The first visitor, in late September, was my friend Renée. She and I have been friends since we were in jr high and having her here was great! It's fun to play tour guide around our town and the unique towns in our area. And having someone to show around is a great excuse to go to all my favorite cities, restaurants and cafés. Renée and I spent time in Kortrijk and Marke (where we live) and also in Brugge (2 different days, it's such a special town) and Ieper. But the HIGHLIGHT of her visit was a 4-day girls weekend in Paris! We caught the fast train to Paris (with less than 2 minutes to spare before the wheels started rolling!) and made it to Gare du Nord, checked into our hotel and were walking up to Montmartre by 11:00 Thursday morning. (First pic is us having (expensive) coffee, tea and croissants on the main corner in Montmartre.)
Between then and Sunday night at 8, we walked all over, went in a few places, had lunch at small cafés, went to the top of the Eiffel Tower, out to Verseille, and hung out. Some highlights of the weekend were our champagne toast and half hour hanging out at the top of the Eiffel Tower, going into Sacré Coeur and St. Chapel, walking the Latin Quarter, touring Montmartre at night, and finding little cafés for lunch each day. We laughed until we cried more than once, took an insane number of pictures (especially considering almost all were taken of the two of us, always in the same position, at arm's length. Our running joke was that we'd have all these pictures of us that looked the same except for the touristy thing behind us), and we enjoyed everything.
We managed to get to the Musée D'Orsay on Sunday when it was free entrance, we had an unbelievably short line when waiting to go up in the Eiffel Tower, and the day we went out to Verseille, which was supposed to be the rainiest of the weekend, ended up being the most sunny of the weekend. Everything seemed to go our way. Sunday night we headed to the train station feeling like we did all we had hoped to do and more!
Just under 2 weeks later, Kevin's parents came for a visit. They had spent a week in Provence, in the south of France, before coming north to Belgium, so they were over jet-lag and ready for 5 days with us. We had our normal busy weekend full of sports and they were able to see nearly all the boys' games. We played games and hung out between matches. Monday, when Kevin was at work and the boys were back at school, Shrimp, Tricia and I went to Antwerp for a few hour of touring. Tuesday we made sure to go to the market so they could stock up on Belgium chocolates to take back with them and Wednesday morning they took the train back to Brussels for their return flight. It was a very fun visit.
Next up my mom will be here with us for the holidays. We're very excited to have Grammy here, and to spend our first Christmas in Belgium. (We went back to Oregon for our first Christmas after moving here and were in Egypt last Christmas.) She'll be here for 2 weeks and after the boys are out of school and Kevin takes time off work we plan to go to some of the cities around here to see their Christmas lights, we'll go ice skating, and enjoy all the hoopla. On Christmas day we'll go to mass at a church in town where Jordan and Nathan's school chorus will be singing. Should sound beautiful in the stone church.
As of now, there aren't any visitors scheduled to come after the new year. Hopefully things will come together for others to visit, and we still have a few trips on our wish list to try to make before we move back next summer.
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