Gideon and Heather's Visit

This past week, Cole's brother, Gideon, and his girlfriend, Heather came to visit us. They weren't able to come when the rest of Cole's family came, so they decided to squeeze in a visit before school started again for the year. Unfortunately, I don't have many picture from the beginning of the trip, but here is a little rundown of their time here.

Sunday: Heather arrived late Sunday morning. At Cameron's request, the boys took the tram to the train station to pick her up. She had spent the prior week in France with her dad, so she was one of the only guests we've had so far that wasn't completely jet lagged when we picked them up. We relaxed on Sunday during the day and then went to church in the evening.

Monday: Monday, we had a mellow morning and waited for Gideon to arrive. I helped Heather make a plan to get Gideon from the train station and like a local, she took the tram to the train station, picked up Gideon, and they both took the tram back to our place. We had dinner on the patio and relaxed until Gideon (well all of us really) crashed.

Tuesday: Gideon and Heather spent a chunk of the day exploring Gent on their own. They explored some of the churches, the castle, and of course, enjoyed a Belgian waffle!

Belgian waffles!!

That night, while we had our weekly Dutch lesson, Gideon and Heather took Cameron to the park and of course, got some gelato at Nonno.

Wednesday-Friday: Gideon and Heather decided to take a trip to Paris while they were here. They left around lunch time on Wednesday and spent two days there. They arrived back on Friday evening.

As a side note, Cole also left on Wednesday for London, so we went from a full house, to just the boys and me for a couple days.

Saturday: Gideon and Heather again went out and explored Gent during the day, including visiting one of my favorite chocolate shops here. Thanks to a sweet neighbor, we were able to go out to dinner on Saturday night, just the four of us. We went to De Witte Leeuw (The White Lion). It was nice to have a evening out and enjoy ourselves without having to worry about entertaining the little ones.

I had to take some pictures of the food we ordered. It was delicious!!

Cheese croquettes

Flemish Beef Stew

Goat Cheese Salad

Of course we got dessert. Everyone opted for a huge waffle except for me. I ordered the apple pie and it was delicious!

After dinner, we went to Dulle Griet so Gideon and Heather could try some Belgian beer. 

Sunday: Heather had to leave early Sunday morning to get back to start school at 8:00 am on Monday, so Gideon and Cole got up early to take her to the train station. I can't believe she left on Sunday and started college classes on Monday morning! Gideon checked in with her during the day and she seemed to be doing fine! 

In the afternoon, Cole and Gideon went on a nice long bike ride. One of Cole's co-workers had recommended a local bike shop that rents road bikes and Gideon brought all his gear, so they headed out toward Antwerp and had a great time...especially when they ran into an actual bike race.  

We went to church Sunday night and were able to introduce Gideon to many of our friends here. Because we are not able to comfortably fit in our car with all of us, we took a tram to church, to Cameron's delight!

Waiting for the tram

Monday: Gideon and I took the boys to Rozebroeken to swim. They had a great time swimming with uncle Gid!

Tuesday: Gideon did a little last minute exploring and purchasing during the day. He also spent some time having his feet measured by Cameron!

Tuesday night, we walked to a cute little pizza place called Eat Love.

Chasing pigeons

Playing peek-a-boo

Eat Love is a really cool little place and the food was great! The pizza was completely gone before I could take a picture. Most of the ingredients are local and organic...I saw the chef pulling fresh basil off a plant by the pizza oven! Now that's fresh!

After dinner, we went to get one last waffle before Gideon had to leave.

Cameron loved the giant waffle outside!

Wednesday: Gideon had to leave on Wednesday to head home. Cole took him to the train station in the morning to head to Brussels to catch his 12pm plane. Unfortunately, Gideon got on the wrong train and was heading to Brugge (the complete opposite direction) instead of Brussels!! There was a kind lady on the train who let Gideon use her phone to call us to make a game plan. Long story short, I had to go get him from the train station and take him to the airport in Brussels.  It's only 67 km (41.6 miles) from Gent to the airport in Brussels and without traffic, the drive would take you 40 minutes max.  However, the traffic around Brussels in the morning is terrible and the drive can take two hours. Also, the check-in counter closed 40 minutes before departure because it was an international flight. So, as were leaving Gent at 10am, no one felt good about his chances of making the flight. Thankfully, we got there in time and he arrived at the gate five minutes before boarding!

It was nice to see Gideon and Heather and show them our home here in Belgium. We didn't really know Heather very well before this trip, so it was great to get to know her better as well. Next visitor in a few days...my brother Clinton!

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!