Gone with Good Reason

I've been absent this last week and I am sorry. 

Just a little.  Joel and I were on vacation.  Alone.  How wonderful is that?!

Our oldest, with the help of Nana & Papa, took care of the house and her sisters, so I felt it was best not to announce to blogland that I'd be gone.  I'm sure all you parents out there understand.

(Thank you to my wonderful girls for all being so responsible and wonderful and all that good stuff while I was gone!)

Guess where I went?  Oh, it was so exciting!

THE NETHERLANDS!!!

We stayed in Haarlem for a couple of days.

I LOVE Haarlem.  It's beautiful beyond words.

We took a train up to the North Sea and stuck our feeties in the sand.

I brought back some North Sea seashells for Addie's collection too.

Then it was on to Amsterdam!

I went to the Rijks and the VanGogh Museums--dreams come true!

I cried at the VanGogh.  Really.  It was that awesome.

A couple of days in London. 

Had to see The Tower and the Royal Ravens.

Here's me just chillin' at Big Ben.

Actually, I'm trying to talk Joel into going into the phone booth so I can take his pic, but that was a no-go.

And what's London without the tea?

I wouldn't know, because we didn't actually do tea, but we did partake in some of the tea goodies.

Forgive me for not doing the tea...I ended up at the National Gallery and it was STUFFED with the most fabulous western world art that you can imagine.  It took the whole day and I don't regret seeing Monet, Manet, Seurat, Cezanne, Pissaro, Durer, Rembrandt, Turner, Michelangelo, DaVinci, the list goes wonderfully on and on and on!

Back to reality (with lots of biscuits and cheese in tow), but that also means back to the kidlets and I did miss them!