless to say, most of the day Friday was very relaxing and lazy.

Playing with new toys from Jessi and Jack

Friday evening, some good friends of ours here in Gent, Geoffrey and Kseniya, agreed to make us a meal to show Jessi and Jack some authentic Flemish food mixed with a little Ukrainian food (Geoffrey is from Belgium and Kseniya is from the Ukraine). They made a Flemish beef stew with traditional Ukrainian potatoes and salad. Not only was the food DELICIOUS, but it was fun to show Jessi and Jack something authentically Flemish. 

 After dinner, we walked down to Nonno to get some gelato to finish off the meal!

Look at that belly!

Saturday: Once again, we had a pretty mellow day. We slept in again and relaxed during the morning.

Playing cards

Snuggles with Jessi!

We spent the afternoon napping/watching the Tour de France. After the bike race, we decided to walk around Gent and check out Genste Feesten (Gent Festival). I'll have to do a different post about the festival...it's quite something! 

Dancing to the street music

Once we were home and in jammies, Cameron had just enough energy for one last jam session with Jessi!

After the boys went to bed, we spent the evening playing cards

Sunday: After a breakfast of homemade french toast, we decided to go for a nice long bike ride.

We were going to have a picnic at the park, but it was a little too warm, so we just let the boys run around a little bit before heading home. 

After getting cleaned up a bit, we went out to explore more of Genste Feesten. Unfortunately Jack was not feeling well, so he was not able to enjoy the evening as much as the rest of us!

Trying out some fries

Dancing with Jessi

We had some surprise fireworks when we got home, so we sat in the window and enjoyed them!

Monday: The weather was so warm and sunny that we decided to take a trip to De Haan on the North Sea to spend the day at the beach. We had a wonderful day! 

Picnic at the beach

Cameron LOVES the waves!

Poor Harrison fell face first into the sand!

What a great day!

Tuesday: Jessi and I were able to go shopping in the morning and spend some quality sister time together...I miss that a lot! When we got home, we went to Frietketel for lunch. We picked this place because it got good ratings on TripAdvisor for their fries. Since Belgium is known for fries among other things, we thought we would try it out. The place was very cute and the owners were friendly and helpful in picking out food options. Not only was it yummy, but the fry servings were enormous!

Waiting for our food

That is one small order of fries...and we ordered 3!!

The damage

Jessi, Jack and I were able to do a little more shopping after lunch. Cole stayed home while the boys napped because he was not feeling well...little did we know that the sickness that started with Cameron in Paris would get to all of us! But that's for another post. Anyways, we went to several different stores and ended up at one of my favorite chocolate places, Daskalides, so Jessi and Jack could get some chocolate to take home. We had a mellow evening at home eating leftovers and enjoying our last night together.

Wednesday: Jessi and Jack had to be in Brussels pretty early in the morning to catch their flight back to the States, so we were up early hugging goodbye. 

It was such a bittersweet goodbye for me. I know they have lives back home. I know they need to get back to their jobs. I know they have things that need to be done. And I am happy they have good things to go back to, but I will miss them like crazy. I will forever be grateful that they made the sacrifices they made to be able to come spend so much time with us. It was just like normal to have them here. We picked up right where we left off and didn't look back. There was lots of food (of course), laughing, playing, exploring, cards, and so many memories made. I hope they can come back again, but if not, we will still have sweet memories of our time with them here! 

Jessi and Jack Visit - Part 2 (Paris)

Cole, Jessi, and I have all been to Paris before, but since Jack had never been there, we decided to take advantage of the relatively close distance and visit while they were here. Here is a recap (with lots of pictures) of our time in Paris. 

Wednesday: We got up super early to get ready because we only have one functioning shower at the moment and our train left the station at 6:25 am. So after we were showered and ready, we took a tram to the train station, then boarded our train for Paris. Once we arrived in Paris, we hopped on the metro to take our luggage to the hotel. We stayed at Hotel Residence Foch which was, other than a few small inconvienences, very nice.

After dropping our things off, we walked over to the Arc de Triomphe.

Elevator ride to the top of the Arc

Cameron is excited about the Eiffel Tower!

Representing the Buckeyes in every country!

After our time at the Arc, we went to grab a quick lunch at Pizza Vesunio. 

Once we were done eating, Cole and I took the boys back to the hotel for a nap while Jessi and Jack visited the Louvre. Unfortunately there was a little mixup with our room reservation, so we had to kill some time at a park nearby before putting the boys down for their naps.

The Louvre

Among the bearded men...

At the park near our hotel

After a short nap time, we met back up with Jessi and Jack for dinner. We ate at a French restaurant called L'Auberge Dab.

