July 17-23, 2010

Brad and Emily were still with us this week so be prepared for lots of pictures of many sights!! Saturday we spent first taking them to our favorite farmer's market where we bought lots of veges for the salad we made on Monday - Emily was so excited as she found some spices she bought that she can't find in the US.
This picture above is in Brugge, which is where we spent the rest of our day. It's the Michelangelo sculpture "Madonna and Child" and is the only one of his that has been taken from Italy. It was purchased from Michelangelo by a Brugge businessman and given to a very old church in one of the main market squares.

Of course we had to go on a canal boat ride and take more pretty pictures like this one. Everywhere you look is another photo opportunity.

More cool houses along the canals. We spent the day mainly wandering around town and sampling lots of fun food. The weather was perfect. The crowds weren't, though. We're looking forward to going back when it's not the height of the tourist season.

Cute Brad and Emily near a bridge.

Pres and Sis Brubaker had told us about this shop and we found it and it was true! It was the best hot chocolate I've ever tasted! And only 1.75 euros. We were in heaven.
We actually took a tour of a chocolate museum that was a little boring. We wished we had just spent that money on buying more chocolates - we couldn't believe how many chocolate shops there were - we also got gelato and had a nice dinner right near the canal - getting Flemish stew and another traditional dish.

On Sunday we took Brad and Em to our ward in Antwerpen - it was really fun to introduce them to many friends there. They enjoyed our African Sunday school class, just like we do, with some investigators and great teacher. Julie (my friend from the ward) asked to come with us to this baptism after church to Leuven - a town about an hour away from Antwerpen. The office elders had taught this man from Nepal and we had taken him with us to Sint Niklaas to witness another baptism a few weeks before. It was a wonderful service. He was so happy and there were other investigators there that we visited with. It was fun having Julie with us on the way there and back to Brussels as she told her story to Brad and Em. They really enjoyed having her there.
That night, Brad, Em and I went for a nice walk to our favorite park and around our little neighborhood. It was a delightful evening.

Tuesday we headed off to the Netherlands for 2 days, staying in an empty apartment in Rotterdam so we wouldn't have to drive back and forth to Brussels each day. This is a picture of me in front of many bikes in the town of Haarlem. Two story bike racks are really common. As we said before, bikes are every where and they have their own bike paths. If you walk on the bike path, they'll run over you. We mainly wandered around, got gelato, shopped a little, etc.

This is in the Hiding Place museum where Corrie Ten Boom hid the Jewish people from the Nazis. It was interesting to listen to our tour guide who kind of had her own agenda to preach about her religious beliefs. I felt like she used her being a guide as a podium for her own beliefs which I'm not sure were really the same as the Ten Booms. Loel gave her a pass along card as we left. This picture shows how the people would crawl through this little cupboard thing and they were hidden in this false wall (cut out so people can see). Corrie's whole family was captured and sent to a concentration camp where she was the only one to survive. Man's inhumanity to man is incomprehensible.

Brad and Em in the main centrum of Haarlem. We liked this city but didn't love it.

This is the city of Delft - the place where they make the blue and white Royal Delftware pottery. We really liked the feel of this town - the canals, cute houses, etc.

Loel drove down this little street quite a ways, only to find out it was blocked off so he had to carefully back all the way back. Along the way, these big swans were out on the street so Emily jumped out to try to pet them!?? Brad yells, "Watch out, Em, they're mean!" They were arching their necks and Brad was saying, "That's their war cry!"

I had looked everywhere for an oilcloth table cloth like this one - Sister Brubaker had one and I loved it. I finally found it in Delft - at a hardware store in a big roll. Emily liked it so much that she got one, too. I've got it on my kitchen table and I love it.

We were able to meet up with Pres and Sis Brubaker in this little town of Broek in Waterland, which we all fell in love with. We had breakfast with them before they raced off to interviews for the day - in the backyard of their bed and breakfast place. It was the most beautiful, peaceful settings I've ever been in. Right on a lake. The breakfast was amazing - warm hard boiled egg, fresh fruit and yogurt, a meat and cheese tray, many different kinds of bread and rolls, fresh squeezed orange juice, hot chocolate - Brad was in heaven and he and Em loved getting to know the Brubakers a little more. Afterwards, Brad said, "It's nice to know you're in good hands."

