Girls' weekend in Par-ee

My birthday present from Peter finally came!! My best friend and a weekend in Paris!! What a way to celebrate. And we realised over the weekend we realised it was also the ten year anniversary of our friendship.

Here are a few highlights. 

Notre Dame a few blocks from our apartment.

Our first glimpse of the Eiffel Tower!!

The Louvre! 

Watching the tower light up at sunset from the Montparnasse tower 

The best croissant ever!

Exploring the shopping ... Baby Dior. 800€ kids dress anyone?

A fantastic little hidden cafe 

Monet's water lilies - breathtaking 

Top of the tower - even witnessed an engagement

Dinner in St.Germain

And flowers from my kiddies when I got home. 

Brussels Medieval Festival

This weekend we went to the Brussels Medieval Festival complete, of course with lots of armour, swords, and historical fencing club (two-handed, or rapier)

Calvin tried archery again while Emily and Sam had great face-paint!

In the end, the festival was hit because of the food - beer, wine, pork, snitzel, apple beignes, and much much more

Food trucks unite!

This weekend was the food truck festival, promoted as the biggest food truck festival in the world. 

The reviews in! 

Calvin: I loved the bubble waffle. It was fruit in a cup and like s waffle with bubbles in it like waffle bubble wrap with sugar on it. It was delicious! 

Emmy: I loved the Mexican burger. It had avocado in it and I like avocado and all of it mixed is super good. 

Sammy: I liked the Vietnamese spring rolls with that sauce were super good. 

Exploring the Keuknhof gardens

It's a long weekend! We hit the road to go see the tulips at the Keukenhof gardens. Between a wrong turn and traffic headed to the shore it took a long time to get there. The GPS took us on some tiny, bike choked back roads to avoid the traffic. 

Once there the crowds were thick and the gardens very busy. But having arrived late worked to our advantage and the gardens slowly emptied out. 

A sunny Sunday

Peter has been away so today we decided to head out to visit the natural history museum. For some reason or other it was closed despite all signs saying it should be open. So we decided to enjoy the sun instead. 

We went to Maison Antoine for frites for lunch. 

Then some playtime in the park - running and rolling down the hill.

Playing in the fountains.

And ice cream on the other way home.

I love that all this is the "back up plan"!