Bruges, Belgium

The morning after our night in Brussels, we made the hour drive to the city of Bruges.  We LOVED Bruges.  Might be my favorite city so far.  It was just so beautiful and clean and the weather was perfect and the little streets were so romantic.  Their buildings are mostly made of brick.  It felt a lot like England to me.  Or even a little more colonial, like back East in the States.

These first few are from the end of our day...Sawyer had been asking all day to have a picnic by the water.  We kept telling him it would happen, and before we knew it, the day was over and we hadn't had a picnic yet! So we bought some food and found a quiet spot on the bank of the river.  He was a little distraught that we didn't have a picnic blanket with us (if it were my mom, we would have had the blanket, a table cloth, and a full spread lunch!).  But we convinced him it was ok to sit on the grass :).   Ten minutes prior to this serene scene of our family picnicking on the grass, we had quite the opposite experience!  The kids and Nathan had already bought their pizzas, but I wanted to find a sandwich.  So Nate waited with the kids while I went off to find the perfect sandwich.  I came back to find Nathan frantically trying to clean Violet's hands.  He was switching between wipes and hand sanitizer...repeatedly.  And she was constantly trying to wipe her hands on her clothes.  Come to find out, the kids had been putting 'rocks' into a little fountain of water in the main square.  Only once they got wet, it became evident that they were not rocks, but hardened nuggets of horse poop.  And the kids were swishing their hands around in it!  Yuck!! We are kinda germaphobes...so the cleaning went on for a little while.  And then we went on to have our picnic!  Ugh!!

We took a ride on a boat--one of the highlights for the kids, for sure.  And for me.  So relaxing.

Couldn't decide which one of these was cuter!  Just love Violet's expression in both so much!

Isla's first experience in the backpack carrier.  It went well!  But she will only sleep in the Ergo...so we switch between the two.  At least I am getting a break now!d

I am still dying over this picture!!!  LOVE

We kept seeing people riding around on these horse carriages...so we decided to do it too!!  Another highlight for the kids.

This is hilarious to me!  Just look at that face!  I guess she didn't want me to have a taste of her cone, lol