2-8 April 2011

Here's grandchild #22, the fourth one born while we've been on our mission. Here's Heather with little Averie Schnegelberger, born April 1, 2011 in Raleigh, North Carolina. All is well and we've talked on Skype so we've got a first hand look at this cute little girl.

Our P-day last week was a trip to Ostende, a beach town on the North Sea - about 1.5 hrs from Brussels. We drove with the Assistants. It was 70 degrees and sunny and the beach was packed - Belgiums love the sun when it comes out.

As the elders were running around on the beach and throwing baseballs around, we went for a walk along the ocean and then along the pier.

There were many of these colorful booths selling seafood - it looked just a little scary to me, but a lot of it looked more normal.

Here we are along the beach.

Monday we celebrated Sister Brubaker's birthday - we made a rich chocolate cake in the crockpot with vanilla ice-cream.

We were in Leuven one day, finishing up the apartment we're fixing up as elders will soon move back to that city. I liked this old boat, filled with flowers, right beside the canal with other boats in the water behind it. We got the apartment all fixed up and cleaned up so that was a good feeling.

Yay, more family came to visit! Shelly and Jonny arrived on Wednesday from Paris at the Brussels train station, where we hugged and cried a little and then were off! It's been so great to have them here.

Of course the first place we took them was to the Grand Place and wandered around for a while - here we are in a candy shop, buying a few treats for their kids.

Here we are in Brussels, near the Grand Place.

And of course, their first taste of Belgian waffles - they're always a hit.

The next day we went to Brugge - here we are, wandering around, and I'm being the tour guide.

The weather couldn't have been better - almost 70 degrees, blue skies, everywhere. And this particular day was the least crowded we've ever seen Brugge. This is one of the pictures from the canal ride we took. In the background is the bell tower - one of the Brugge landmarks.

We climbed the bell tower - about 375 steps up and this is one of the views of the city we saw looking down. This is the first time we've climbed this tower.

We wanted to show the size of some of the bells at the top.

This is the bell tower that we climbed. Three hundred plus steps on a really tight spiral staircase.

The stairwell was super tiny, winding, and if you came across someone going up while you were going down, you really had to squish to get by. Once we encountered about 30 school kids yelling and screaming as they ran down as we were going up. That wasn't so fun.

This is the little tea room above our favorite hot chocolate store - We got huge cups of hot chocolate and these pretty Belgian waffles with strawberries.

Here's the size of the hot chocolate that Jonny got - it's delicious! Kind of like drinking a chocolate bar.

The horse and carriages are everywhere in Brugge, taking people on tours of the city.

This is a little convent in the middle of the city - gated, very peaceful and quiet. The daffodils are growing in the lawn.

This is called "the lake of love". We got a kick out of it, but it was very pretty.

This is the castle we stayed in for the night, about 10 kilometers outside of Brugge in the country. It was built in the 12th century.

It's surrounded by a moat, of course, and very picturesque.

This is the front as we walk in. Notice the old gas lamp.

We had a kind of family room with 3 bedrooms, all antique furniture. We had to climb up several flights of stairs as we were at the top - this is the sitting room area off of our bedroom. It was kind of rustic, a little rough around the edges, a little cold and dark, with high ceilings, winding staircases, hallways going everywere - I felt like I was in Wuthering Heights or Jane Eyre! Then at dusk we noticed bats flying all around outside! Added to the eeriness of it all.

This was our bedroom - see how the bed had these curtains around it?

Loel took this picture outside our bedroom window in the morning as the sun came up.

We had a great Belgium breakfast in our castle in the morning.

Here are Shelly and me (Jonny's taking the picture) on a cool bike ride through the countryside around our castle B&B. It was really fun until right before we got back and I crashed! I was talking to the Assistants on my cell phone and hit the handbrake too hard with my other hand and crashed. Now I have a swollen front lip, bruised cheekbones, a sore rib, and some sore hands, but no major damage, thank goodness. My vanity was probably more hurt than my body! Jonny helped me clean it up while Shelly sat on the ground getting faint at the blood! So this was the first time I've ridden a bike on my whole mission and I crash. I probably won't ride again - or else I won't talk on the cell phone while I ride.

This is the Chinese pavillon in Brussels that we drove the kids by to see. - and showed them the Japanese tower, too.

We always have to show our visitors our cool view of the Brussels skyline from the office. It was fun to show Shelly and Jonny where we work.

We wanted them to see the cool wooden elephants outside the African Congo museum in this big park. A fisherman caught a huge fish from the lake right as we were walking by and we got to watch the whole process - taking pictures, etc and then he threw it back, which made me happy.

Pretty flowers in front of the African museum - notice the elephants in the background.

This is a really interesting fountain of African animals playing musical instruments in front of the museum.