Independence Day Weekend

One holiday that we definitely missed celebrating the past 2 years has been the 4th of July. We decided this year to make the most out of Andy's 4-day weekend by driving up to visit my parents. The girls were quite excited to be able to go to grandma and grandpa's house. On the way up there (which is a 5-hour drive) we unveiled the DVD player in the van. Let's just say it was very anticlimactic. I guess everyone has DVD players now and what's the big deal? Andy and I just had to laugh it off. But Rachel did enjoy a few shows on the way up and the way back home. Audrey's still not into TV at all, so it didn't make much of a difference for her.

Anyhow, we got up to my parents' place Friday afternoon and all enjoyed a little afternoon nap. Grandma and Papa were still at work. Once everybody woke up we had to check out the playhouse that Papa had gotten all set up for the girls. They definitely enjoyed playing in there throughout the weekend. Unfortunately I didn't get any pictures of them doing so, but there will be another time...

Saturday morning started off with one of many tractor rides. The girls had quite the accommodations in the trailer hooked on the back. And this is what happens when it's super-humid and your lens fogs up, but it's the only picture where both the girls are cooperating:

A princess fishing pole had been purchased for Rachel and she put it to use that afternoon.
Look at that concentration!

After practicing on the dock Andy, Rachel, and Papa headed out in the boat. Unfortunately there wasn't any success that afternoon, other than a fishing pole getting broken (luckily not the princess one)!

But that evening from about 7-7:45 they caught about 6 fish. They just do catch and release, but Rachel sure did have fun fishing with her daddy and papa. She's so excited, she's clapping:
Tickling the fish:

Rachel was the only brave girl to brave the mosquitoes. My mom, Audrey, and I were hanging out inside that evening. Audrey feel asleep quite quickly that night, but Rachel was still up when the fireworks started next door. So, we let her watch with us through the sliding glass door until about 9:30. We enjoyed quite a show! We figured that would be it for the weekend, but they wowed us again the next night.

The girls in their 4th of July shirts on Sunday afternoon:

After church we all enjoyed naps and then a traditional 4th of July barbecue. Hot dogs, hamburgers, homemade potato salad, and watermelon. Yum...

Audrey giving me snuggles:

Taking some pictures out on the dock before the sun was gone for good:

We then made ourselves comfortable sitting in the boat while Andy put on a little firework show for us. Although the neighbors definitely outdid us. So, eventually we retreated to the indoors again (where it was much cooler and there weren't any mosquitoes) and enjoyed another show by the neighbors. The girls hanging out in the boat before we headed inside:

Before we headed home Monday afternoon Rachel took 2 things very seriously: 1) helping her papa with some yard work and 2) singing "Happy Birthday" to her papa before we left. Rachel was so excited to having a working hat that she could sweat in:

Once Audrey saw Rachel with a hat, she had to have one too:

Everyone, while the girls and my dad, got to blow out candles that afternoon. We even sung "Happy Birthday" in Dutch as well. I think that is a tradition that we will keep forever....

When we called my dad two days later, on his actual birthday, Rachel was upset because she figured Papa would be enjoying cake without her. Luckily he quickly informed her that he had already enjoyed his cake when she came to visit.

We definitely enjoyed our quick weekend trip to my parents'. It's always a place that we enjoy visiting and just relaxing. The girls love being spoiled by their grandparents and love all the fun adventures they can have there. Between fishing, boating, tractor riding, and playing with all the toys grandma collects; they don't miss home for one minute... Mom and Dad, thanks for a fun-filled weekend! :)

4 weeks

We successfully survived 4 weeks without TV. We honestly did not miss it. I'm not trying to get up on any type of soapbox here. We all have the opportunity to chose what we do in our free time. Watching TV just isn't high on my list. I'm not saying I don't ever watch TV, but we definitely got out of the habit while living in Amsterdam. And life can and will go on without following some show every week. We didn't necessarily plan on not having TV for 4 weeks, that's just what happened. The girls didn't ever ask for TV. It was kind of interesting... Anyhow, we now have our TV and Rachel is enjoying a PBS program as I type this up. But for now, I don't think we're going with any cable packages. I can't justify spending that much money over the year to get more junk to watch. We'll see, maybe I'll eat my words. But for now, we're content with the little TV we watch...

First "Real" Ponytail

Rachel was so excited today to put her hair up into a ponytail like her friend Tally! :) She wants to grow her hair out so bad, so I'm humoring her a bit. We did get it trimmed the other day. I was surprised that it would all go up in a ponytail. We decided to try it since that's what her swim teacher recommends. And the ponytail has held up pretty good throughout the day. I have a feeling that Rachel's going to be sporting ponytails every day for awhile now. It's so much fun to see her excited over something so small to the rest of us...

