Amsterdam, Netherlands

Since Chris's flight was out of Amsterdam on Monday we decided to go on up Sunday.

Last December, Brian went to Amsterdam for a week for work. He had such an awesome experience there, and it inspired him to pursue our assignment in Germany...after some lengthy discussions with me. He explained this restaurant with a playground right outside and the kids were running back and forth from the eating area to the playground, and their parents were eating and drinking as they watched their kids play. Sunday, as we were looking for the Van Gogh museum, we saw a playground and Brian said, "This is it, this is the place that made me want to live here." Hard to believe that less than a year later we live here and our kids were playing at that playground.

Got to love the Dutch swings. Sidney looks a little frightened but they actually both could have stayed there all day.

We tried to convince Carolyn to take a picture on top of the I amsterdam sign. Behind her is the Rijksmuseum.

We didn't realize that there was a marathon going on until we arrived. We were on our way to do a canal boat tour and we couldn't cross the street because of the marathon. It was either stand in the cold and wait for it to be over or go to the Heineken Experience. So we opted for the warmth. The girls actually really enjoyed the tour. Carolyn loved seeing the Heineken horses and they had a little 4D movie that both girls liked.

Carolyn was such a trooper that day. We did a lot of walking.

Finally we got to do our boat tour.

I loved the tour. Perfect way to see the city since we didn't have that much time there. I also loved seeing all of the house boats on the canal. Our driver was so nice. He let the girls take turns driving the boat. First Sidney.

Then Carolyn with Sidney as her copilot of course.

Then he let them both sit up front with him.

Such a great day. We didn't end up checking into our hotel until after 7 that night. Our dinner later is a whole other post.