June - Star Wars & Lake Como Baby!

So it appears that we had to come to Belgium to experience a Star Wars exhibition. That’s how we started out June. We went with some State Department friends Jay knew in Lagos, Nigeria – we all have kids within a year of each other. We paid our respects to the Jedi Master Yoda and tried to begin the Star Wars indoctrination of James - at least we just want to make sure he knows the ways of the force and also understands that Jar Jar is lame. June, the month of our much anticipated trip to Lake Como in Italy, turned out to be much better than we expected – and we had pretty high expectations. It’s like Ferris Bueller said, “It’s so choice, if you have the means I highly recommend picking one up.” Ok, so you can’t really pick up a Lake Como but you get the point.

The pictures really don’t do it justice. It’s dotted with quaint little towns that have lovely villas over which you could easily break the 10th commandment. So back to Star Wars, much of the Nabu shots were at Lake Como – that’s where Amidala and Anakin picnicked, married, and delivered some of the most romantic and profound (LAME) lines of the whole series. Click on the Lake Como slide show on the right if you want to see more than what we included here.

We also spent one day in Milan and one day in Verona. Milan has The Last Supper by Leonardo Da Vinci which we got to see, very cool, spiritual, and amazing that it’s lasted all these years. In case you were wondering, John the Beloved does look a bit feminine but so did one of the other apostles – read the Da Vinci Code for details on this one.

So what did James like about the trip? It’s easily the gelato -- preferably mint. He didn’t care that his parents bought him a really cool backpack carrier he just wanted the gelato. I think his dad made an addict out of him. We are also glad to report that he only blew his pants out once, at the apartment where we were staying in Bellagio. Lots of random Italian ladies would come up to him and say, "Bello, bellisimo!"

James has aspirations to join the military – he’s commando crawling everywhere and he’s very speedy at it.


We suspect that he’ll grow up to do something involving electrical cords because we can’t keep him away from them. He held still long enough for Emily to confirm that he knows how to sit. He also likes to roar and will sometimes do it for hours.

May - Up to no good

We had an eventful month in May. We started it out with a visit to a Belgian Blue-bell forest. It’s a spectacular little forest just outside of Brussels with flowering plants that blossom every spring. We spent an hour hiking around and enjoying the blanket of purple-blue covering the ground. Jay only sneezed once or twice and James enjoyed looking around.

While Jay labored hard to save the free world, Emily went on several outings with a group of women from our ward. She visited a tapestry factory outlet just over the border in France. It definitely proved to be tapesterific. Em bought a couple of items but mostly wandered around wondering how the stuff was made. Fortunately, she happened upon the factory’s loom museum where a man showed the ladies how the machines worked. It was really amazing but also very loud…Buster didn’t like that part.

Emily also visited the royal gardens Leopold II built during his reign. He started out bringing plants from his personal colony in Africa and needed a place to house them. The gardens and greenhouses grew from there and are truly spectacular. The greenhouses are mostly linked and the complex is huge and covers acres of land.

Em and Buster also visited an abandoned castle (Beersel). Apparently Victor Hugo stayed there at one time and did some writing…although not any of his famous pieces. Em and Buster also visited a chocolate factory with an outlet. Em reports that the place smells awesome! Three kilos of chocolate costs 30 Euros. Any takers?

Buster James keeps growing. He’s got a little snaggle-tooth breaking through his lower gum. So far, he’s not too grumpy about it. Buster still doesn’t sit unassisted, but maybe it’s because he just gets bored with sitting. He has started to get up on his hands and knees and dive for stuff… so we don’t think it will be long before he’s crawling. Buster has a funny personality and makes really funny faces. The problem is that whenever we get a camera out to catch them he goes stone-serious. Just before bed time he giggles and laughs like a crazy person. It really makes the exploding poopie diapers worth it. You’ll be glad to know that with the onset of solid food something else becomes more solid…well you get the picture. Of course, nearly all of you have experienced this already and the others will have the opportunity to very soon.

Here's a video of him jumping like a fool.

Biker Dude

We stopped by our neighbor's house the other day and she had us put Buster on their bike. He looks so natural on it. He'll never do this again - at least till he's 18 but hopefully all the public service commercials we get on the Armed Forces Network TV will teach him to ride safely.

March & April 2008 - Namur, Keukenhof, and Delft

Since we didn’t write last month, we’ll try to summarize both March and April.

We didn’t do much in March except that Jay’s sister came to visit us. So we did a tour guide of Brussels, Bruges, and Antwerp. Antwerp is known for fabulous shopping, the diamond district, and Peter Paul Rubens (Flemish artist known for paintings of scantily-clad, chubby folks). Heather brought along Becky Bell, a friend from law school. For those that don’t know the history of Bim and Jay… it all started at Becky Bell’s place. When a small group of us went to visit Heather in Boston, Becky graciously let us stay at her apartment. It was at Becky Bell’s house that Jay declared his love for Bim and the rest is history.

In April, we took a trip with some friends to Namur, which is a major city in southern Belgium. It is a nice town with some strategic advantage because it has a fortified citadel. This means that it has been conquered and reconquered about 50 times during various military skirmishes over the centuries.

We also took a trip to Keukenhof Gardens in Holland. It’s the most photographed place in the world according to their website. It also claims to be the world’s largest flower garden with seven million bulbs planted annually. It really did live up to our expectations. We saw a ton of flowers. Some tulips were no bigger than Bim’s finger and some were the size of her head. The gardens were only partially-bloomed (some tulips weren’t up yet) but it really did enchant and amaze us. “Nowhere else in the world are the flowers and colors of spring as glorious as at Keukenhof.” (We should be Keukenhof spokespersons, huh!)

The same day we visited Delft, birthplace of the famous blue and white pottery. We learned that most of the blue and white stuff you see at the stores is fake because the name Delft isn’t trademarked. The real, hand-painted pottery is only produced at three factories in Delft. The famous Flemish painter Vermeer (Girl with a Pearl Earring) comes from Delft. Emily got very excited when we discovered that VanLeeuwenhoek also comes from Delft. The doctors of the family may recognize his name as the father of microbiology; he invented the microscope.

James has grown a bit (nearly 14 pounds now). He’s rolling over and squirming around. We’re trying to get him to sit up but he loves to slouch. He’s got more hair on his head but it’s so light you can barely see it. He loves to jump in his jumper chair and is squealing a lot now. Also, he likes to grab people’s faces.