The Miller Family Adventures: Aunt MB's visit, Easter and Keukenhof, take 2...

The end of March found us with four visitors - my Aunt Mary Beth, her two kids, Jake and Mollie, and their friend, Whitney. I, unfortunately lost the memory card containing ALL of the pictures from their visit (that's all I can say about that yet, I'm still quite upset...) so I have no actual documentation that they were here, but our memories...sniff. Actually that's not quite true - I did get a few pictures printed out prior to losing the card that I wanted to send to them, so I do have those. Anyway, enough of my troubles. We had a great time - and I think they did too. They were able to do quite a bit of traveling while they were here - around Brussels, Amsterdam, Paris and Germany - and they have quite a few amusing stories to go along with them. We rented a car and the five of us drove to Trier, Germany (otherwise known as 'The Homeland,' per Mary Beth) to see the place where our ancestors came from. I had been there already when my mom and dad visited last year, but it was fun to see again. And this time, we were able to do so without the guide of our GPS, which for whatever reason decided to stop working the morning we were set to leave. This made for a rather interesting trip through the German countryside!

We were able to once again meet up with our (distant) cousins who are from Fohren, Germany. They invited us over for an incredible German dinner - one of my faves, schnitzel. The one thing we had all wanted to do there was to see the cemetery and grave site of our Great- great- great- great- great Grandfather, Jacob Breitbach, who sent his sons over to America, and whom we're all descended from. After a fruitless (but still very interesting) ramble through Trier's large cemetery, it was pointed out to us that Jacob was buried in the village he came from, a little town along the Mosel River not too far from Fohren. So after staying in this great little castle town, Cochem, along the Mosel Friday night we went back to get the guided tour of this cemetery. As we were waiting for our 'tour guides' we meandered through the cemetery and began to get a little confused...as the oldest grave marker we saw was from 1995. What?! How could this be?? Surely my uncle, who's been there and has talked about seeing Jacob's grave, along with the people who were giving us the tour had to be mistaken - this must be the wrong cemetery. But no, apparently when enough time passes, they simply scoop everyone out and begin anew, and this, for whatever reason, never came up in conversation. Anyway, although a little disappointing, the town church, built in the 13th century, was beautiful to see, as was the town where our ancestors apparently came from. And not to be outdone, our tour guides happened to know of some other Breitbach's living in the town, so they simply went up, knocked on their door, and before we knew it, we were all standing in the driveway taking pictures. It's really amazing to think that a decision made over a century ago by one man paved the path for me - I could just as easily been the one on the other side of that door looking at these strange Americans wanting to have their picture taken with me...

Anyway, we had a great time with them - especially the boys! They're still talking about them - at least once a day Bo says he has to 'tell Mollie something.'

The boys had the week before and the week after Easter off, and it was a lot of fun to have them home for two weeks. We filled our days with Easter crafts, baking and play dates - time went too fast!

Celebrating my birthday. I had a very lovely birthday this year - a play date, a real date, Pizza Hut and tickets to Madonna!

An Easter Egg Hunt. They're very popular around here. Our church also hosted one after Easter mass, but unfortunately I didn't have my camera.

Bo and his buddy Jaxon.

Painting eggs

Baking cookies - Bo proclaims himself to be a 'very good baker.'

Decorating cookies

He loves sprinkles - and as I don't foresee too many more cookie decorating days prior to us moving back to the states, and we can't move any food products back with us, I just let him go to town:)

Coloring eggs

Easter morning!

We had our friends the Gallos and the Weinbergs over for Easter brunch after mass - it was great celebrating a holiday here with friends.

The kids table

Everybody got their own egg at their place setting.

The boys and I made cookie bouquets.

One of probably eight eggs Bo peeled that day.

Our nightly Uno game.

Will lost.

Last Saturday we drove to Holland to try and redeem ourselves and the trip we took to the see the flowers last year. Last year we were a few days too late, and all the fields were already harvested - it was quite disappointing. This year, we were bound and determined to actually see some tulips growing in the fields, and I'm happy to report we got it right this time. It's been quite a dreary, cool spring here in Belgium, but the flower gods even blessed us with some sunshine that day.

Will loves a good zip line:)

They had a cute little petting zoo inside the park.

Bo was just beside himself that these goats were on the table - he kept yelling at them to get off, and still will not stop talking about it - he even brought it up again today.

He thought he'd take matters into his own hands.

Then resorted to trying to scare them off with his karate moves.

Reminds me of something out of The Wizard of Oz. Bo pointed out that it looks like a rainbow - which is actually very true - wonder if they planned it that way?

A 'river'

It was a great day - made ten times better by the presence of the sun!! Last spring was unbelievably nice here; I think that what we're experiencing now is more true to form for Belgium, but come on, enough rain and gloom already!

Lots of rain in Belgium = lots of rainbows...presented to you by Wolverine:)

In the last two weeks we've fish-sat, dog-sat and cat-sat (I actually just had to go check on and feed the cats - there isn't enough money in the world that would convince me to keep two cats in our house). Here's the dog, Moose. He was a great dog to have - the boys were thrilled - great entertainment for a few days.

For the last six weeks or so, we've been dealing with a dental issue with Bo. Almost a year ago he got ran over by his little friend on her tricycle. He ended up with a cut lip and a very slightly chipped front tooth which felt a little loose for a few days, but then seemed to resolve. Fast forward about eight months and I began to notice a little discoloration in that tooth. About six weeks ago I noticed a very large bump above the tooth, and after I got over mom/pediatric oncology nurse fears and actually assessed the situation with a clear head, I realized the two were probably related. As luck would have it, I had already scheduled dentist appointments for both boys, and it was confirmed it was indeed an abscessed tooth - the dentist actually referred to it as 'dead.' Fast forward another five weeks, two rounds of antibiotics, and three dentists later, and Bo no longer has that tooth. They were going to try and do a root canal (which I still cannot get over - doing a root canal on a three-year-old), but the third and final dentist insisted there was no other solution - the infection was too great and there was no getting the tooth back, so she pulled it. I'm still not sure if that was the right decision - there was certainly a language barrier - but there's no going back now. To say Bo was upset would be putting it very, very mildly. They gave him gas, and numbed up the area - which was painful to watch - and the tooth was already quite loose, so it came out like a breeze, but he was not a happy camper. I think that the gas also made him a little loopy - he kept saying 'naughty lady, she took my tooth! I want it back!!' It probably would've been very funny if I didn't feel so bad for him. But he recovered, and the tooth fairy visited last night, which he thought was very cool.