Just one of the many beautiful scenes we saw as we wandered around this darling town. It's only 12 minutes from the Amsterdam chapel, but feels like you're in another world.

This was the view from our breakfast table.

Us in front of the Brubaker's bed and breakfast place. I could live in this town.

We headed over to Edam, the little town they named the red balls of cheese after. This is just one of the cute houses we passed on the way as we walked to the center of town where they were having re-enactment of a cheese market.

Just a pretty bridge over a canal on our walk through Edam.

This is a boat, bringing the cheese to the market. Yellow for the local market, red for export.

At the market they unload the rounds of cheese and carry them around on these funny little things. The buyers look at the cheese and bid on it. This market is daily for tourists, but there's a real one in another city that's only held on Friday. Everyone in the market is dressed in traditional dress. We bought some green pesto cheese and little round of a garlic cheese.

This is the fishing town of Voldendam - this is the little harbor - lots of shops and stores where you can put on Dutch clothes and get your picture taken. We wandered around for a while. I don't think there's much going on in these little towns in the winter without the tourists.

Out next stop was a nearby island that had these cute little baby ducks swimming in a canal. This town is named Marken.

And it's famous for it's green and white houses - they're all this color in the whole town. Very picturesque.

We wandered through very narrow streets and then out to the pier.

Our last stop of the day on our way back to Brussels, was Kinderdijk, the place of 19 windmills. We were so tired from walking all day, I wondered if we really wanted to make this detour - and then when I saw how far the walk was to get to the windmills, I wondered if I wanted to walk again. It was well worth it. The windmills are majestic and some date back to the 1500s or earlier. There was one here with a date of 1740 on it.

Spending this time with Brad and Emily visiting these sites in Belgium and the Netherlands makes us realize how blessed we are to be serving in these beautiful, historic countries. We saw so much beauty and learned so much. We realize we've just scratched the surface. We started making plans to travel back to the Netherlands on weekends late this summer and this fall.

More windmills at Kinderdijk. Cool reflection. The water was calm and the late afternoon lighting was good.

On Monday for our luncheon that we always bring to the office, I asked Emily if she dared to make her famous cinnamon rolls in our crazy oven and tiny kitchen. She readily agreed, so Brad and I helped her and they turned out incredibly good. They came with us to the office for lunch and the cinnamon rolls smelled so good that the president and the elders came in and ate them before lunch, even though they were kind of dessert. We also made spaghetti, french bread, and a big green salad. The cinnamon rolls were definitely the hit. Turns out Emily knows some of the Brubaker's kids and they knew some of Emily's sisters. Small world - they do come from the same stake in SLC.
After lunch we took Brad and Em out to Breendonk, a prison/concentration camp not far from Brussels. It was very informative, but so stark, with the audio guide telling us about all of the torture and death that went on there, plus starvation, beatings, illnesses, bugs, etc. I was very glad when it was over and wouldn't go back. Way too depressing.
After we took Brad and Em to see the Spy House and they loved seeing a traditional straight up and down narrow European apartment. Then on to get kebops - we tried to get Brad to order one of the huge sandwiches the elders get with fries stuck in them, but he said he couldn't eat it all.
So Thursday morning it was time to say good-bye as we took Brad and Em to the airport to fly home. I only cried a little. It had been such a wonderful time together and felt like just the right amount of time. It actually felt good to get back to the office and start getting caught up on things that needed to be done. Several French missionaries came to the office for legality work and it was nice to meet and talk to them. Friday a whole group of elders, two sisters, and a senior couple, the Langevelds,(all from our mission) came to the office for legality issues. I made some great banana bread (thanks to the ward cookbook which we brought with us that we have used constantly!), and brought it into the office - it was a big hit and was gone pretty fast. We have so much fun with all the missionaries - we're all good friends now.