Category Archives: Life Abroad

Prim’s Birthday Party / A Farewell BBQ

May 23, 2018

We had a little party the Saturday after Prim’s birthday — half to celebrate Prim and half to say goodbye to our friends here in Amsterdam. Our move date is fast-approaching, so it was nice to take some time to hang out with the friends we’ve made during our two years in the city.

We got really lucky with the weather, as it was warm and sunny. The weather here in spring and summer is about as unpredictable as it gets. This week it’s vacillating between sunny 80 degree days and gray, rainy ones — literally changing between the two over the span of just a few hours.Prim was quite excited to be the guest of honor at her birthday party. Prim is incredibly extroverted, so being the center of attention for the day is pretty much an ideal scenario for her. And a day where you get cake, presents, and people singing to you? I mean, forget it. Nothing compares. Prim had trouble nailing down exactly what kind of cake she wanted. She initially wanted a “brown cake,” then a “black cake,” and finally a “yellow cake.” I decided to incorporate all the colors and made her a rainbow confetti cake (or as it’s known in its box form — funfetti). I doubled this recipe to make a two-tier cake, which turned out to be quite delicious (and I don’t even like cake). If I ever make it again, I think I will make a three-tier cake, as the layers aren’t particularly tall, and dang if we didn’t go through almost the entire cake at the party. But I only have one cake pan here in Amsterdam, so I was already making and baking this in two shifts, so two tiers was what I managed during my afternoon baking frenzy. I did manage to incorporate Prim’s wishes for a black or brown cake by making black and brown cookies — these chocolate peanut butter stuffed ones. Like all combinations of chocolate and peanut butter, they were delicious. I mean, Deb would never steer us wrong, would she?I spent about three hours cooking and baking the day before the party, prepping the food. I made both tiers of the cake, a double-batch of frosting, cookies, a batch of homemade salsa (the jarred stuff here is about as bad as the local Mexican cuisine), green goddess dip, a whole mess of grilled peppers and onions (for the sausages we would be barbecuing on the day-of) and two pizzas for dinner that night.This meant that the day of the party all I had to do was assemble the food and put it on the table. I put together a big cheese and meat board, a bunch of veggies for a crudite platter, and frosted and decorated the cake. Word to the wise on this one — frost your cake the day you make the frosting. I made the frosting the day before and stored it in the fridge overnight, not realizing that it would harden (hello, Chelsea, buttercream..? Come on.) I had to do some last-minute damage control to get it to a spreadable state again, but it all worked out fine in the end.I’m so glad that girl had such a good time at her party. We had the best time celebrating her, and I can’t wait to see what year four is going to bring.

Family Fun / Life Abroad / Travel

Our Trip to Bordeaux

May 7, 2018

Get ready guys, because I have a lot of photos from Bordeaux! This was exactly the kind of vacation I love — full of delicious carbs and wine, sunny weather that wasn’t too hot, and just the right amount of sight-seeing. We had to walk through the Jardin Public to get to the center from where we were staying, and it was such a treat. It was big and green and the kids loved spotting the ducks swimming in the water. There were also some impressive play structures for kids there — one included a carousel that Prim insisted on riding every time we walked through the park. Lark got to take a turn as well on our last full day. Seeing the two of them riding in the little car together (with Daddy close by, of course) was so sweet and made me realize just how big Lark is getting these days. (Ignore that mosquito bite on her forehead — Lark and I were the plat du jour for the French mosquitos, apparently.) We stumbled across a splash pad on the first day while we were out and about exploring. It was pretty hot at this point and we had actually just stopped in at H&M to pick up hats for the girls, (Prim chose hers, if you can’t tell) and had also purchased a swimsuit for Prim. Prim was itching to go in the water as soon as she saw the other kids running around and we figured it was a lucky coincidence that we had this new swimsuit with us, so why not?

