Belgium

We are in Belgium!  Our trip across the pond was uneventful, which always makes me happy.  Erlan was extremely excited about riding on the airplane.  He also told everyone around us, "Daddy is on a different airplane."  Ben took a separate flight over (b/c the ticket was 600 dollars cheaper).  Erlan & I flew on my miles.  Here are two of the only pictures I took on the flight.  We were on one of the lovely trams in the Dulles aiport, which Erlan thought was great.  He's telling me "No cheese!"  He was too busy enjoying his "school bus ride."  In the 2nd, Erlan is totally engrossed in the Jungle Book.  The ear buds provided by the plane were horrible and didn't stay in his ears.  I must have put them in 100 times during the movie.  It really didn't matter b/c the jack had become unplugged and he couldn't hear anyway; however, he wanted the stupid things in his ears.  Agnes' father met us at the airport and took us to his house for breakfast complete with Belgian pastries.  Delicious!  

While we are here we have the luxury of staying with our friends Agnes and Sacha, whom we met through adoption.  We haven't seen Sacha in a year, and he has changed so much!  He was a baby when we last saw him, and now he's a toddler.  He's such a happy boy,  and he and Agnes clearly bring each other much joy.  Sacha is a year younger than Erlan, but he is almost taller than Erlan.  Here the boys are hugging each other good night.  Erlan is behind Sacha.  Notice that Sacha almost blocks Erlan from view.  In the nextpicture, you'll see that Sacha is almost bigger than Agnes.   

We 

did our first bit of sightseeing by walking around Agnes' neighborhood.  You'll notice that parking can be a bit of a problem here.  I'm so glad that I'm not driving.  We are standing outside of Agnes' house in the picture with the red car.  I will need to take pix of her house.  Ben and I both love it.

Today we enjoyed our first day of traipsing around Brussels with our own private tour guide, Agnes' father Emil.  He has an incredible depth of knowledge of Brussels and of the European Union.  He also speaks 7 languages, which has nothing to do with our tour but I think it's an incredible feat.  The pictures that I will post do not begin to do justice to the splendor of this place. I love walking around the city and

 seeing the mix of modern architecture with historic

 building. The red roofed buildings give a quaintness to this metropolis.  

We ended tonight's dinner with some chocolaty goodness.  You'll see that both boys loved it.  When Sacha saw it, he said, "Ooh, la la!"  We walked off our dinner later.  My boys took their color coordinated umbrellas and jackets.

Tomorrow we plan to go back to the Grand Place to look around some more.  I think I will have a waffle and a piece (or two) of chocolate.  As Erlan  would say, "See  ya later alligator!"