Father's Day

Father's Day came up just a few days after we moved back into our house! I was able to throw a few things together for Andy. He slept in a bit that morning, I whipped up some waffles for breakfast, and then the girls wanted him to open his presents. And at church he was treated to several pieces of pie, including his all-time favorite, banana cream. I think it ended up being an okay day...

Dad and his helpers:

Three cards, means three blue envelopes...

The girls gave Andy a card that had stickers for him and them to wear that day. Rachel was being a goofball and wearing hers on her forehead! :)
Andy is such a good dad to his girls. It has been such a joy to watch him as a father the past 4 years. He makes up when I fall short, which happens quite often. The girls adore their father. They are so excited every night when he comes home. And they are really quite sad when he's not around to help put them to bed. The girls love to play with their silly dad. He has a wonderful ability of calming the girls when they are upset or afraid. Andy amazes me with his patience! He sacrifices and gives so much to our family. We are truly blessed to have him as the head of our home.

Swim Lessons

A few weeks ago Rachel had her first go at swim lessons. And I was very impressed at how she handled them. She is not a fan of getting her face wet, whether it's a simple splash or water dripping down from her hair. But she had a fabulous swim teacher who was so sweet with her. Rachel is now a pro at blowing bubbles and is pretty good about putting her face in the water. She can float on her back and kicks like a champ. She loves her goggles and will put her face in the water to fetch sinkable fish at the pool. I have signed her up for another session of lessons that will start next week. This will be a 2-week session. I want to keep her busy this summer and help her continue to gain confidence in the water. Hopefully it will be another positive experience! :)

Kick, kick, kick... Rachel's swim teacher said that Rachel is quite the kicker. She was pulling the other kids along, but she wasn't pulling Rachel through the water. As soon as Rachel decides to be brave, she'll be quite the swimmer!

Blowing bubbles:
Up and out from her first full body dunk:

Puddles

We have been getting a fair amount of rain the past 2 weeks. Rachel has been so excited to utilize her rain boots. The sidewalk in front of our house puddles up pretty easily. So, today as we went to get the mail Rachel insisted on wearing her rain boots. And then of course the girls spent quite a bit of time after getting the mail just playing in the puddles. The only way I could get them to come inside was to bribe them with some M&Ms. They both needed outfit changes and Audrey's (well, really she was wearing Rachel's) shoes are still drying. Fun memories!

18 months

Audrey hit her 18-month mark while we were still in the hotel, on June 11th. She is doing well! She's 30.5 inches tall and weighs 19 pounds, 5 ounces. She's actually gained quite a bit of weight since moving back to the U.S., which is a good thing! We finally made the decision to flip her car seat around. Especially since we had a road trip and it wasn't really fair for Rachel to be the only one enjoying movies... Although Audrey only enjoyed a few minutes here and there. She's still not into TV, which isn't a bad thing.

Audrey's vocabulary has exploded in the past 2 months. She'll pretty much try to say anything. She has mastered most 3, 4, and 5-letter words and plenty of bigger words as well. Some of our favorites are hot dog, back pack, heavy, bubbles, goggles, and Audrey. She knows the answers to 2 questions, what her name is and how old she is. Of course she doesn't always perform... Audrey has pretty much mastered Rachel's name as well, which makes Rachel smile. :) We are still working on "grandma". Audrey calls any grandparent "papa" and if you try to correct her, she gets a bit upset... She has started to put a few words together to make sentences. Our all-time favorite is, "hold me peas (please)".

Even though Audrey isn't a cuddlier, she loves to cuddle with her baby dolls. She sleeps with her favorite baby doll and throughout the day is often toting some doll around. She loves pushing her dolls around in strollers as well. Audrey enjoys coloring and it looks like she's definitely going to be right-handed. On rainy days, she loves to play with play-doh. Audrey can be quite the tease and she knows it. She gets the cutest little grin on her face and has a very contagious laugh when she's teasing. :)

Audrey has transitioned pretty well to living in Texas. She has cute little curls when she gets sweaty, something we didn't see often in Amsterdam. Audrey has done pretty well adjusting to nursery at church. She doesn't like being dropped off, but she gets settled in pretty quickly.

It is so much fun to watch Audrey learn and discover new things. We also love watching Rachel's excitement and love for Audrey. I have recently been dropping the girls off at the kidzone at the gym. Audrey gets a little upset at first when I leave. Whenever I pick the girls up Rachel is sure to tell me that she gave Audrey hugs so she would be happy. The love the girls have for each other is such a beautiful thing to observe. Don't get me wrong, they still torment each other when the chance arises. But overall they are pretty good to each other.

