An overdue update

Wow! I see it's been a long time since I posted. This summer went so fast; I can't believe we are a week away from October! Nate and spent most of the summer working and searching for a house. We have been looking at houses since April trying to find the "perfect" house. We probably looked at every single house in our price range in the Skagit Valley and none stuck out to us. We wanted a good investment house--one that needed some TLC and updating. Well, we finally found that house! It was actually staring at us from down the street the entire time. To make a long story short, we submitted an offer for a vacant house near my parent's. The owner passed away last year and his elderly siblings live on the East Coast. They knew it needed lots of work but couldn't do it themselves. So they accepted our offer and several weeks later the house is officially ours!

We are very excited to have finally found a house although our move-in date won't be for a while yet. We have lots of work to do before moving in...remove popcorn ceiling, paint all the walls and replace all the flooring. That's just a small list of what needs to be done. It is really nice that it is close to where we are living so we can work on it whenever we have time. The house is 2-story, 3 bd/2 bath with an additional family room in the daylight basement. It is on a 3/4 acre lot, so Nate is very excited about room to have a garden and a dog.

About that dog...we are getting a puppy next weekend. We found Newfoundland/Lab mix puppies that had been rescued and put our name down to get one. Nate's family had a lab/newfie mix growing up and it was their favorite dog ever, so they are all excited we are getting one. So this weekend I should have pictures of our puppy!

Well, I will hopefully do a better job keeping the blog updated and get some pictures on here.

Nieces and Nephews

I (Lisa) was able to spend the last 2 weeks visiting my sisters. The first week was spent with Tami, Chad, Levi, Tori, and Elliana in Cloquet, MN. I met 8-week old Elliana for the first time and immediately fell in love with this beautiful little girl. We had lots of snuggle time together as we got to know each other. The week was spent relaxing, playing games with Levi and Tori (lots of Bocce!), reading books, going on walks, and just enjoying being together.

From Cloquet I drove down to Sioux Falls to visit Sheri, Ryan, Kiera, Caleb, and Joel (thanks to Chad for letting me borrow his car!) The twins are already 5 1/2 months old, so it was fun to see how they had grown since Christmas. I also got lots of baby time here between the 2 boys yet still managed to play with Kiera and read her lots of stories. (I still have the book "26 Princesses" memorized.) She is extremely talkative and had us laughing constantly with her silly chatter. Sheri and I managed to get out several times and get some shopping or exercise in with the kiddos. It was so fun to spend time with everyone but it always so hard to leave. We just look forward to the next visits.

I drove back to Cloquet to drop the car off then took the shuttle back to Minneapolis to catch a flight to Chicago. Nate and I met up in Chicago as we had plans to attend a wedding in Michigan. This was also our anniversary weekend...3 years already! We spent the night in Chicago then drove to the wedding on Saturday. The wedding was beautiful and it was fun to see our friend again. We had to leave early Sunday morning to catch our planes and with that my adventerous trip came to a close!


Tori


Levi in his "farmer" costume


Elliana


Levi and Tori eating lunch outside


Elliana


Caleb and Joel in their bumbos


Joel


Kiera


Caleb and Joel


Good lookin' boys!

Tulip Time

Our friend Charlotte from Olympia came to visit Nate and I a few weeks ago. She wanted to see the famous Skagit Valley tulips. Unfortunately, the flowers were late this year and the fields were not in full bloom yet. However we were able to see a few fields that were just starting and enjoyed the daffodils in full bloom. It was great to see Charlotte and we had a fun afternoon together.

A few videos

I uploaded a couple videos from our trip. The first one is taken from le arc de triomphe in Paris. I think that these people need some help with traffic flow and figuring out how to use a round-a-bout. We had some good laughs at the cars, especially the one near the end that is perpendicular to the traffic. The second video is the elevator ride up the Eiffel tower. The last one is taken outside of Amsterdam at a sawmill windmill we toured. This working windmill was renovated a few years ago and demonstrates how the windmills used to work. It was interesting to watch the logs being sawed...as the wind blew harder, the blades worked faster.

Day 22: The Trip Home

We did it…3 weeks around Europe! Nate and I were very pleased with the itinerary we put together in less than a month. We saw tons of stuff, experienced many cultures, and didn’t miss a train once even though we rode on over 50 trains. This trip was something we have always wanted to do but it seemed hard to accomplish with limited vacation days. It was amazing to see God working throughout the last 3 months. Everything fit together perfectly; we couldn’t have planned any of this better ourselves!

We left Amsterdam Tuesday afternoon on a direct flight to Seattle. Our flight was about 10 hours, but we had plenty of movies and games to keep us entertained so it actually wasn’t too bad. However, we were ready to get home and it felt great to sleep in our own bed that night!

Our trip is over!

