Home sweet hotel

It's done! What's done? Everything!

Last week the movers came, packed up our house and loaded all our things on a big truck. (Or two trucks, but who's counting?) Then, I cleaned, washed, packed, cleaned, whimpered and whined, and then cleaned some more. And Ben cleaned, organized, yelled at Army people, packed, yelled some more, tied up all our loose ends in the Netherlands, and collapsed in a sleepy pile in our empty house.

Finally, yesterday we gave the house one final and very thorough wipedown and handed the keys back over to a friendly man from housing, got into our rental car and drove away. We are now temporarily installed in a hotel here in Brunssum and tomorrow we head to Amsterdam where we will spend one night in an airport hotel before getting on a flight to Minneapolis.

We're exhausted. Excited, nervous, happy, and really exhausted. As we take our last walks, see the fuzzy ponies for the last time, enjoy our last cartons of banana milk, and say goodbye to our baristas at Starbucks ("You're leaving? Damnit! That sucks! Damnit!") and the owner of our favorite Indian restaurant ("Good luck! Safe travels! Tell your father hello!"), we can't help but be a little sad. This has been an amazing experience - we've gone so many places, done so many cool things, and met so many wonderful people, so of course leaving makes us a tiny bit mopey and wistful. But mostly we're happy to be done with all the tiring little details on the European end of our adventure and ready to move on, go home, get some takeout from one of our favorite U.S. restaurants, and start a new chapter.

Okay, and in all this talk about moving and change I know I haven't mentioned Wes at all. And a certain segment of our audience pretty much only wants to see pictures of him. So, wanna know what Wesley has been up to? Well, he's been staying out of the way as much as possible. We've been taking many walks, going to Aachen, and on one fun day, Wes and I spent the day at the zoo.

A few pictures from our day:






Off on a new adventure! Wish us luck!

Cleaning House

Tomorrow at this time, movers will be here. And over the next 3 or 4 days all our stuff will be packed into boxes and then big wooden crates to be put on a ship for their journey to the New World. We fare slightly better than our belongings and we get to travel by air in a few weeks, after we've cleaned our empty house and severed Ben's ties with the Army. Needless to say, it's a busy time for us.

So just a glimpse into life in the Morrison household lately...

Ben
Ben's last day of work was Friday, October 9. Yay! He was happy to say, "See you later, suckers!" and took in a magnificent cake on his last day with the words "I Quit" written in frosting. The following week, his first week of "freedom" and free time to take care of the million little details involved in getting out of here, he got sick. Really sick. In bed, quarantined to our guest room, feeling like he was going to die for daaaaays sick. He didn't get much checked off his to-do list. He has recovered, thankfully, and is working his keester off making up for lost time. Cleaning the garage, tying up loose ends, being an organizational superstar.

Ellen
Well, I spent last week taking care of Wes, taking care of Ben, keeping the house clean and everyone happy while also keeping Wes and I as far as possible from Ben because we did NOT want to catch whatever he had. Seriously. I also have been on a mission to use up baking supplies so they don't go to waste and I have baked a couple loaves of bread, a bajillion rolls, two batches of granola bars, and a batch of Ben's favorite cookies. If there is a carbohydrate shortage, we're all set. And in my spare time (hahahahahaha) I've been making soups and freezing them for easy healthy meals once our kitchen in packed up and I can't cook. Tada! This week my mission is keeping Wes out of the house as much as possible while the movers are here. Wish me luck!

Wesley
Everyone's favorite shorty has been up to everything. Constantly. Moving. Climbing. Babbling. Playing. Reading. (Okay, looking at pictures. But whatever. I'm pretty sure he can read. He's a genius baby.) And moving some more.
He has been starting to talk more and more. His vocabulary now includes: Mama, Da, doggy, bye bye, night night, Papa, teeth, cheese, moo and woof. Very important things, obviously.
His current favorite activities: Taking walks to go visit cows, ponies, sheep (all of which he gleefully calls "doggy!"). Vacuuming. Riding his tractor. Sitting on Mama's tummy when she tries to do crunches, poking her belly button and bouncing up and down on the Mama Pony. Reading books, lots of books, especially The Very Hungry Caterpillar and Pat The Bunny. Listening to music and dancing (he's a big fan of Beyoncé music videos. He's going to be a star! I'm sure of it! Or at least a back up dancer!) Playing with his little buddies at play group - riding and/or pulling the wagon, playing with balls, stealing toys, running around and climbing things. Talking on the phone.

And a few pictures, because he's a cutie patootie:




That's all for now, folks. Wish us luck with the big move and hopefully I'll post again before we leave the Netherlands. If I haven't run away to Starbucks to drink tea and take a nap and hide from responsibility, that is.

And one more photo, special from Wesley:


Bye!

Au revoir

I'm feeling achy. It's not the swine flu, I'm pretty sure. I think it's the "I'm never going to get back to Paris, wah wah wah" flu. Symptoms include moping around sighing, boohooing over Paris photos, and asking for one more day, one more croissant, one more walk around Montmartre.

Earlier this week, the day finally came that we had to say goodbye to Paris and we don't know when we'll get to go back. During our 3 years in Europe we have been to Paris so many times that we really did lose count. And last Saturday Ben and I packed up a very fancy rental car, gave Wes a big hug, and left him with his Papà when we took off for our farewell tour of our very favorite place in the world. (You can see what went on back in Eygelshoven on Papà's blog).