Despite the boys almost melting on numerous occasions from lack of sleep, we had nice dinner and dessert.

Little side note here...Jack ordered a rum baba for dessert, not really knowing what it was, but thinking that the description sounded good. Little did he know that the cake (basically a sponge cake) came with an entire bottle of rum, and that the waiter would pour a good bit of said rum over the cake. Needless to say, not much of the cake was eaten!

See the puddle of rum??

The bottle of rum that they left at our table

After dinner, we took the boys back to the hotel to put them to bed while Jessi and Jack went to see the Eiffel Tower all lit up and sparkly.

Thursday: Jessi and Jack got up in the morning to see the Eiffel Tower in the daylight. Because the line to go up was outrageous, they decided to just take in the view from the ground. After visiting the Eiffel Tower, they visited the Notre Dame Cathedral and the Lover's Bridge before going to Les Invalides to see Napoleon's Tomb.

 

Meanwhile, Cole and I had a pretty mellow morning at the hotel with the boys. We let the boys sleep until they woke up, then went downstairs to get breakfast. Unfortunately, Cameron threw up all over the table and his clothes while we were eating our breakfast! I didn't have another outfit for him, so he had to wear his outfit from the previous day. By the time I got him all cleaned up, he was acting fine and asked to go back downstairs to finish eating. I'm not sure what was wrong, but he got over it quickly!

After breakfast, we took the metro to the Eiffel Tower for a bit and then went to a carousel across the street from the tower. 

He was very excited about his Eiffel Tower!

We also went to another park to let the boys run around.

After playing for a while, we took a leisurely walk along the Seine River and enjoyed the absolutely beautiful day. We eventually ended up at a little restaurant for lunch.

Pizza in Paris!

 

We met back up with Jessi and Jack at the Eiffel Tower after lunch.

Sweet boys!

Sleepy boy on the way back to the Eiffel Tower

 Cameron really wanted to go to the top of the tower, but the line was too long...so he decided to just climb the base instead!

We had a little time to kill before going to the train station to go home, so we decided to go to the Tuileries to relax and enjoy the weather. We all got some ice cream to cool off and the boys had fun on some carnival rides.

Headed to the Tuileries

This is where our time in Paris went from a nice trip to crazy! I don't believe my words will do this time justice, but I will try! When it was time to start thinking about heading back to Gent, Jessi and Cole went back to the hotel to get our luggage while Jack and I stayed with the boys to let them play a little more. We decided we would just head straight to the train station rather than lugging the boys to the hotel and then the train station. Jack and I left for the train station with plenty of time to spare, but being rush hour (is that what you call it on the metro??), the metro was CRAZY!!! Between the double stroller, two small children, and a diaper bag, it was a mess getting on and off the trains...not to mention it was insanely hot with minimal air flow. Poor Cameron had to stand completely cramped between me and the pole he was holding onto with absolutely zero air flow. He was not happy with the situation and kept asking me if some people could get off and no more people get on. I felt so bad for him. All of us were soaked with sweat, tired, and over all of it even before we arrived at the train station. We finally reached the train station, everyone in tact, with plenty of time to get to our train. Due to some weird circumstances, we did not get to the train until 6:25 p.m...right when our train was supposed to leave. We had hope that we could still get on because the conductor was still taking tickets and let the people right in front of us on the train. However, when we got to him, he said we were too late and WOULD NOT LET US ON!!! Jack and I fell on the ground (maybe a little bit dramatic?!) and about lost it because we had run as fast as we could to the train to try to make it on time...him carrying the stroller and me carrying the diaper bag and Harrison, and dragging Cameron behind me! Needless to say, we were not happy. 

Thankfully, there was another train headed to Gent about 30 minutes later, so we changed our tickets (for a nice fee), and boarded that train to head home! We were all exhausted, hungry and ready to be home! 

There was still a little room for smiling

Just before peeing on me!

To add insult to injury, just after Cameron woke up from his nap (see picture above where he is sleeping on my lap), he peed all over my lap! So now I was tired, hungry, and covered in pee!!! By the time we were able to get new clothes from my suitcase, it was time for us to switch to another train...it was a good 20 minutes before I was able to get out of those clothes! By that time, all we could do was laugh! :)

Waiting for our final train to Gent

We finally arrived in Gent around 9:30, then had to wait for a tram to get back to the loft.

Waiting for the tram

Once we got home, we all showered and then crashed!

Gonzo!!

We all (including the boys) slept in until at least 10:00 on Friday. It felt great to be home and to get a good nights sleep. I'll share more about the rest of Jessi and Jack's time in Gent in the next post!