Lost in North Yorkshire: November 2012

Sorry, I've been MIA. We have been busy with the day to day, but nothing that felt blog post worthy. Though the loss of light may be worth it. I've started singing my own version of "Where Are You Christmas?" It goes a little something like this, "Where are you daylight? Why can't I find you? Why have you gone away?" Catchy, right? The sun set at 3:47 pm today. Kind of crazy. I may have to turn on the happy light soon. It makes me very sleepy when it is so dark.

The holiday season makes it a bit more bearable in some ways. Harrogate is lit up with Christmas lights and some of the shops even stay open until 7pm once a week. Now that's huge. I may go out shopping one Thursday night, just because I can! Of course, I'll have to walk in the dark. Ha!

I keep telling myself that soon the days will be getting longer instead of shorter and next summer I can complain about it staying light until 11:00pm. ;-) It's all relative, really.

I am feeling quite homesick these days. The downside to the holidays while in a foreign country. I have really grown to like Harrogate, but with Thanksgiving and Christmas here I miss my family and friends back home. I wish I could put them on a private jet and fly them to England! It's been fun to decorate my house. I've never had a fire place before. I was able to hang the stockings by the fireplace with care, in hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be here. On the bright side, my "diary" is nearly booked solid. Birthdays, holiday activities, trips and dinners should make the time fly by. The New Year will be here in a blink of the eye and the days will be stretching out again. Looking forward to it.

Ho Ho Ho!

Cheers.

We just got back from our first European, family vacation. We survived! We had some touch and go moments, but overall, we had a nice time. We left Sunday night to drive to our first hotel that was just outside of London. We didn't think the kids would like the 5.5 hour drive to Dover in one shot. It was a wise choice. Our ferry was scheduled to cross the channel at 11:00am and we arrived at the port at 9am. That's when we found out our ferry was cancelled. Ha! Our luck, right. Apparently, another boat hit it. Who knows, though. We were able to book another crossing that was actually an hour earlier, so it was all good.
We had to sit and wait for about an hour before boarding. Jason turned the car off even though the kids were watching a DVD and I was charging my phone. Guess what happened? Oh yes, it did. Our battery died and we had to get a jump start as everyone else boarded the ship. I was a little annoyed. Well... a lot annoyed, but since we made the ferry I let out a sigh of relief and moved on.

Reminder for future road trip: Bring more snacks, keep them close for easy distribution. Bring more hand held activities for antsy children. Honestly, though, they did way better in the car than I expected.

When we reached Calais, it was pretty much smooth sailing (driving) to Bruges. What can I say about Bruges. It was fantastic! What a wonderful city. We really loved it. What's not to love about waffles, chocolate, beer, cobbled streets and canals? Oh, did I mention the waffles? Oh my. I was hooked after one bite. Brady and I had a contest to see who could eat the most over the course of the week. They were so decadent that one at a time was plenty. I won. Only because he chose to eat crepes on occasion and I stuck to the waffle diet. We ate most of our waffles from a window shop between the market and the burg. Chocolate was consumed in great quantities, too. Collin even said he was getting tired of chocolate. GASP! I think we spent over a 100 euro on chocolate! Dumon was our favorite. The hot chocolate there was fabulous, too. Jason enjoyed the beer more than I did, but I'm not a beer drinker. However, my favorite raspberry beer is made in Belgium and I enjoyed that.

Yum

Waffles? Yes, Please!

There is plenty to see and do in Bruges. The kids really enjoyed the horse and carriage tour of the city, the canal tour and climbing to the top of the Bell Tower. 366 steps, baby! I admit my glutes were sore the next day. Jason did it with Cait on his back! It was steep and narrow at the top, but the views were lovely. We went to The Church of Our Lady and saw Michelangelo's statue "Madonna and Child." We spent hours walking the streets and checking out little shops along the way. We also took the kids to the chocolate museum and the archaeology museum. It was kind of a whirlwind.

The Market Square

Pretty

So that's how that works.

The best decision we made was to rent a self-catering apartment instead of staying in a hotel. We had a 2 bedroom terrace house close to the center of town and a block from the canals. It was ideal. We were able to run around all morning, have some down time and give Cait a nap in the afternoon and then back out on the streets in the evening. Next time, we need to pack some more games/activities for the boys to use during Cait's nap time, but really, it went well. We had some bad behavior, but we were so out of sorts. It wasn't totally unexpected and didn't ruin the trip. We kept calm and carried on. ;-) For the most part. lol