She had a great time splashing around, and OMG little girls swimsuits — I defy you to find anything cuter. The house we stayed at happened to be just minutes from the best bakery in Bordeaux — Antone — which I will readily admit was the highlight of the trip for me. If you know me at all, then you know my love for bread and obsession with carbs. We stopped in at the bakery almost every day that we were in Bordeaux to pick up sandwiches, croissants, baguettes, and more. The staff was so friendly and put up with my rusty high school French. One of the workers took a liking to Prim and taught her to order her “chocolatine” in French, while explaining to me that it’s called “pain du chocolat” in the north and “chocolatine” in the south. Prim is still talking about “chocolate tartine” (toddler French, haha), so I think it’s safe to say that the chocolate croissants might have been the high point of her trip as well. Our trip was not short on treats, that’s for sure. We made sure to stop for ice cream more than once, and KC and I would end the night out on the patio at the house after the girls were in bed, drinking wine, eating French cheese, and planning future fantasy home renovations. The south of France is well-known for their oysters, so we of course made sure to partake while there. I love oysters and will take any opportunity to order them. The girls both got to have a small taste of oysters on this trip, though jury’s still out on whether they liked them or not. (Lark was lukewarm on the whole experience, but Prim was pretty into the fact that you got to hold a shell in order to try them.) We took a day trip to Saint-Émilion one day to try some of the local wines. We ended up visiting Cloitre des Cordeliers and trying (ahem, drinking a lot of) their sparkling wine. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: drinking wine when you’re vacationing with small children is the easiest way to feel like you’re actually getting away from your real life.Cloitre des Cordeliers is a great option if you’re visiting Saint-Émilion with kids. You don’t have to make a reservation or take a tour to try their wines (many of the wineries there you have to do both of those things — not so easy with little ones). Plus they have a really nice outdoor garden where you can drink your wine and the kids can run around — win/win. Prim had a little too much fun during our wine excursion. Extra points to KC for dragging her all the way back to the train station backwards so she was out of the direct sun. And hey, when your kids are sleeping on the go you ignore their wonky hat position and just enjoy the peace and quiet, am I right?

We also happened to be in Bordeaux for the first weekend of their bi-annual antique faire. We braved the midday sun and wandered through the rows and rows of goods. If we didn’t have to lug everything on a plane back to the Netherlands and eventually ship it back to the states, we would have surely bought some stuff for our new house!

After walking around in the hot sun for awhile, we stopped for lunch and very large very cold beers (nothing better on a hot day!) The girls got to share some steak-frites and Lark got to try out her new cool persona: What a teen.

You were so dreamy, Bordeaux! I think we will need to do a whole tour of the south of France someday, because six nights was not nearly long enough.

Life Abroad / Personal / Travel

A Travel Mishap

May 4, 2018

I’ve posted before about some of the low points of our travels (both Prim and Lark have puked on a plane now, and sometimes when you’re traveling you just straight lose your patience), but our Bordeaux trip started with a complication of a different kind.

Traveling to Bordeaux we did something we very rarely do — we flew in the evening. Our flight was at 6:30pm and landed around 8pm, which is after the girls’ usual bedtime. Usually we opt to pay a little more to fly in the morning or midday so the girls won’t be overtired while on the plane, but this flight was significantly more affordable than other flights at more convenient times so I decided to chance it. Even though the timing wasn’t ideal, I assumed we would power through the flight, get our luggage, catch a cab, and get the girls into bed immediately upon arriving at the house.

Everything went relatively smoothly on the flight and we made it through passport control in record time. We arrived at our home exchange house at 8:45pm and went and knocked on the door of the neighbor who supposedly was holding the keys for us. I had texted the neighbor on our way from the airport to let the him know that we were on our way, and prior to that we had received a text from the family we were exchanging with saying that the neighbor was waiting for us with the keys.

But then, there was no answer.

And no answer.

We knocked, we texted, we called — nothing. We attempted to contact the family we were exchanging with, but by unfortunate coincidence their flight had taken off from the airport just as we had arrived at their house, meaning they were out of contact until 10:15pm, at least.

We waited and waited and waited, and after an hour we finally just picked up our luggage and our very tired children and headed to the closest place that was open — McDonald’s. Lark fell asleep in the carrier, Prim watched videos on KC’s phone in a tired daze, and I stress ate french fries while we waited for the family’s plane to land.

Finally at 10:30pm, we simultaneously heard from the family and the neighbor with the keys. Apparently we had been given the wrong address — the one for the neighbor on the right side rather than the left — and for some reason the neighbor hadn’t checked his phone in almost two hours. It was all very inconvenient (and led to a very fun bedtime meltdown by one Lark Adelaide), but we survived.

So yes, while it would be fun to just post pretty pictures of all the amazing parts of our European adventures, it’s not the whole truth. Sometimes these things happen — planes get delayed, luggage gets lost, and miscommunications add up to one big headache. We made it through that (very annoying) first night relatively unscathed, and luckily the rest of our trip was amazing. But make no mistake — despite how it all might look on here or on Instagram, it’s not all easy.