Day 21: Amsterdam

We had a busy day planned for the last full day of our trip. We had heard about this giant flower auction outside of Amsterdam. Andrea gave us directions to it so we found the correct bus and rode about an hour to Aalsmeer, the location of the second largest building in the world. Every day millions of flowers are sent here, auctioned off, and shipped to customers around the world. We toured the plant and watched the auctions taking place and the orderly chaos in this huge warehouse.

After Aalsmeer, we headed back to Amsterdam and took a 15-minute train ride to Zaanse Schans, another neighboring town. From downtown we had to take a passenger only ferry to get to Zaanse Schans. This area was once home to over 600 windmills, but only about 6 remain now. I was excited to see, as I put it, “windmills in the wild” (We had seen plenty in town, but not along the countryside). We were able to tour a working sawmill. The harder the wind blew, the faster the blades cut the wood. It was interesting! We also went through a cheese farm and wooden shoe museum. Once returning to Amsterdam we had enough time to walk around the streets and do some shopping. We had to pack our bags and find a way get our souvenirs home safely. We still only had our 2 backpacks and small day pack, but we managed to get everything in.

Just a tiny fraction of this huge warehouse


One of the six auction rooms

Day 20: Delft/Den Haag/Amsterdam

We left Antwerp in the morning and headed to Amsterdam, our circle almost complete. On the way we stopped in Delft and looked in some stores and browsed through the real Delft pottery. From there we met up with my college friend, Andrea in The Hague. She is studying for her master’s there and was able to meet us at the train station. We ate lunch together and had a great time catching up. From The Hague we finally made it to Amsterdam…our trip almost complete! Our hostel required a ride on the tram, but we found it easily. We decided to try the Anne Frank house the night. The line was a little long, but we decided to wait anyway. The house is now empty with no furniture, but each room had information explaining what used to be there. It was an interesting yet sobering walk through the house. Anne’s actual diary was in a glass display for the visitors to see. Later that night after walking around town a bit we had a type of Asian stir-fry…it was pretty good and a nice change.

Oliebollen: A family favorite treat!


Our green hostel room


Downtown Delft

Day 19: Antwerp

Although we had originally planned on going to Bruges, Nate and I decided to take the more practical and efficient route to Antwerp, Belgium. We had booked a hostel there so we left Brussels in the morning. Antwerp is a charming small town with lots of character. We enjoyed exploring the town square with, most naturally, a huge church. Antwerp also had some delicious chocolate shops. We also enjoyed many snacks of frites, or fries. They serve them in paper cones and you can choose from countless sauces with ketchup being the minority. Nate was in heaven with all the dipping sauces. However, due to differences in dipping preferences we just had to get separate orders. :) We crossed the river via a long underground tunnel and spent some time in a park. After returning we stumbled across a street performer. He was juggling fire on a giant unicycle. It was amusing because he did his speech in several languages. Every time he switched, you’d hear a rumble of laughter from the French…then the Dutch…then the English. It was rather amusing.


Frites!




Antwerp from across the river

Day 18: Brussels

After an hour on the high speed train from Paris we arrived in Brussels, Belgium. Nate and I really enjoyed Brussels. It is much smaller than Paris and the atmosphere more relaxed and pleasant. We found our hostel easily after taking the Metro from the central train station. We went back downtown to look for some dinner. We settled on a traditional doner kebob restaurant. This fast-food type restaurant cooks meat on a large rotating skewer. The chef slices pieces off the meat and serves it on pita bread or in a wrap. We found food to be much cheaper in Belgium than in rest of Europe. That evening we enjoyed walking around the shops and sampling lots of delicious Belgian chocolate. We definitely enjoyed taking in the culture of the city and took a break from museums and traditional sightseeing.

Day 17: Paris

Nate and I were extremely excited to find the next day in Paris sunny and clear...definitely not what was forecasted! We had a big day planned: the Louvre museum, the Eiffel tower, the arc de triomphe, the Champ de Elysee, and the Orsay museum. We got to all of these places and more during this beautiful day. At the Louvre we saw the original Mona Lisa, the Venus de Milo, and much more. The Orsay was also very interesting and showed the progression of French art. The Orsay held paintings of Van Gogh, Monet, Courbet, and many more. We walked along the Champ de Elysse, a famous street (and expensive!) that runs through the downtown area. It ends at the arc de triomphe, a arc that Napoleon built to honor war victims. We actually climbed the arc. It is situated at the middle of the city so all the roads converge around it like the spokes of a wheel. We ended at the Eiffel tower. We did wait a while to get a ride to the top, but it was worth the wait. The structure itself is actually not the most aesthetically pleasing...just a bunch of metal. But the view at the top was pretty neat. We stayed until dark to get some good night shots. We were surprised by a light show that we did not even know about. Thousands of flash-like lights went off all around the tower making for an impressive display!


Having some fun in the park


Outside the Louvre


Venus de Milo


Beginning the walk down the Champ de Elysee


The arc de triomphe




Taken from the tower