McGuire's of Arabia: July 2012

So this is a little late, but we made it back to Wisconsin. Aden did very well on the flight from Amsterdam to Chicago, one of his best flights yet. When we landed, Grandpa and Grandma picked us up from the airport and we spent a few days at their house to get over jet lag, which was pretty easy.

On July 5th we went up North to see Aden's great grandpa's, great aunt, uncles, and his cousins. It was a great relaxing time for our family. Aden had a great time enjoying nature and playing on the docks and pontoon boat. He hugged trees, sat in the flowers, and even pet a chipmunk that his great grandpa tamed.

Aden and his 98 year old Grandpa Howard.

Aden's first fish fry. These were some of my favorite memories as a kid.

The cabin.

Tara and I also happened upon a new vehicle for us. We were wondering what we were going to do this summer for vehicles because the van Tara's grandparents have let us use was sold this spring. Our Aunt Rhonda and Uncle Kent drove up in two separate vehicles, two minivans in fact. Then we learned they were going to try and buy my grandpa's minivan which isn't used anymore. When my aunt discovered we might be interested in a vehicle she said we could take our pick of their minivans and take it home for the summer and buy it if we want to later. So, I just sent the check out yesterday after my dad's mechanic said he would buy it for the price if we didn't. We are the proud new owners of a 2005 Dodge Grand Caravan. Our favorite is the stow and go seats. My bike pops right it without lifting out heavy seats. Thanks Aunt Rhonda and Uncle Kent.

Lastly, some of you know we have been house hunting. We have seen some beautiful houses, but for this reason or that nothing has fit what we are looking for enough to put any offers in. We'll look one more time tomorrow and then call it quits until next summer.

We'll catch you up on the rest of our summer soon.

Jamie

After our day in Antwerp, we spent the next few days hanging out around Amsterdam. We started by visiting the beautiful Vondelpark. This park is huge! We're talking lots of trees, ponds, restaurants, and a lot that we didn't see. Aden loved running around and especially liked the ducks. He tried to join them in the water a few times.

Daddy and Aden watching the ducks.

If you have ever flown KLM airlines, there is a commercial type video that runs before you actually take off. It shows some of the places KLM flies to but also shows a bunch of people posing by and I amsterdam sculpture. Ever since I had seen it, I knew I wanted to find the sculpture. It is really crowded so getting a good picture was not going to happen, but it was fun anyway. Aden loved playing by the letters.

Here he is in between his initials!

Here is the whole thing.

One of my favorite things about this trip was the breakfast. We purposefully picked a place to stay that made us breakfast. Every morning, our Hostess Fleur, would make us freshly squeezed orange juice, tea, fried eggs with bacon, and provided a plethora of amazing bread, cheese, and jam. We often add until we were very full and then made sandwiches with the rest of the bread to eat for lunch. They also had two cats who roamed the house and Aden loved that. One of them, Bamboo, would just come up to Aden and rub on his legs. Not many cats in Saudi let him come close so it was a special treat.

Aden and Bamboo at breakfast.

Fleur also had two bikes for us to use while we were there. Now Jamie loves biking and was ecstatic about doing some biking in the Netherland countryside. One thing we didn't realize beforehand was how different their bikes are to ones you'd find in the States. They are very upright and the center of balance is different. It was like learning to bike all over again. As you can see from the picture below. The child's seat is between the handle bars. Aden loved this! He could see where he was going and even had his own set of handle bars to play with. Jamie wasn't as comfortable with this arrangement because every time Aden would move it would shift the weight of his bike. In fact, Aden at one point because very interested in watching Jamie pedal and would almost double himself over to one side in order to get a good view. It was amusing to watch.

We stopped for a snack break across from a sheep pasture.

An old windmill that is now used as a brewery.

Our last day was spend at another park, Amsterdamse Bos. It has a great goat farm that we thought Aden would love. We were partly right with this. He did love the animals, but was very timid to get too close to them (especially their heads). He stayed in Jamie's arms or attached to his leg for about the first 30 minutes that we were near the goats. There was no way he was going to feed them either. In fact, he seemed to like the chickens better than the goats.

He did eventually touch one!

Touching, but not getting too close.

He made a friend there named Mia. They followed each other around and had a blast.

They sell a lot of goat products at the farm including this goat ice cream. The best part about this is that after I took the picture the ice cream fell on the ground. Jamie just picked it up quickly and kept on eating. Yum!