The Netherlands, a.k.a. my Dream Come True

Europe 2014: Part 3

So I've dreamed of probably just a few things for my whole life. 

One of those, was visiting The Netherlands in person. 

This tulip lover has been longing to see the
flowers, wooden shoes and windmills 

for as long as I can remember!  Through some amazing trip planning courtesy of Noah my hero, he finally made my dream come true!!!  

AND

it. was. amazing.

I loved every single second, and couldn't have asked for anything more than to share it with my beautiful little family!
Prepare now for picture overload.  

Apologies, as I simply couldn't help myself!

KINDERDIJK

Unesco World Heritage site

19 Windmills built in 1740 

Best Evening Family Stroll of All Time

Gorgeous Windmills and Sunset

Honourable mention to the man that we saw in the village, out on his front steps in his wooden shoes.

Windmills. check. Stereotype reality. check. 

Love.

Moving onto the FOOD!

So of course when there is a "Bacon Crepe" on the menu, who are we not to order it?!  Let us not also forget that we are in "fry country" in the northern Europe. We needed to have the fries to wash down the bacon, and maybe a delicious smoothie too?

And of course, let's not forget my boys very favorite part of the trip:

POFFERTJES

(mini Dutch pancakes, and the accompanying mini fork)

and the CHEESE! 

Noah and I found a new favorite-  it was soooo good. 

Our biggest destination of this trip was 

Keukenhof Gardens in all it's glory!

Well, most of it's glory... as it is incredibly hard to plan a trip to another continent to hit the peak of the Tulip Season on the nail. I think we did a darn good job!

Not all of the tulips were up yet, but there were still tons that had come up; along with oodles of other gorgeous spring flowers. I can only imagine how incredible it is when ALL of the tulips are blooming.  Take your breath away gorgeous.  I will let the pics speak for themselves.

Purple stripes? Yes, Please!

Porter needed his favorite color (Red) too.

There were tons of tasty treats at the gardens, and more than one ice cream cone was eaten...

They had awesome "lilly pads" to step on throughout the lake. The boys absolutely loved this!

We made Porter take a picture with this gal. He was super embarrassed. We thought it was cute. He is such a great sport for us. Love our Porter boy.

Oh the Lollipops- I believe they were called "Holli-lollis" or something clever like that. It was a super cute play on the whole Holland thing. We ate a few of those as well that day.

My boys.

Then there was the enormous and beautiful greenhouse filled with small sections of every type of Tulip you could imagine! 

More Lolli licking...

The sections of the purple ones were of course my favorite.

Then there was the famous field of Tulips out back. There are apparently 7 million bulbs planted at Keukenhof every year. Since we were a bit early in the spring, many were not blooming yet; but it was still incredible! I truly can't imagine how drool-worthy this would be in full bloom. I guess we will just have to come back. 

(featuring Porter's Tulip shaped Lollipop) 

Now of course there was windmill fun too.

I'm with the boys up on top in this pic, if you look closely. The boys had a blast climbing the big windmill, and the view from the top was Tulip-tastic!

They have awesome art exhibits set up weekly with different themes and flowers. This week happened to be the Gerbera Daisy week. Since the Dutch are known for their love of bikes, they had a fantastic kind of "mangled bike wreck" thing going on here, intermixed with the stunning daisies of course. It was definitely unique, but super cool for sure. 

Some more of my favorites

They had terrific play structures for the kids as well.  My kids couldn't get enough of the zip-lines this trip. Europe has really got it going on!

They also had an antique music box/ pipe organ thing?  It had the moving people that would come out and move around and things. I'm sure there is an actual name for it, I just can't remember. 

It was fantastic though,  and the boys danced all around. 

Much of the day was of course spent doing this-

kiddo wrangling.  It's what I do best!

Last of all they had incredible flower "murals". This one was a series of Amsterdam's famous rowhouses. Only the outline was blooming when we were there, but I'm sure it was so beautiful in full bloom! It took them weeks to plant. 

Keukenhof gardens was definitely one of my favorite places I've ever been! We can't wait to go back!!!   Until next time....

Next, we headed to Amsterdam

The canals and the houses were incredible!!!

This row behind the boys here, was probably one of my favorite "streets"

We also headed to the Anne Frank house. My original plan was to just take Porter in, but after checking the website, it recommends for children 10 and up. We instead opted to just find the outside of it, and give Porter a basic history of the situation. Even without going inside, it was still a very powerful experience for us. To think about the history associated with this place is very overwhelming. We are so thankful we got the experience to see it. 

The boys walking by the Anne Frank house, this is the larger view of the entire warehouse. The secret annex was actually through the warehouse (pictured here) and attached to the back.

This is the Westerkerk (Church) 1/2 block from the Anne Frank house. It is the bells from this church that she describes hearing in her diary, but never getting to see. 

This joint definitely needed a stop in

We unfortunately only had a few days in The Netherlands, but we loved getting to see everything we could. The next day we went downtown, did some shopping, and went to see 

Koninklijk Paleis 

(the Dutch Royal Palace in Amsterdam)

It was of course beautiful and the boys enjoyed running around the palace square 

Shenanigans....

We also made sure to hunt down this place. It is famous for the best fries in Amsterdam. So says Google, and so says us! They were sooooo good! There is a line pretty much any time of day, and it is down this little road kind of off the beaten path. Well worth the trip. Yummm.

Miles wanted to wait in line with Daddy like a big boy!

SO delicious. Maybe not so nutritious, but we didn't care. They were amazing!

Now after this excitement we headed back to our car (parked in a downtown parking garage), only for Noah to discover we had lost the keys! aack!!! As he raced back to retrace our steps, I said a fervent prayer. We had been ALL over downtown this day. I was freaking out. All of our stuff was also packed nicely in the rental car, as we were going to head straight to the airport after exploring.  Thankfully, the power of prayer works and Noah was able to quickly find the keys at the last store we had been to, (he had left them on the counter)!! We still made it to the airport with plenty of time, and all was well. That was just a fun heart attack moment to spice things up for us. 

All in all, it was such a wonderful trip. We were so happy to get to see some amazing new places, and enjoy some wonderful country air! Most of all we loved getting to relax and enjoy making some new memories as a family. 

(silly times while road tripping) 

Thank you Holland, you were so good to us!  We will miss you!

Oh yes. I almost forgot. Being that we were driving up in the northern part of France this time, we decided we definitely needed a stop by the Le Creuset factory! It was an awesome place, still in the little village it started in. We got ourselves some original Cast Iron to carry home with us in our luggage. We're smart. It all worked out though, thanks to our mad packing skillz. 

Me taking a quick selfie with all the awesome orange boxes in the window of the cute old house that is the "store".  I love France.  It makes me smile.

 It was really fun to go though, and I'm glad we got the chance. Thought it deserved a mention too.