Bucket List!

A few years ago Chris and I came up with our bucket lists, and over the past year we have made some great progress!
When I wrote mine I had decided to include a few "easy" items to get me started and balance the few "harder" ones, such as own a yacht :)  One of the easy items was to go apple picking which is something that I've always wanted to do, and should be a simple task given all the orchards and farms around NJ.  Well,it turns out for one reason or another that I never got to go, so when a friend told me about a place in Belgium I was so excited! We got all dressed up in fall attire, drove about an hour south with our friends, the Weinbergs', down crazy narrow country roads.  After asking a local we realized we had driven right by the tiny paper sign which advertised the apple farm, and when we finally found it, they were all out of apples for the season! Zut!  Have to try again next year!

Sofie in her apple picking outfit, smiling despite having no apples!

Anyways, here are the things we DID manage to check off:

Chris' list: Visit Amsterdam April 2012

 Chris' List: Go in a helicopter, Grand Canyon July 2011

 Chris' List: Go to the Colloseum, Rome January 2012

 Chris' List: Visit the Sistine Chapel, Vatican City January 2012

Chris' List: Visit London, July 2012

Chris' List: Snowboard in the Alps, Zermatt December 2011

 Chris' List: Go to Ireland/Guinness Brewery
The two things that I checked off were being on House Hunters International and flying first class on an international flight which we did when we visited and moved to Belgium :)

The Emerald Isle :)

Well I contemplated skipping through the last few months, so that I could start writing about what is actually, currently happening...but since this blog is about our families adventures, I just couldn't forget about some of the really great things we did this summer.
To begin with in late July we took a trip to Ireland.  It was Sofie first time out of the country, and first stamp on her crazy little US passport (the photo was taken when she was 2 weeks old, and she can't even hold her head up!)  We flew into Dublin where we spent 2 nights.  Sofie was great on the plane, it was only a little over an hour and she was so curious about all the people around her, and voices (pilot, flight attendant) coming from above! We spend our first day walking around the city, it was beautiful and sunny.  One thing we loved was the outsides of the pubs (didn't really see the insides, as kids aren't allowed in them after 6pm)  They were so colorful, decorated with flowers and just exactly as you would picture them- but each one different.  We also visited the Guinness brewery for an interesting tour where the building is shaped like a pint of guinness!  We found a shop that looked up your family heritage in the UK and were able to get copies of Boxer, Thompson and Hewins.  Who knows if they are accurate , but it was interesting to see that the names originated in the area anyways.

Sofie's first boarding pass

Since we are Starbucks deprived in Brussels, its a MUST in any city we visit!

Rented a car the next day to drive west to Galway.  Here we stayed at an old inn/pub (Skeffington Arms) right in the middle of town.  This was another super colorful city that was great to walk around in.  We visited the Claddagh ring museum as this where the jewelry originates! 

Next up was the drive down the coast to see the Cliffs of Moher.  Boy was it windy!! We put our jackets on and climbed the hill to get a fantastic view of these crazy high cliffs! So pretty! That night we arrived in Killarny and stayed in after a long day of driving (Sofie was not much of a fan!)  The next day we drove the Ring of Kerry which is about a 2 hour drive on the narrowest roads (keep in mind Chris was driving on the right side of the car!) where each turn gives your a different, amazing view of the ocean, cliffs, green hills, and animals.  It sounds strange but Chris and I both thought that the view reminded us of Moorea in French Polynesia.  Although the climates are sooo different (it was so cold for a July day!) the mountains must have been formed by the same kind of volcanic remains.

We definitely could have spent more time in this beautiful country, the people were really as nice as they say, especially traveling with Sofie.  Strangers would run over to her to talk, something we aren't used to in Belgium.  I was told that she's the "Imaja-yah" which took me like four times repeated before  I understood :) Also, the butter....oh the delicious butter.  Must be all the green grass and happy cows.