#1 fans

Tonight my two oldest went to bed crying.

We watched Real Madrid vs. Bayern Munich

and Barcelona vs. Chelsea.  

Micah is a Real fan (Ronaldo) and Asher is a Barcelona fan (Messi).  

It was the semi-final round.

Both their teams lost.

Sobs were heard, shouts of "I'm never watching soccer again" were said...

their pillows were wet from the tears (I am so serious).  They are passionate about soccer, and they are passionate about their teams.

Better luck next time.

We're still their #1 fans.

Spring Break (European style)

We are seriously so spoiled.  When we were trying to decide where to go for spring break, the possibilities were endless.  

Since Jude has been somewhat of a, ehem, difficult child, we thought we would do something close and somewhat relaxing.  

So we decided on...(does this pic. give you a clue?)

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Holland!

We left on Monday and came back on Saturday-a whole week of fun! 

We almost canceled because the forecast said rain ALL week, thankfully we decided to go ahead and only had rain on Monday.  The rest of the week was beautiful!

The first day we headed into Zaanse Schans.  It is a historical Holland village with working windmills, shops, etc. (aka a tourist trap, but we loved it!).

 It was about 40 degrees so we headed to get some ice cream.

Micah had a little mishap with his and it started sliding down the cone.  The whole thing was going, so he just started eating as fast as he could.  Memories.

 The first pic (cheese) was at the cheese shop.  They had samples all through the store.  Needless to say, we had a lot of cheese...and left with a lot too.

 Wooden shoe shop.  

So fun and really interesting.  We got to watch the shoes being made too.

 Wooden shoes for all occassions.  Above are Sunday clogs.  I'm not sure what the ones below were used for, but I thought they were fun!

 We headed to Amsterdam for the first two days of the trip.  I have just reread "The Diary of Anne Frank,"  "The Hiding Place," and for the first time "Night."

There were two thing I really wanted to do while in Amsterdam-The Anne Frank house and the Van Gogh museum.  Unfortunately the Anne Frank house was sold out of tickets on line, so I just thought I'd go super early and get my tickets.  Um, no.  We got there early and the line was already about a 2-3hour wait.  Dudi had already been on a previous trip, so Micah and I were the only ones going to do it, but we just couldn't wait that long.  Dudi promised we would come back and I'll do it next time.  We did get to see the church right next to the house.  If you read the book, you know she kept track of time by hearing the bells of a church...this church.  We did get to hear the bells while there, so that was really cool.

 

I did get online tickets to the Van Gogh museum though.  It was fabulous!! They give out scavenger hunts for the kids, so even they were entertained.

 Favorite pieces.

Micah's-Van Gogh's self portrait

Asher's-The Apples (obscure painting, but really neat)

Olivia's-anything with flowers/the blossoms

Mine-Van Gogh's self portrait

Dudi's-Van Gogh's self portrait and The Harvest

 I've never been a huge fan of Van Gogh's self portrait...until seeing it in person. AMAZING. No replica does it justice.  He was such a talented artist.  The museum was awesome.  I couldn't believe I was seeing the real deal.  I studied these things in art history courses, but now I was actually seeing them in person!!  Sorry, art gets me excited.

After the museum we headed to the city park.  

I love how the big cities have gorgeous parks all over!

 We do a lot of walking on our trips. Like, A LOT.  

What can I say, we are sightseers.

Most people don't do that much while they are here because it's hard with kids.  We are going the other direction and figure if we do it enough, they'll get use to it.  

We can hope anyways!

Sometimes they need a break though, and then they climb on Dudi.

 Everything was so picturesque.

There are more canals here than in Venice.  It's gorgeous.  Too bad it really is a Godless city.  I actual took a wrong turn down into the redlight district.  Um, lets just say I saw more than I wanted to, and hurried and back tracked before the kids followed!  Where is the self dignity people?!  Coffee shops there are also legalized drug depots.  

Seriously.

It's free pot use.

Gorgeous city, but probably one of the first to go before the Second Coming.  Just my opinion.

 The kids on "the" sign.

 A "Harry Potter" sized chess game in the middle of the square.

 The local cuisine.  

Friet=yummy fries with a mayo sauce (not like our mayo).

 Olivia's favorite pastime.

We ended our trip with a canal boat ride.  It was a great time.  I love how EVERYONE bikes around there.  They even have bike parking garages-there are really that many!

Next up...the Windmills and the rest of the trip!

You've got a friend

These two...

 crack me up. 

I never know if they are gonna come downstairs as Jesse/Buzz (and yes, I do know that the Jesse costume is about 3 sizes too small-that makes it even better), Ron/Hermione, Elizabeth Swan/Jack Sparrow, etc.

 They have always been close. 

 Asher is her protector and Olivia is his partner in crime.  

 

I overheard a conversation between the two the other day.

Asher:  Olivia, who is your best friend?

Olivia:  Isabel.  Or maybe Clara, or Lizzy.

Asher:  Now ask me who my best friend is.

Olivia: Asher, who's your best friend?

Asher:  You.  

