Trip with the Grand Glowackis

Finally the much anticipated pictures from the Grand Glowacki trip. Curt and Kris braved the 11 hour flight to be with us for a couple of weeks. Being real troopers, they arrived on Monday, and we left on our European adventure the very next morning!!! They laughed at jet lag.... well Curt laughed, Kris just wanted coffee. We spent 10 days driving through France and Belgium. 5 people, a stroller, coffee pot and 6 bags (3 were Kris's - but she did look fabulous where ever we went) ... we were quite cozy all packed into the 4Runner. We are proud to say that we made the whole trip without Alex getting car sick!! Quite an accomplishment for us. Here are some pics from our trip -

Paris -

Don't ask Ryan about driving to Paris - it was fine until we got off their loop and then the navigation system led us through a roundabout around the Arc de Triumph with cars and motorcycles going every direction. In hindsight it would have be a cool picture but everyone was scared Ryan was going to have a motorcycle for a hood ornament.

Eiffel Tower -

The obligatory pic in front of the Eiffel tower. We just couldn't seem to get everything into a single frame. Alex wasn't really cooperating, luckily he is too little in the pic to be able to tell.

Ryan, Curt and Kris went up into the Eiffel tower. Alex and I stayed down below (due to strollers not allowed in the tower and my fear of heights). I should totally be put up for mother of the year for letting my child play with the dirty Parisian pigeons.

Armory Museum -

I took these pictures just for my dad. I don't think we would have ever been able to get him out of this place.

Napoleon's Tomb -

For such a little dude, he sure has one big box.
Ask Curt about how he saved the life of a little girl here. Here's a hint, it involves a 2 story drop, a little brown eyed girl and one super hero cape.

Wine Tasting -

While in Paris we ventered into the underground tunnels and caves that once made up the Royal wine Celler. Here we learned all about the different kinds of wine throughout France and what differeniates French wine from others. Truth is, not much except they have tons of smaller winery and typically do not have mass productions like the US's Kendel Jackson.... oh and they are snooty about it. We do have more pictures of this, but apparently they are Kris's camera. whoops.

Louvre -
The Louvre was unbelievable - we spent 3-4 hours in there and probably saw 50% of the exhibits. Alex was in his stroller but in order to get around there you have to go up and down a lot of elevators - so eventually he was let out to roam and really liked the Roman room and decided to play peak-a-boo through one of the statue's legs. Completely inappropriate but pretty darn funny.

"peek a boo" Sorry the video is sideways. It is pretty funny that Alex looks up the girl's skirt at the end. This is the Jarrod comingout in him.

The Mona Lisa is very well guarded as it has had a number of people try to damage/destroy it over the years. Honestly, we all thought it was neat to see it in person but there were other paintings that were more impressive. Below is a picture of it along with the Venus de Milo and one of the incredible ceilings in the Louvre.

Notre Dame

The cathedral was very impressive and its hard to fathom what it took to build such a massive structure so many years ago. We read that it took a couple hundred years to finish. Both of the cameras had died from all the pictures in the Louvre so we were only able to get the picture below of the stained glass there.

Loire Valley -

So from Paris we drove South to the Loire Valley which is known for its white wines. On the way there we saw a large plume of smoke in the distance. Is this France or Springfield?


Winery Tour -

The first stop in the valley was at a wine tour that Curt got setup through his restaurant (yea everyone snicker about how much wine is sold at a mexican restaurant - but the owners leading us on the tour did not need to know that)

Here is a picture of the front of the winery with the Grand Glowackis. It was kinda hard to get them out of here, but we finally all piled into the car and Kris had manged to sweet talk the tour guide into giving her the rest of a 94 euro bottle of wine that we tried.

When Alex was not busy running around saying the numbers on the large wine vats he was busy finding the fork lift and practicing for when he is old enough to drink wine. (The glass is empty)

Don't mess with the boy's wine! Nana says pretty much the same thing when you try to take her wine away. A Glowacki through and through, or maybe it's the Jancula coming out in him. Hard to tell.

Driving through the Valley -

From there we took some back roads through the valley to get to the Chateaux we were staying at outside a little town called Amboise. Kris and Carlye ditched the boys and went to see the Chateau d'Amboise. It is the resting place of Leonardo Da Vinci. It was amazing, until Kris made me look over the edge of the roof. Gave me the willies. Look how happy and care-free Kris looks without the boys. Or maybe it's just because we didn't have a screaming Alex......

Chateau/Castles -

This a picture from down at the pool at the Chateau we stayed at along wtih Alex in the pool (he was happy here - as long as we were not dragging him through museums etc). That is Curt on the left . To swim or not to swim.

Chenonceau
This one was built on a river and had the nicest gardens of all the places we visited -

The labyrinth - which I raced Ryan through and lost (he cheated he could see over the hedges) -

Chambord -

This one probably most resembled a castle and it was by far the biggest of the places we visited.

Alex trying to follow in uncle Brandon's shoes and be a long jumper - you can tell he is really about to take off -

Cheverny -
This was our third stop in the valley - Alex was happy he did not have to ride in the stroller in this one and got to walk around. It is hard to believe when looking at the size of the place but up until a few years ago a family actually lived here. This one had the most everyday items from the old days inside. As you can imagine, with all the antique girly girl things in this place, we counted ourselves pretty lucky to get Kris out of there before night fall. Alex liked the wedding dress.

Love to all.

May Update

Ok this is my (Ryan) first try in updating the blog. This update covers our exploits in May. We went to a National Park outside of Utrecht and went hiking. Alex also spent quite a bit of time playing with his buddy Noah.

So the partner I work with suggested we go to this park outside of Utrecht (a city about 45 minutes east of us). We made our way over there and went hiking with Alex. It ended up being a pretty long trip as we were not sure exactly where we are going but finally figured out to following a certain color signs and we ended up back by our car.

Here is a picture of the scenary from a top a 10 story wooden tower in the middle of the forest (yours truly got to hike up that and take the picture while Alex was napping in the stroller below) -

Alex had a good time in the forest - one of his favorite things was looking for bugs - Mommy was always around to make sure he did no harm to any of the bugs -

Here is Alex just wondering around the forest - the kid has no fear he would just take off without even looking back -



Here is sitting on what he called a "big stick"

So Alex got a little bored with nature and he went to the bubbles (one of his favorite things to do currently) -

Alex also got a little tired of walking and did not want to ride in the stroller so his favorite new thing is to ride on dad's shoulders. My shoulders can take it but when he starts wigglying around that 40 lbs is tough on my neck.

Here are some random pictures of Alex from May -

Alex really likes his fruit (bananas, apples, oranges, strawberries, grapes, just about anything) -

Alex and Mommy being cute -

Evidently Mommy gets bored sometimes and since Alex's hair has gotten a little long - she likes to see what it would be like to have a little girl -

Noah and Alex playing with their hard hats and golf clubs quite the combination

Noah's family actually has a back yard and it got pretty warm over here in May so we spent some time over there and let Alex play in the pool with Noah -

Alex and Noah decided to play a game in the pool with them falling down together - they were cracking themselves up.



Oh yea Carlye and I actually got a night off from chasing Alex around and had a nice dinner on our 9th anniversary.




Hope everyone is doing well.