The past couple weeks have flown by! My parents, a.k.a. Gamma and Papa, were here and have gone and are now very happily settled in a gite in France, and tomorrow Ben, Wesley and I hop on a plane to go spend a week there with them. I predict that we will spend our vacation changing diapers and asking Wes to stop crying and look at the pretty French countryside. If we're lucky, we may be able to get him to sleep and, even better, stay awake ourselves to enjoy some red wine and the goat cheese that the area is known for. Mmmm, chevre. We could probably live on wine, baguettes, and chevre for the week. Maybe some chocolate, if we want to hit all 4 food groups - wine, bread, cheese, chocolate. Wes, poor little baby, will only get formula. Okay, maybe a little wine since we are in France. But only half a glass.

I'm not going to do much of a recap of what we did while my parents were here. There was much dog walking (by me, my parents, and Wesley), diaper changing (by everyone except the dogs. No opposable thumbs really worked in their favor this time), and bicycling (by my parents). We managed to make it out to dinner a couple times, but never all 4 of us at once due to the baby not being welcome in nice restaurants around here. That was kind of sad, but maybe someday Ben and will be able to share a nice restaurant meal IN a restaurant again. Someday...

If you want to check out more of the Burgett/Purcell/Morrison Netherlands extravaganza, you can check out my dad's blog, where he has started a travel journal. Go read it! It's got pictures and everything!

While they were here, we did take advantage of having the best kind of babysitters around (grandparents!) and went out to Starbucks twice and to Maastricht once. Each time we went out we struggled between being giddy and baby-free for a few hours and wanting to gogogohavefundoeverything and being sleepy and baby-free and wanting to curl up in corners of coffee shops and sleep for a few hours.

The having fun won each time. In Maastricht it was a beautiful day, so we even got to go on a little picnic in a park by the river.




And then we picked up a couple treats from one of our favorite bakeries to eat later while catching up on Grey's Anatomy and America's Next Top Model.


Speaking of America's Next Top Model, your Wesley anecdote for the day: A couple nights ago Wes was fussy and gassy and generally noisy and we were feeding him, rocking him, bouncing him while watching aspiring models pretend that Tyra Banks isn't a total whackjob. Wesley was just fussing, gurgling, etc, until I held him up to burp him, and I happened to hold him facing the TV. Suddenly, baby silence. He was totally mesmerized by America's Next Top Model. This was the only time he has ever looked at the screen. And he just stared. And stared. I think we have a future supermodel on our hands. Ben is less than thrilled. I'm just wondering if Wes will be ably to use his future connections in the fashion world to get me some fabulous free stuff. He's gonna be FIERCE!

Happy Birthday to Wesley!

Okay, it's obviously not his birthday yet. He is definitely growing every day, but he's not growing quite that fast. So don't worry all you long distance baby-watchers, you haven't missed that much.

But we do like to celebrate whenever we can, so when his one month birthday rolled around we took advantage of the fact that Gamma and Papa are visiting and had a mini-party in his honor!

(Note the adorable hat and blanket made for him by his Auntie Jessica!)

Alright. You may be sitting there thinking that I just wanted an excuse to make a cake. And you may be right.

(Buttermilk cake with chocolate cream filling and a white chocolate buttercream, if you're interested in details like that)


Teasing the baby. Too bad Wes can't have cake yet.


No cake makes babies ANGRY!


We also had a special dinner of grilled chicken and a delicious grilled portabella and pepper salad by Chef Ben with champagne compliments of Gamma and Papa.

And a special main course of formula for Wes, prepared by Mama.

I think he still wanted cake, but he's going to have to wait until his real birthday for a taste of the good stuff.

It's been a busy week in our world! Where to start?

Last Thursday, Ben, Wesley and I got up reeeeally early, loaded ourselves into the car and drove to the Amsterdam airport. We had two purposes...

First:


And then, after meeting my parents (and Wes meeting Gamma and Papa), they all got back in the car, and I got on a plane to Ohio. Like I said, we were busy. I know many many people think I'm crazy for traveling back to the states mere weeks after Wesley was born, but I had to because Jessica (my best friend) was getting married! I couldn't miss that for anything! She's been my best friend for almost 20 years, and I was the matron of honor, so I had to be there. Plus, a trip to the U.S., even a short one, means I get to make a visit to Target. Sweet Target, my home away from home, the happiest place on earth. That alone was worth the trip.

But even better than Target was seeing Jessica, and being there for the wedding.

Helping the bride get ready


The happy couple


There was cake!


And dancing!


And chocolate martinis at a bar afterwards so Jessica could milk the wedding dress attention as long as possible!

See my big smile in all the pictures? I had fun. And it was so good to see Jessica. And to finally meet Doug, who is great and I'm glad Jessica married him. I had such a great time, it almost makes me wish I lived in Columbus. Almost, but not quite. Too bad it's not in Minnesota.

Meanwhile, back in the Nederland, Gamma and Papa got to hang out with the baby, help Ben with stuff around the house (don't be jealous!), and even get out and see a couple things. They made a trip to our market and bought more fruits and vegetables than one person could possibly want (unless that one person is me. Yay for fresh produce!), and then on Sunday they went to check out the antique market in Tongeren. They didn't return with any antiques, but they did bring back some beautiful items:

Yum!

