Bien venido a Espana!

You all know that we have loved living abroad and try to take full advantage of our surroundings while we're here. One way we do that is by planning trips to cities we wouldn't normally get to go to. The first week of February Keith had to go to Barcelona for work, so we thought that would be the perfect time for a family weekend away. It happened to coincide with Carnival, which meant that most people had off work in the Netherlands that following Monday and Tuesday, so it was easy for Keith to take off as well. Keith's birthday also happened to be that Friday at the end of his work week, so what better reason to take a trip??

Day 1 - Friday

lunch in the airport

Liam and I flew out Friday afternoon (all on our own, God bless me), and met Keith at his hotel to pick him up and head to our apartment for the next five days. The location was perfect, walking distance to several sites we wanted to see, on a busy shopping street, and close to plenty of restaurants (more on that later . . . ).

I am SO glad Keith got an apartment that was in conjunction with a nice hotel in Barcelona. We had two bedrooms, a bathroom, a living / dining room and a full kitchen -- plus maid service every day. It was the perfect arrangement to have with a toddler. Once we got settled at the apartment we walked a block away for dinner at a local tapas restaurant. We all got something delicious for dinner (the chicken and veggie risotto -- OMG), and kept Liam fairly busy while he sat in the booth because there were no high chairs. Turns out, we would come to find that no restaurant had high chairs. Like none. Zero. And we tried, oh did we try! On our very last meal over the course of five days we finally lucked out with a high chair. We figured either there were no toddlers in Barcelona or people just didn't take them out to eat. The latter I suppose . . . sigh.

We put Liam to bed as soon as we got back as it was already getting late, and he went right to sleep, exhausted from the day's events.

Prague!

As our time in Europe is dwindling down, Keith and I have been trying to cross cities off our "must-visit" list. My 30th birthday seemed like the perfect excuse to do just that! We decided to go to Prague for a long weekend and were lucky enough to have our good friends Lindsey, Josh, and Jackson join us! Keith and I spent Friday afternoon to (early!) Monday morning there, and our friends came Saturday to Sunday.

When we first got to our hotel on Friday we did a little exploring and found somewhere to eat lunch. Lucky for us Keith's boss is Czech and was very familiar with downtown Prague, where we were staying. All we had to do was send him a text to say where we were and ask for a recommendation and voila! It was done. So our first restaurant recommendation was for a tiny little restaurant around the corner from our hotel where Keith and I got some savory crepes. Luckily they were between services so the place was pretty empty, but otherwise it would have been hard with a toddler -- not a lot of space and no baby chairs!

Afterwards we began to wander and found ourselves downtown on the main strip. Let me say now that because of where Prague is located, the sun sets extremely early -- so when we were walking around at 4:30 pm it looked like it could have been 10:30 pm! I actually didn't mind it for two reasons: first, Prague is beautifully lit up at night, and second, I actually felt like a real adult who goes out in the evenings! Haha! Seriously though, I can't remember the last time we were out all "night" with Liam. So it was nice to enjoy the night (or five o'clock, whatever) without worrying about bath and bedtime just yet.

Like an old sweet song . . .

Now that Liam's birthday week is over, I think I finally have some time to blog about our recent trip to Georgia!

We left for Georgia on July 24th, a Tuesday afternoon. The problem with taking an international flight west is that they are always day flights, and day flights do not bode well for an active baby/toddler. Everyone told us that traveling with a baby between one and two years old is really hard, so I was a little prepared, but it was still a shock . . . after all, a ten-hour flight is hard for anyone, let alone a mobile baby who just wants to be anywhere but in your lap!

I always try to feed Liam something on the way up and on the way down to help his ears pop, which inevitably means takeoff will be around feeding time. And of course, most flights are delayed (as was this one), so trying to not feed a hungry baby is no fun. By the time he finally did eat (after an hour on the plane, much later than anticipated), he passed out for the first two hours in the air. That was a welcome relief for Keith and I, but we quickly learned that he was just resting for what would become the flight from h-e-double-hockey-sticks.