Friday, October 12, 2007

Back to our regularly scheduled programming

Apologies for the long absence! We appreciate our devoted blog readers, and I hope our absence hasn't deterred you from checking in on us. It's been a bit of a whirlwind. As I wrote in the last entry, adjusting to jet lag on the return to Holland took us nearly a week. Ellie really struggled with it, which meant everyone else did too. She's always a good and happy child (hallelujah!), but nights were a real challenge for a bit longer than was comfortable. That left us mostly hanging around the house with little to blog for several days (unless a chronicle of Jennifer's exhaustion is thrilling reading for you, count yourself lucky for being spared). We did make it to Delft for a glorious fall afternoon on Thursday, where we visited the cathedral but were far more enthralled with our warm soup, bread, and dessert waffles at a cafe later in the day. On Saturday morning, Jennifer and Mary took the train to Paris for a four day weekend. We were cultural fiends (Louvre, Notre Dame, St. Chapelle...), and of course Mary had to visit Disneyland Paris, being the huge Disney fan that she is! Meanwhile, Markus and Ellie held down the fort in Holland. They visited a nature reserve, did a lot of cycling, partied on a few playgrounds, and made sure the duck and geese populations of The Hague were well fed. They also visited with Andrea and our friend Tony, who was back in town for the week on business. Wednesday was another attempt to return to normal, with Jennifer and Mary still battling aching feet from our Parisian marathon weekend and Ellie readjusting to our return/Papa's return to work. Yesterday, we took the train to Amsterdam for yet another glorious fall afternoon and visited the Anne Frank House (not for those disinclined towards stairs or traumatic subjects).


Today was a day's visit to Antwerp, made necessary by Jennifer's incessant rhapsodizing about the chocolate (of which we obtained much). Tomorrow, Mary heads home again to catch her breath (three countries in two weeks!), and we are excited to welcome our friends Meghan and Eric on Sunday! Whew! Now you are all caught up. What have you been doing these past two weeks?



For those interested in Paris pics, these are a few of my favorite things:

Cupid and Psyche


The Winged Victory of Samothrace


the sparkling Eiffel Tower (10 minutes at the start of every hour; green for the Rugby Cup finals)

1 comment:

Gail Weaver said...

Nice to catch up with you, Jennifer! You sure do get around ...but, you know, only in a good way ;-D What I've been up to is a visit with my mom, who came out from Pittsburgh for ten days. That means lots of food to blog about (one of these days!).