There was also a pastry for me, but it was set aside until my arrival back in Amsterdam Monday morning.

Whoops, did I say my arrival Monday morning? Yeah... about that... The plan was that I would fly to Ohio on Thursday, stay for all the wedding festivities, and then fly back on Sunday afternoon, arriving here early Monday morning. That didn't quite happen.

So, you know Hurricane Ike? Yeah, the one in Texas. Well, it came to Ohio. And closed down airports. For real. All the planes in Columbus were grounded for hours. I was supposed to fly from Columbus to Atlanta and Atlanta to Amsterdam. Well, I had to rebook because there was no way to make it to Atlanta on time. So, next they booked me on a flight to Cincinnati, then Cincinnati to Amsterdam, getting in a couple hours later than originally planned. The only problem? Cincinnati's airport was shut down due to weather, too. The geniuses at Delta reasoned that this was okay, though, because it meant that my next flight would be delayed too so I would most likely make it. Hmm. I couldn't really argue though, because every single person in the airport was attempting to rebook flights, and I was just happy to have some sort of option.

Guess what? It didn't work out. They neglected to tell me that my flight from Cincinnati to Amsterdam got canceled, something I found out when I arrived in Cincinnati at about 10 p.m. Something Ben found out much before then because Delta called our house trying to get a hold of me. They could call my house to suggest Ben come get me from the airport (Hellloooo? We live in the Netherlands. He can't exactly collect me from the Columbus airport. They had a hard time understanding this.), but they couldn't do anything crazy like, you know, let me know before I got on an airplane and got stranded in Cincinnati overnight along with 800 million other people. So, the short version is that I joined a bajillion people trying to get hotel rooms in Cincinnati, ended up sharing a room at the Radisson with another of Jessica and Doug's friends who happed to be on my flight (luckily we found each other because the Radisson was not so cheap AND it was nice to have someone to commiserate with over a bottle of wine), and then I left at 3 p.m. the next day, getting home on Tuesday after much more time on airplanes and a long layover at JFK, one of the crappiest airports ever. I was not really happy by the time Ben picked me up. I greeted him with a big hug and a glazed donut (one of the things from the states that he loves, misses, and cries himself to sleep over) and then started to cry because I was just that tired.

Luckily, I got to come home to this:

Ahh, baby snuggle naps make everything better!

Warning: bragging and too many exclamation points

Last Saturday was my birthday. Yay! Happy Birthday to me! Thanks. I had been kind of mopey about it because I knew that with a new baby we wouldn't get to do much to celebrate. Not that we do much for our birthdays anyways. Usually the festivities include a real breakfast (not cereal), a small gift (I went all out and gave Ben a DVD for his birthday), and dinner out somewhere (like our tapas place! Or Thai food for Ben's birthday! Or P.F. Chang's when we lived in the good old U.S.A.!).

I knew this year would be fairly quiet though because we would have a very small baby and probably be very tired and perhaps just want a shower and a nap. My expectations were low.

Ben, however, had different plans. He wanted the mother of his little miracle to have a fantabulous birthday, and he delivered (with the cooperation of a baby who enjoys napping in his carseat whenever we take him out of the house).

My day started out the best way possible, with a fresh, clean baby delivered to my bed to snuggle with me.



Meanwhile, Ben was downstairs in the kitchen, making noises, and eventually the house started to smell good, so Wes and I went down to find a present and pancakes! The pancakes are a recipe that I got from my dad and that Ben has mastered and are sooo delicious. I should take pictures and share, but I'm always so focused on eating them that there is no time for photography. Maybe I can con Ben into making them again and post it on my food blog. Because they really are delicious. Mmmm...

Okay, snapping out of my food dreaming and getting back to last weekend. After breakfast, I took the dogs for a walk while Ben and Wes went on a secret mission, but came back empty-handed and informed me that they had been to Maastricht, but had to go back later to pick up... a cake! I LOVE cake! It was supposed to be ready in the morning, but it wasn't, so we used the delayed cake as an excuse to head back to Maastricht, where we sat at a sidewalk cafe and introduced Wesley to the joys of sunshine, people watching, and a cold Heineken.

He may have slept through the whole adventure. I, however, was delighted with our outing because I realized I can finally have a cold beer on a sunny day again! Wooo! Non-pregnant Ellen is getting wild and crazy!

And then, the cake:

Yes, it looks like a wedding cake. But that's because I had seen adorable mini-cakes for weddings, etc in magazines and online and had pestered Ben about them, daydreaming about when I could possibly get a little fancy mini-cake. So he went out to the frou-frouiest bakery we have found here in the Netherlands (they have pastries so pretty they practically look French!) and ordered me a very small wedding cake.

And it was delicious. It had two layers of a dark chocolate mousse sandwiching a thick layer of almond cream on a very thin graham cracker-like crust. And then it was covered in a frosting that was somewhere between fondant and marzipan. Yummmmm.

It didn't last long in our house.

Finally, as if the day couldn't get any tastier, Ben made dinner. Can you believe that? He gives me presents, he cooks, he cleans, he takes care of babies, he plots surprise birthday cakes, and then he cooks again!

I'm a sucker for a man in an apron.


Especially when he makes Chicken Monterey for me.

And he encouraged cake before and after dinner. What more could a girl want?