The next few days were completely, totally perfect. Seriously. I would not joke about zee Paris.

We did all our favorite things one more time, visiting our favorite stores, our favorite restaurants (Le Bar à Soupes!), walking through familiar neighborhoods, spending hours wandering grocery store aisles. Ahhhh, Pareeeee.

We also explored some new places, hit a couple restaurants I had been wanting to try (like Breizh Café - yum!) and finally made it to the Rodin museum, which was definitely worth visiting, and finally bought a painting from and artist in the touristy-kitschy-French-artistey Place du Tertre.

Oh and we ate a lot of gelato and baguettes. And a few croissants. And cheeeeeese crepes! And chocolates. Don't judge us. We had to eat enough to last us a while.

A few highlights in photos:

Picnic dinner on the Seine, at our favorite quiet spot with Notre Dame in the background





Breakfast at Sacre Coeur


The Eiffel at night





Enjoying time in our apartment on our anniversary





The Rodin museum




A farewell brunch at our favorite boulangerie



We also spent the morning of our anniversary taking some of our annual portraits for our anniversary album





We'll go back someday, I know, because we have to. Home is where the heart is, and that means wherever Ben and Wes are, I will be. And we'll be happy whether we're here or there or wherever. But a tiny piece of my heart will always be in Paris.

As I'm sitting here, my Dad is sitting at the table across from me, plugging away at editing his travel photos and preparing to update his own blog. He arrived in the Netherlands a few days ago after spending a week in France and he has about a million gorgeous photos of Mont Saint Michel and Paris that he's sifting through.

Seeing him work so hard makes me feel a little lazy and guilty, so here I am, back at the computer. I actually have a few blog posts saved in not-quite-done stages; I just haven't found time to put the finishing touches on them and get them up. So today, I at least have to share with you our recent (well, sort of recent) trip to Ireland.

Ireland was one place that we definitely absolutely 100% had to visit before we left Europe. I had been there years ago, and Ben had a brief layover in Shannon on his way back from his little desert adventure in Kuwait. Both of us were dying to go back, filled with memories of green green pastures, stone walls, and beer, sweet beer.

We finally made it there, mere months before our time here ran out, and Ireland did not disappoint.

We stayed at a B&B in Ballyvaughan, a small town on the coast in Co. Clare. I had stayed there on my previous trip to Ireland and had absolutely loved it and wanted to share with Ben. It was still beautiful and quaint and everything you would want out of a little Irish town.






We even lucked into being there for the weekly farmer's market where the locals gathered outside the community hall and sold fruit preserves, potatoes by the bucket, bake sale desserts, goat's milk soaps and the best darn blueberries I've ever had.

We spent some of our time exploring Ballyvaughan, and then ventured out the explore the rest of the Burren. We drove, took pictures, chatted with cows, saw the Cliffs of Moher, had a Guinness. It was feckin' lovely.








Oh, and we of course stopped at a grocery store. No foreign visit is complete without foreign grocery shopping!


We also spent one day on the island of Inis Oirr, the smallest of the Aran Islands. We had to take a 30 minute ferry ride to get there (discovering on the way that both Ben and Wes get seasick. Luckily only one of them threw up)

And then we spent the day wandering around the small island.



It was a little (or a lot) cold and rainy, but we only had one day there, and frankly there was not much choice but to buck up and get out and enjoy it. Inis Oirr is not a bustling place with lots of entertainment options. We did wait out the worst of the rain in the one café and one of the very few pubs. I warmed up with tea and Ben chose the Guinness while we watched old guys speaking Irish at the bar, downing their pints at 11 a.m.



When the rain had died down a bit, we explored a lot and saw an 8th century church,

castle ruins,


a 6th century century church,

and some very angry cows. We were trying to find an old well (which, okay, doesn't sound exciting, but it was on the map and we wanted to see it), and these cows had gotten loose and we monopolizing the very small road we were walking on. We looked around. No cow owners to be found. Hmmm. I slowly, quietly, nonconfrontationally walked past the cows. Ben tried to follow with Wes. The cows got angry.

I ended up separated from Ben and Wes by about a hundred meters and 4 disgruntled bovines. Eek. Moo. Neither Ben nor I could get past them again without further inciting their anger and potentially getting trampled, so after much frantic shouted discussion and gesturing (we were at this point quite a distance apart) I found a gate that I could climb over so that the cows could safely go past me. Ben reached deep inside himself and found his inner farm boy and herded the cows along down the road so that he could safely join me and I could come off of the fence I was hiding on.

Undeterred, we continued herding the cows along so we could keep walking until we found this well. Unfortunately, we never did find the well, but we did find lots and lots of blackberries growing on the side of the road and I picked as many as I could fit into my sweatshirt pockets before running to catch up with Ben on our way back to the café for soup and fish cakes.


The angry cows were definitely the most eventful part of our trip, but all of it was wonderful. Lots of beautiful sights. We want to go back, again and again.



Next up: Our last hurrah in Paris! Wes and his Papà are staying in Eygelshoven to live it up, sneak cookies, and learn to play baseball while Ben and I drink enough wine and eat enough croissants and chocolate to last us however many years it takes for us to return to France. So excited to go, so sad to be leaving. I might even blog about it sometime before we move back to MN (Beginning of November! Mark your calenders! Get ready! The Morrisons return to the land of Target and Starbucks!).