Copenhagen

Since we aren't moving to Copenhagen after all, Hannah and I decided to join Joe on a business trip to check out the city. Joe flew up early Thursday morning to work and we joined him later that day. That night, we joined our friends Tim and Cortney out for dinner (other Americans that moved from A'dam to CPH with Biogen).

Friday, Joe left for work and left me to transfer hotels (as there was some convention in town and we couldn't stay 2 nights at the same hotel) and find my way about town. Luckily, Cortney gave me a great map and as luck would have it, our new hotel was a 5 minute walk to the main shopping street of Stroget. Hannah and I passed the day away window shopping and checking out the sights along the way, including Tivoli, the oldest amusement park. We stopped at an outdoor cafe for lunch, as the weather was beautiful, and I ordered a hamburger and small beer for lunch. Equivalent to about $25...oops, guess I should have paid more attention to the conversion but when the Kroner to Euro is 7.5 to 1, that's just too much math, especially when I'm hungry.

We eventually made our way back to the hotel and rested a bit before taking another walk to Nyhavn, a picturesque "Amsterdamish" canal a few blocks from our hotel. It was beautiful. We met Joe back at the hotel at about 615p and headed out for a drink on Nyhavn and dinner eventually. It took us a while to find a restaurant as many were busy and 1 even saw Hannah and said "no" which turned out to be very wise on their part as she was quite a handful that night. Must of had something to do with the short siestas in her stroller and no real nap. We finally settled at the Viking House Pub and Restaurant. The food was really good, well...I ordered fried pork (what was I thinking?) that turned out to be basically fried pork fat....again, what was I thinking? Luckily I have a wonderful husband who switched dinners with me and so I had his stew instead. And he said he liked the fried pork, but really??? We also turned out to be "those" people. Hannah was very cranky. In trying to play with her, oops, we spilled a beer...all over Hannah and my jacket. And while the waitress was cleaning up the beer, she spilled cheerios all over the floor (Joe picked those up). Then, more whining. Eventually, a man at the bar (let me specify, old, possibly drunk Irish man who I doubt ever had children) gave us parenting advice. Apparently, the young lass just needed an apple tart (apple turnover) which he proceeded to give her. What were we suppposed to do? We smiled, said thank you and watched our daughter eat a ton of sugar at 830. Will she ever go to bed? We walked home after dinner and yes, she did go to bed, covered in apple tart stickiness.

Saturday, we walked to the Little Mermaid statue and past one of the castles and then took a drive into the countryside to Frederiksvaerk, where we had coffee and cake at Ron's house (another of Joe's colleagues who recently moved to Denmark). The countryside was beautiful. Before our flight, we had just enough time to stop in Hillerod (where Biogen is located) to see the Hillerod Castle, the Danish equilavent to Versailles.

And of course we had to get in some play time at the Copenhagen airport before boarding our flight home, which we won't go into as Joe and I are both trying to block it from our minds as we prepare for our 11 hr flight to LAX this coming Saturday....
And now poor Joe flew to Boston today for a few days....No rest for the weary.

Another day, more Vondelpark

This time, my friends and I took the kids for a picnic dinner in Vondelpark (Joe was working late). It was another HOT day (32C) so being out of the house was a good thing. There is a kids play area that we went to which was great for the older kids (older being 18 mos and 3, it's all perspective) to roam and play. Hannah (aka Pebbles) felt the need to climb over "auntie" Meghan and I the entire time...even through my trying to get her to crawl on the grass and explore...

Elizabeth and Hannah (shortly after this picture, they started fighting over the phone)

Elizabeth, Dylan, and Hannah

Hannah pulling Dylan's ear, even after he told her it wasn't very nice....

Enjoying our last days in Amsterdam

So, I guess I should have clarified regarding our move to the States. We are moving to Cambridge, MA on the 14th of October. It all happened suddenly and was a bit unexpected but it's for Joe's work and is a very good thing. Well, the work part. Personally, we are not ready to move back to the States. We absolutely love our life here! But all good things must come to an end?? And I'm sure we'll find more good things in MA. The next few weeks should be fun yet hectic as we prepare for our move and travel to CA for 2 weeks to see my family. We get back from CA on the 7th of Oct and the movers come the 9th.

In the meantime....after a very WARM July (hottest on record) and a cold, rainy August (I think another record breaker for the amount of rain in August), September has brought beautiful weather! (at least this week) Here are a few pictures from our picnic dinner last night in Vondelpark!

Moselle River Valley

This past weekend we drove (4 hrs) to the Moselle River Valley in Germany (in the east). It is known for its wine and castles and we loved it for its beauty! There are many small towns (one of which we stayed in) along the river with a few bigger towns as well, some which we visited. Mostly we enjoyed the scenery and toured the castles, sampling their delicious rieslings at stops along the way.

The first castle was at top of the hill of the city of Cochem, the Imperial Castle of Cochem. It had a very interesting history is now owned by the people of the city. We got there first thing in the morning and so basically had a private tour with another couple, and he repeated it in English! The second castle, Eltz, was a bit of a hike to get to as it was also on a hill but in a valley of it's own somewhat.
And no visit to Germany would be complete without a pretzel. Hannah loved it!

Paris and Versailles

We're a bit behind on our posts....but we've been traveling a lot lately. Trying to get in as many trips as possible before we move back to the States October 14th. There are so many trips we wanted to take but didn't have the chance...in our minds we still had 2-3 years left to take them, but things don't always work out as planned. So we've been cramming in as many as possible while we still have a few weeks left.

The weekend before last we went to Paris and Versailles. We had been to Paris before so really just enjoyed a beautiful day in the city, not worrying too much about all of the tourist attractions. We went to Sacre Couer and took a boatride on the river, stopping several times to feed Hannah, change Hannah, let Hannah crawl around a bit....Somewhat different than before. But really, she's such a GREAT traveler and did amazingly well on the 5 hr car ride and while we toured the city. Surprisingly we didn't have to slow down our pace as much as we thought.
The funniest part was that we literally stayed in the middle of the "red light" district of Paris, down the street from the Moulin Rouge. Our hotel was flanked on either side by "ambience bars". hmmm....all I know is that you may call it a bar but when we walked by there were scantily clad women in VERY small bars with a man or two in them...again...hmmm. Nothing but the best for us!

On Sunday, we drove to Versailles. Very impressive. After a nice tour through the palace, we finished with some lunch and the gardens before our drive home.

Hannah's 1st Birthday

We celebrated Hannah's 1st birthday today with a few friends and cupcakes...

Eating cupcakes is serious business (this is cupcake #2 - although most of it went to the floor)
Playing with her new toys
The headband was part of a gift from Grams and Gramps (it lasted for about 15 seconds)