One tired little girl after her first go at afternoon church and nursery:

She still loves jewelry!:

Always has been and I'm sure always will be a fan of chocolate:

My attempt at a formal shot:

Stockholm

Sunday, May 23rd, we flew from Bergen to Stockholm. The weather decided to go a bit crummy on us. As a matter of fact, I think I experienced the worst turbulence while preparing to land in Stockholm. Luckily Rachel thought it was hilarious. She laughed and wanted the ride to get bumpy again. I just had to turn away and let her dad take over. I'm not particularly found of turbulence. Anyhow, by the time we got to our hotel it was mid afternoon. We decided to let the girls play a bit at the hotel and then we set out and braved the rain. After doing a quick grocery store run, we headed to Gamla Stan (The Old Town) to walk around and get some dinner.

A picture of Rachel down the narrowest alley in the city, which is less than a meter wide:
Rachel with a troll - trolls are big in Sweden as well!
Stororget (The Big Square):

On Monday we decided to make the most of a sunny morning. We weren't sure how long it was going to last, but luckily it lasted the whole day. We spent the majority of the day in Skansen, an open air museum and zoo. The girls had a great time! Rachel's most favorite thing of all was watching the glass-blowers. We ended up watching them create glass pieces twice that day. We even bought some glass Christmas ornaments that had been made there. Rachel would have spent a lot longer watching the glass-blowers, if we had let her. Some pictures of our day in Skansen:

There were lots of little houses and buildings to check out. In a lot of the buildings there would be workers in traditional dress doing various chores, like knitting.

We also enjoyed checking out all the Scandinavian animals. Rachel was especially excited about the reindeer. She had gone on reindeer hunts with her Papa Michaelson this past winter and she was pretty proud that she had finally found some reindeer! :)

Pictures in the rose garden (mostly tulips...):
A family picture with Stockholm in the background:
One view of Stockholm as we took the ferry back:

That evening we went in search of a restaurant with Swedish meatballs, but once again we didn't have much luck. Every restaurant menu we checked out always had lasagna, which we thought was interesting...

Tuesday was a rainy day, so we had planned correctly. Tuesday was our museum day! Our first stop was Junibacken, a children's museum. The girls had so much fun! The museum focuses on Swedish children's literature and the story of Pippi Longstocking is the central focus. I grew up watching the Pippi Longstocking movie, so it was a fun museum for me as well! We enjoyed plenty of play time, a train ride through Swedish stories, and a live performance by Pippi herself (in Swedish of course!). Audrey was so funny during the 30-minute performance. She would laugh right along with everyone else. The museum could have definitely been an all day affair. We definitely enjoyed the hours we spent there. We packed lunches that day, so we were able to eat at the museum and enjoy some time after lunch as well.

Andy and Rachel on an airplane in the play area right at the beginning of the museum:

Our Ice Princess:
The girls playing in the pages of a gigantic book:
Rachel playing in Pippi's house:
On Pippi's horse:
Playing with the blocks:
Our Pippi outside the museum:

After enjoying the children's museum for several hours we walked over to the Vasa Museum. Once again, we enjoyed ourselves... But we were a bit disappointed that you couldn't actually explore the restored ship. Quite an interesting story. The Vasa set sail on her first voyage in August 1628. Unfortunately it sank after sailing less than one nautical mile. In 1961 the wreck was salvaged and reconstruction began. It was and is quite an ornate ship. Our pictures don't do it justice. It was very dark inside the museum, I'm sure so lights won't harm the ship, but it made it difficult to get pictures. Here are a few:

We finished up our day of museums around dinnertime. We explored Stockholm a bit more, visited a few shops, and grabbed some dinner.

Wednesday we flew home. :( We definitely enjoyed our Scandinavia adventure and are grateful that we had the opportunity to go. During our holiday we soon realized how expensive both Norway and Sweden are. Grocery stores and believe it or not, 7-Elevens, became our friends. We thought it was pretty funny that you can't find a 7-Eleven in Texas, but you can in Scandinavia. Public transportation was quite pricey as well, which surprised us. Usually subways are pretty reasonable.

It's kind of sad finishing up my last post of our European adventures. We feel so blessed to have had the opportunity we did. Rachel would fly back to Amsterdam in a heartbeat. She's doing just fine, but you can tell she misses Amsterdam. We went to Ikea the other day (a familiar store to her) and all she could talk about was Amsterdam. It definitely became home to us and we do miss it. But we are also grateful to be back in the U.S. Mixed emotions, for sure. So, here's to future posts of our American adventures! :)