Yep.  

That pretty much sums it up.  

Olivia then went on to say that he was her best friend too.

I hope they will always be best friends.

(After all, isn't that why we have more than one kid?!!!)

Easter fun

 It's been a couple weeks since Easter, so I guess that means I'm due for my Easter post :)

This Easter was quiet and we just spent it with our family.   

We dyed eggs, looked for baskets, ate yummy food, and remembered the reason we celebrate Easter.

 (dying eggs)

 (Jude's first Easter)

 (Dudi left me a message on one egg)

I made Olivia's easter dress and was planning on making the boys all matching ties.  Turns out Olivia was sick and I stayed home from church with her, so she didn't wear her dress, so I didn't make the boys wear anything but the normal church clothes-they couldn't care less what they looked like!

Like I said, it was a quiet day, but we remembered our Savior and the importance of the Resurrection. 

  We have so much to be grateful for and we are so blessed.

Milano (2 days)

So after our fun in Genova, we headed to Milan.  I was really excited to be able to go there for a couple days since we hadn't had time when Dudi and I took our trip to Italy a couple years ago.

It did not disappoint!

 The first thing you see when you walk out of the metro is the Duomo.

It is beautiful...and huge!  At the time it was built it was built to house all of Milan.  It holds @ 40,000 people!  That's a stadium!

 Right next to the Duomo is the Galleria.  

Almost equally impressive!  It was gorgeous.  The galleria is THE shopping district.  It houses, prada, Louis Vuitton, gucci, etc. -you know the expensive stores.

 This is me outside the Galleria. 

 This is me (and the gang) inside the Galleria.  A-ma-zing!

Don't I look like I belong there?  

So, Dudi was sweet and took the kids out to the square and told me to do some shopping. 

I'm a bag girl-as in, I love bags, purses, totes.

I thought I'd try Gucci.  I should have known when a white gloved man opened the door for me, that this was not gonna be pretty.  As I looked around at the bags I overheard another lady in the store ask the sales woman how much a certain bag was (cause they don't have price tags on them!).  I was expecting a few hundred, but when she said, "oh, that one is $1,300."  I just left.  I mean seriously.  That's a semester of college for one of my kids.  I'll just keep my cheerio filled, toy holder (also known as my current bag), thank you.

This is the only store in the Galleria where we did buy stuff.  Naturally, it was the sports store!  There were the nicest workers in there.  They asked about all the kids and their interests.  When Olivia introduced herself, the workers were all "Olivia! Olivia!"  They liked that it was an Italian name.  We should have told them Jude's name was Nikolas (his middle name.  They would have liked that too!)

 

 The highlight of the trip for Micah was the afternoon in the park.  We found this great park right outside the square and decided it would be a great place for lunch.  Dudi headed off to find some lunch (which naturally ended up being pizza) and I stayed at the park with the kids.  Micah was bummed when he saw ALL the different groups of people playing soccer.  I told him to go ask a couple boys near us if he could play with them, but he said, "No, they don't even speak English."
A few minutes later, those same boys came over to us and started talking...in Italian.  I just said, "English?" and he responded, "oh, I speak some English. Do you want to play?"  Micah and Asher took of and for the next 1 1/2 hours played soccer with the Italian kids.

 More kids joined the game.  It ended up being about 8 kids total.  It was great.

 The view from our bed and breakfast.  It was beautiful.

 The next day we headed to the "Last Supper."  It was so, so cool.  You can't take pics of it, but this is the outside of the building it is in.  Your ticket buys you 15minutes to look at the painting.  It was worth it. 

Dudi loves Cathedrals.  Traveling with kids makes you have to pick and choose.  Saint Ambrosia's cathedral was a goodie though.

 I had to laugh when I saw Liv "directing music" in front of one of the information stands.

 So cute.

 To keep the kids entertained, we try and find amusing pictures throughout the cathedrals.  This one was a winner.  Asher says he is wearing his sisters shorts that are way too short.  Now that I look at this, is that a body over his shoulder?  Um, didn't even notice that.

 I love this picture.  

Dudi in his element, followed by the kids.  

 The reason this church was so cool is because Ambrosia is buried there. 

 Creepy, yes. 

But still cool.

And before you think the kids were too well behaved...

 this is the "I need Gelato face."

 Then we know we have reached another stopping point and head off for a Gelato break.

 Outside a castle.  We ate lunch here on the second day (pizza, again :))

 The kids doing handstands inside the castle grounds.

We entertain ourselves, and all those around us.

 One of the coolest things we did is go on the roof of the Duomo (see the second picture of the post). The ticket people thought we were crazy for climbing all the way to the top with the kids...so they didn't make us pay for any of them-sweet!!

 The kids on the roof.

 The view looking down.

 Taking a break on the roof. It was a long way up!

 Finally we headed back to our B & B tired and ready for...

 dinner!  I think we sampled every kind of pizza while we were there!

Micah was in heaven. He could eat pizza for every meal.  That's his Italian side coming through!

Milan was wonderful.  

I really loved it.