Greetings from Bruges, Belgium

For my birthday husband took me and the kids to Brussels and Bruges, a place that I have wanted to visit for many, many years. It is an unspoiled medieval town, close to the Belgium coast. Till the end of the 15th century when the river "Zwin" silted up, Bruges had been a important port and its habitants were wealthy. Lucky for us, the charming little houses and churches were never replaced with modern buildings and though out the town you will walk on cobblestone streets. What you won't find are high rises or oversized billboards...

...and so you walk and walk through this charming place and one house is cuter than the other...

...and you cross the canals...

...and poke your head into a few entrance ways...

...and wonder if the friendly people of Bruges realize how good they have it?

Limes Museum In Aalen, Germany

There is no better way to learn about history than visiting the places where it all happened...

actually Godmothers idea, we went to the Limesmuseum in Aalen, which is a fantastic museum not only for kids...

My favorite part was our hike along the actual Limes wall...

...just imagine, this is exactly where many, many years ago, Roman soldiers pulled guard duty. I doubt they were ever dancing like that...

Things I Learned This Weekend...

...I learned that I should probably migrate to the South next winter because sonny weather is so much better...

...I learned, that it is possible to tell your mother about animals for 3 hours straight while going for a walk, only taking a break when petting a little calf with beautiful eyes and long black eye lashes...  

...last, but not least, I learned that no matter how hard I try I will never manage to make healthy food taste as delicious as the "potato and radish soup" that a farmer's wife cooked for us and thus will have to win the lottery and hire her as our personal cook...

Happy Birthday, Son!

Caves

Daughter, petrified of spiders wouldn't go inside the caves, but husband and son did...

Pointe Shoes

Finally - daughter's ballett teacher has given up. She has the strict rule of her students being 13 years old before starting on the pointe shoes. Which I think is a good rule and I agree with it.

But I guess daughter's pleeeeading eyes and her persistent "how old do you have to be???" wore her down. Last week, she handed daughter a brand new, shiny pair of ballett shoes as a gift.

Someone has been dancing on clouds all week.

Update

Spring is here and I am especially excited about the first spring flowers popping up here and there.
February has been a very chaotic month, work wise, for me. I kept on packing and unpacking my suitcase without ever going anywhere. Bad weather and strikes at several German airports were responsible for that and while I didn't have many flight hours and barely worked, daughter loved it that I was home so much.
On the one and only overnight I was on, the loaders ran my suitcase over with the luggage cart and managed to completely damage it. I must have been quite the sight walking though the airport with it.

Even more nerve racking was husband's job in the military, but then it always is...

To top it all off, on the day he got the good news we were hoping/waiting/praying for, his car got hit while driving through an enormously long tunnel. We still don't know what made the old lady speed up and run into the back of his car. Luckily, both she and husband are fine and while her little Fiat is totaled, his car has barely a scratch, which amazed the police to no end. "Of course, it's fine," husband told them in his broken German. "It's American."