Berlin, Germany

This is the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin.

What an amazing history Berlin has! In the picture above, K is pointing to bullet holes in a building from WWII. I can't imagine finding bullet holes on walls in Indianapolis from a war.

We were astounded by the stories of landmarks our tour guide relayed. For the people living in Berlin, it seemed as if the Berlin Wall went up basically overnight. Families were separated from each other, some on the Western side, while others were stuck on the Eastern side. Western people could enter the Eastern side, but Easterners were trapped. People went to drastic measures to reunite, or just plain escape from the Eastern side. One man and his family zip lined from a restroom inside a building where he was employed as a janitor. He sailed right over the wall, onto the other side. His little son was so scared to go that he bribed him with a new bike if they made it safely to the other side. This and other stories came to life in the museum we visited.

Here are the kids standing along the graffiti filled wall. Below is another view of the wall. It's immenseness is overwhelming.

The bricks represent where the wall stood throughout the city.

Checkpoint Charlie was where people could cross back and forth.

At one point of the walking tour we supposedly were standing directly above the bunker of Adolf Hitler.

At this eerie location, there are two levels of Berlin's past. The brick offices toward the bottom of the picture were used for Hitler's offices, and the Berlin Wall stands directly above.

We walked through the Holocaust Memorial.

Part of it seemed small, then at other times I was scared of losing my child around the next corner.

Luckily, we brought them both back home safely!

St. Petersburg, Russia

Normally people need a visa to enter Russia, but tourists exploring the country with a cruise line are exempt from that rule. The only problem is you are required to stay with the cruise tour guides. With all the drama going on back home with trying to purchase a house and quickly move back to the other side of the pond before schools in Indiana start, K had no time whatsoever to try and research Russia. So, we just blindly signed up for the "Best of St. Petersburg" tour. It had to take us to the BEST places, right? All we really needed to see was the famously photographed Russian building, the Church of Our Savior on Spilled Blood (which at that time we had no idea what it was called, but had seen it many pictures of it). Well, apparently it didn't make the cut. So, K and I were touring around in St. Petersburg's museums all day, while listening to oh so boring facts about the city thinking, "When will we get to the Spilled Blood Church? Well, that never happened. We weren't the only disappointed ones. A sly American family was organizing a plan to leave the tour to walk down and get their prized picture since we were just a few blocks away...I saw it in the works (the teacher in me) with all their wispers and glancing around, but K and I are too much of rule followers that we just couldn't get the nerve to do it too. Those rebels! But, they got the picture. I came very close to asking them to e-mail a copy to me so I could pretend to claim it as my own.

Even though we didn't come home with our prized picture, Catherine's Palace was one of the highlights that made "The Best of St. Petersburg" list. Inside was one of our all-time favorites...an amber room. There were all kinds of amber stones and mosaics made with amber glued to the wall. It was pretty incredible.

After quite an exciting lunch of Russian entertainment, we continued on our tour, visiting the Peter and Paul Fortress.

Tallinn, Estonia

Ruins of St. Birgit's Convent in Talllinn.

We loved this! Alexander Nevsky Cathedral just had a beautiful facade.

Stockholm, Sweden

Kinda funny that yet another European city is called the "Venice of the North."

Our next stop, Stockholm, allowed us to tour a rescued sunken ship that was built top-heavy with war ammunition. During it's unveiling, it sailed less than a nautical mile in 1628. It was left at the bottom of the ocean when rediscovered in the 1950s while a hull was sticking out of the water. The Swedes pretty much built this museum (above) around the ship (below) after recovering it from the water. The kids saw skeletons found in the ship, but we decided those pictures might be a little morbid.

We are leaving Sweden behind, glancing for some nice summer homes in the area.

This house was secluded on it's own island.
This was our favorite to dream about owning.

MSC Poesia First Stop - Copenhagen, Denmark

During our month long return to the States, we found out we were moving back to America. Quickly, we found a house to purchase, flew back to Belgium, cleaned out some items we didn't need to move back with us, and boarded our last cruise as expatriots. This one was a northern European cruise with the first stop being Denmark.

Thatch roofs were all around in the quaint fishing village of Dragor.



This was in Copenhagen - the Amalienborg Palace.

This was just a little walking tour we did through part of the city.

The Surprise I was not Expecting (No, I'm not pregnant)

After recuperating from jetlag and the vomits, were were finally able to start enjoying our relaxing month of a summer break in the States. One day while making hair barrettes to match J's uniform on the family room floor of my parents' house (forest green is difficult to find), I was stunned when K walked in from work to tell me I might not want to make any more. I thought he was just being rude and insinuating that I was making too many. I only had 3 completely done. A girl needs multiple ones when she wears a uniform 5 days a week! "I'm serious," he said, "we might not be going back to Belgium." My heart stopped as quick as my jaw dropped. Where on earth did this come from? We were in the clear to enjoy another school year of traveling during breaks, driving my princess company car, having coffees and lunches with girlfriends, living in Europe!