Family Fun / Life Abroad / weekend

A Trip to the Keukenhof

May 1, 2018

As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, we took a trip to the Keukenhof during a nice weekend while KC’s mom was visiting. Despite the fact that mid-April is supposed to be the optimal time for seeing the flowers, I think we would have actually had a much better show had we waited another week or two to visit.The flowers were still beautiful and we had sunny weather — so really, it was a great day. When in doubt, feed them snacks, right? If these girls could solely eat snacks everyday their lives would be made. I mean, who needs lunch when you can just have 14 small servings of crackers, pretzels and Babybel cheese, right?Some of the varieties of tulips were just amazing. And they plant them so close together that there’s often 500 or more tulips in a 5×5 foot space. So crazy. We went into one of the greenhouses to eat lunch and learned that there were over 100,000 flowers in the greenhouse alone! Prim has been talking about the Keukenhof since we visited a couple weeks ago, so I guess it’s safe to say that she had a good time. Most days she asks me at least once, “You remember when we went to the Keukenhof?” and I’m like, “I sure do!” Haha, it’s so funny to see all the little things and experiences that really stick with her. We attempted to get some family photos while visiting and the shots below were about as successful as we got. Getting a one year old and an almost three year old to look at the camera and not be screaming, annoyed, or turning into a limp noodle is asking a lot, so I’ll just take what I can get. I wish we could have gone back again after the fields of tulips were really in bloom, but what we were able to see was pretty spectacular. If you’re visiting Amsterdam anytime in April through mid-May, I would definitely recommend a trip (especially if you’re looking to get some quintessential Dutch tulip shots!)

Family Fun / Life Abroad / Travel

Our Trip to Sweden

April 9, 2018

We recently returned from a trip to Stockholm and I finally got our photos organized from the trip, so I figured it was time for a post! We spent five nights there, staying at a house outside the city in the suburb of Saltjö-Boo. This was another home exchange for us — our sixth (though we have actually hosted home exchange guests seven times now because one of our exchanges is a non-simultaneous exchange) and it was extra fun because KC’s sister happened to be on spring break and flew out from California to join us! Taking pictures with a 1 year old and almost-3 year old is a real dream.

In case you can’t tell from the number of layers we’re wearing in these pictures, it was pretty darn cold during our stay. The high was generally in the low-30s (around 0°C), but with the wind chill it regularly felt like low-20s. We are fairly well-equipped for cold weather now (hi down jacket, iloveyou) but I suspect that exploring Stockholm in the summer might be a tiny bit more enjoyable. We had a good time exploring the city, but this was not our most successful trip, by far. Things kind of went south on our way to Stockholm when we discovered that Lark had a stomach bug which resulted in her puking in the Uber going to the airport, at Schiphol while we were waiting in line to check our bags, on the plane while landing, and in our rental car. I have perfected my puking-baby positioning skills after the numerous stomach bugs/car sickness episodes, so I am proud to say that I managed to “redirect” or catch all the vomit during the six (yep, SIX) separate episodes, aside from when we were on the plane, because the landing was especially bumpy. This meant that Lark was not only melting down because she was puking (in front of everyone on the plane!) but she also barfed all over me and on Prim in the process, which of course resulted in Prim flipping out for a moment as well.

Basically that landing was us looking like every parent’s worst nightmare. Covered in puke with two screaming children. What a dream!Really just killing it at this whole “motherhood” thing, guys. Of course after Lark was sick the first day, Prim got it — puking and a fever of 103.1 on Easter Sunday. Luckily KC, Lark and KC’s sister were able to go out and explore a bit while I was home on sick duty. Happy Easter! With a puke bucket. To make matters worse, while hauling Easter baskets down the slippery wooden stairs the night before (stupidly, in wool socks) I managed to fall down about 6 stairs, bruising myself fairly well in the process.

But honestly, with the number of trips we have taken and still have planned, it’s not surprising that at least one of them would be less than ideal. And really, KC and I have been so tired from the insanity of the holidays, busy season, our trip to California and prepping for our move back to the states, it was nice to have some down time where we just hung out together and did nothing.So lest you think we have nothing but amazing trips with these wonderfully-behaved, well-traveled children of ours, let me assure you that it doesn’t all go according to plan. That picture above is from our flight back to Amsterdam, when 20 minutes prior to landing Lark decided that she was just OVER IT and had a full-blown, category 5 meltdown (yes, even nursing beyond a year doesn’t solve all meltdowns at this age! Yayyy…)

Hoo, well… We’ve had better trips, guys. For sure. But we’re off to Bordeaux next week! No rest for us, apparently, haha. At least Bordeaux will have ALL THE WINE to temper those tough moments. That really makes parenting on vacation infinitely more palatable. It was real, Stockholm. I’ll give you that.