Budapest

Last weekend the three of us spent some time in Budapest, Hungary. We flew out Thursday(2/5) afternoon,(during Elliot's nap and thankfully he slept the whole flight!) and came back way too early Sunday am. We really enjoyed ourselves and thankfully there were a lot of pedestrian only streets so Elliot could get out walk and enjoy himself. Our hotel was in a great location, so Thursday night we went to dinner at place not from from us and walked around after. We of course had to have a traditional Hungarian Kürtőskalác for dessert. They are round and made from a sweet dough, wrapped around a cylinder, rolled in sugar and then cooked over coals. You can get different toppings and we went with the cinnamon one. Seriously amazing! Elliot of course loved it just as much as us.  

Our Kürtőskalác

Sharing with Papa

Thankfully, he shared with Mama

On Friday we had a big day of walking around and sightseeing. According to my fitbit we did over 22,000 steps! I had done some research on the city and we knew we wanted to spend a good amount of time in the Castle Hill area in Buda side of the city. We decided to take the cable car up since the hill was a bit steep for a stroller. To get to that area we walked across the Széchenyi Chain Bridge. When it was built it was the longest suspension bridge in Europe. It is one of the bridges connecting Buda and Pest. Unfortunately, it was pretty windy so we didn't spend as much time up there as we probably would have had it been nice out. We had lunch at a traditional Hungarian restaurant and walked around while Elliot napped in the stroller. We took a TON of pictures so here is a little sampling of them. 

Elliot barely peeking out 

Cable car up with hill

Mathias Church. The roof was an amazing mosaic pattern. So hard to capture in picture bit incredible to see in person. 

I loved all the different colors on the buildings

View of the Parliament building from Castle hill

First attempt of many family pictures

Looking out over the city

One of the best family pictures we got 

Not many pics of just the two of us anymore!(Elliot was napping in his stroller we didn't leave him out :) ) 

Our little explorer

I'll recap the rest of our trip later in the week!

Elliot Lately

Wow it has been awhile since I've written anything on here! After being in Minnesota for 3 weeks and adjusting to being back here, time just got away from me.

I thought I would share some of the things Elliot has been up to and things he's been saying. the kid seriously cracks us up.

Whenever he wants you to sit by him, he looks at us and says "by you" which comes out more like "by ya." It is impossible to not go and snuggle or sit by him.

Whenever he wants our attention he will grab our hand and say "come on mama/papa"

He loves pushing the button on the coffee maker in the morning to make my coffee. Now in the morning he walks over to the coffee maker and says "mama cupa?" As in cup of :)

He loves helping me cook. Here he is making sure the cheese sauce for the gnocchi tasted okay ;)

And baking cookies with Bente 

He also loves doing yoga with me, or as he says "oga" This is his best down dog. Which he calls dow dog

And here is a cute picture just because

I promise it won't be so long before I post again! 

Happy Monday!

London Part 2

On Saturday in London we woke up and knew we needed to get Elliot some running around time. We made our way over to the Princess Diana Memorial Playground in Kensington Gardens. We let Elliot run around the park on our way to the playground. Once we got there he was in heaven! And we actually saw Hugh Grant there playing with his little boy! When we left there Eliot crashed in the stroller and we headed to Trafalgar Square and had some lunch before our afternoon plans.

A little park bench snack

This squirrel followed us around the whole park

My little buddy

He over course loved the tractor at the playground

and the swing

Catching the changing of the guards

During the changing of the guards

We met up with Sam and Dan again and they took us to a little local spot for afternoon high tea. Under Westminster Abbey there is a place called a Cellarium. If you tell the guards at the back of the church they let you in. Elliot did surprisingly well, as long as we kept the treats coming :) 

Proper English tea!

Pinkies up! 

We flew out the next morning and got right to relaxing after a busy trip! We had such a great time in London and look forward to going back again some day!

Thanksgiving 2014

This year for Thanksgiving the three of us decided to go to London. Brent and I had each been separately, and wanted to go together. Plus our friends Sam and Dan moved to London this past summer and it was a great excuse to visit them. I really love London and any excuse to go is a good one :)

We left on Thanksgiving and unfortunately all three of us woke up that morning not feeling great. We powered through and got to our hotel. They were having a Thanksgiving dinner there and we all ate a little bit and were in bed embarrassingly early. We knew we wanted to feel better for the rest of the trip and that night of sleep really helped all of us.

Trying to enjoy a little Thanksgiving

Crammed in the tube!

We started our day with a walk over to Buckingham Palace

Saying hello to the Queen 

Elliot's new thing when taking pictures

A perfect London shot

After walking around a lot of the London landmarks, we made our way over to Covent Garden district. It was all decorated for Christmas and they even had a Santa! We had lunch at the Jamie Oliver restaurant and enjoyed reading an English menu!

Someone is excited for his lunch

One of the best cookies ever!

Covent Garden Santa- Made from legos! 

Our walk back to the hotel through Hyde Park

That night we met Sam and Dan for dinner. Elliot and I were only there for a little bit of time as it was way past his bedtime. Overall, our first day in London was great!

Chinese Lights at the Botanical Gardens

Two weekends ago, the Botanical gardens in Utrecht opened a winter display called Chinese Lights. We knew we had busy weekends coming up so we made sure to go opening weekend. It was pretty cool and a lot bigger than we thought it would be. It was so fun to watch Elliot take in all the lights. He kept looking and saying oooo, so sweet! We took a ton of pictures so here a just a few!

The entrance

So excited

All he wanted to do was touch them

Holland scene

So cool. The reflection was awesome 

Sinterklaas

We've had so many events lately that I need to write up about and really hope to get a bunch of them down this weekend! But I have to jump ahead of all of those and write about last night.

While we were eating dinner last night we heard a loud banging on our window. We were all a bit startled and so B went to check it out and when he opened the door he was greeted by quite the surprise. His employees dressed up as Sinterklaas and Zwarte Piet(Black Pete) as a surprise for us and Elliot. It was seriously so funny and super sweet of all of them to do that for us. Elliot was a little unsure of them at first but as soon as they started giving him pepernoten(traditional little such cookies that Zwarte Piet throws around) he was ok with them all. There is a lot of controversy right now over the Zwarte Piet and if it should be changed. I'm not going to weigh in on my thoughts but we definitely got the true Dutch experience last night. Hopefully, the pictures don't offend anyone and keep in mind it is the norm here.

Approaching Sinterklaas

A little unsure

Presents for Zwarte Piet

He loves his train set 

Finally a smile!

Group shot

I can truly say I think we have experienced just about every "Dutch" thing now!