After a silent few seconds, he said, "You don't want to come back to the States? Do you?" No, not really. You see, to live abroad (for me at least) I need to prepare mentally, psychologically, and emotionally for this. I know it sounds snotty, but this is a girl who has not ventured far from home. It's not like Belgium is a third world country or anything, but still, it's away from family (my 87 year old grandma is NOT getting any younger), all in french (which we still have not even begun to master), and sometimes can take 3 times as long to get simple tasks accomplished because of the language barrier and cultural differences. For me, I just have to prepare myself and remember that the US is not perfect either. AND I WAS PREPARED! We were in the process of booking and paying for an African safari for Christmas, and were thinking of skiing in February. Visiting Ireland needed to fall somewhere in there too. I was thilled to be coming back to Belgium for another year!

It turns out his old boss resigned leaving K as the leading candidate for a promotion. I'm thankful for the blessing of my husband's bosses finding favor with him, but I still was prepared for Belgium.

Well, the funny thing is my husband asked while packing our suitcases for our visit if he would need a suit for anything. Hindsight is 20/20 that's for sure. $700 later (tall boys just can't wear any suit), along with endless nights of preparing for interviews, we found out indeed K did receive the promotion, only 5 days before our plane was to leave for Belgium. Quickly, our flights were pushed back to the next Wednesday so we could house hunt. I was eager to find a house so we would have the comfort of knowing which school the kids would attend.

Saturday was our Amazing Race day to find a house. Our realtor informed us she was taking us to more houses than she had ever shown in one day. Good. We needed one badly! After walking through 11 houses, I wanted to just cry with frustration. Either the kitchens weren't big enough for us to comfortably eat as a family on a kitchen table, or the basements were built 20+ years ago and K couldn't even stand up straight in them. I thought we'd just have to settle on one that kind of worked. After discussing our frustrations with my parents, it dawned on us that we didn't have to settle. If we needed to, we could just live in an apartment for a few months until we found a house in which we ALL fit.


Sunday consisted of church and then more house hunting by means of open houses in the area. That proved productive since we did find one that pleased every member of the family. So, we quickly put an offer in on the house and made plans for our return to close. The next few weeks would be just as crazy going on our northern Baltic cruise we had planned months prior, returning to Belgium to pack up the house, and moving back home again to Indiana.

There's Gotta Be a Club for People Like My Son

So we were off to Indy for our first visit in 18 months and the kids and I were thrilled! Our kids both woke the morning of our flight out of Brussels with tummy aches. I realized this could become a crazy morning so I packed a big Ziploc baggie in my purse just in case. Sure enough, within 15 minutes of our 35 minute ride, R really had to vomit, so I whipped out my baggie (much to my husband's surprise) to alleviate any mess in the van. The driver K always uses (so we didn't have to pay for parking for an entire month) probably realized after the 5th episode that something suspicious was going on back there. My husband thought I was the best wife in the world as he knows I don't usually carry baggies in my purse, so he knew I had come prepared!

Upon arriving to the airport, we encountered another expat family heading back to the States. The mom of that family had issues with the other end, so we exchanged meds in the airport...she had Motilium for nausea and I had Immodium for the other. Perfect!

We boarded the flight and R rested while watching a few movies and playing some video games. Exiting that plane without any drama was wonderful!

Stuck in JFK airport for a few hours, and then a few more, and then a few more after that, the kids both ended up sleeping on the airport floor as it was about 2AM our time. We were in the process of pulling an all nighter while trying to make it back to Indy. Finally, we boarded the plane only to wait on the hot tarmac for another hour. This is when the nightmare happened. R (sitting next to K) felt the urge again and K couldn't whip out a bag soon enough, so chunks flew everywhere. I'm talking the guy seated behind him even needed a wipe. It was absolutely horrible! It didn't help either that the lady behind us was making sounds like, "Oh no! Oh, gross!" while holding her shirt over her nose. Grow up! As if we weren't embarrassed enough!

Poor little guy! He couldn't help it. So, I was about to cry when the stewardess approached and asked, "What would you like to do?" Well, at that point we could either taxi back to the airport, find a taxi to a hotel, and try again the next day IF any flights were available, OR we could just keep going and get to Indy. I told her we just needed to get home. The kids had been traveling all day and it would take the same amount of time to get to a bed either way, so we might as well still head to Indy. Besides, he had already stunk up the plane. There wasn't anything worse that could happen now.

The funny thing is always when kids are talking to each other in the back seat of the car. We were bringing another little boy to come swimming with us when the subject of airplanes came up and the other little guy confessed that he had vomited on a plane before. That's when R piped up, "Oh yeah, me too!" That's when I thought to myself, "Hmmmm...there's gotta be a club for this!" Wonder what they call it?