You're Going to Get Very Sick of our Faces

We went to the Netherlands and it was amazing.  But I must admit that it was long, long ago now, so I'm just going to show a few (thousand) highlights.  Mostly just our cute faces enjoying Dutch things.

First, the best part of our trip was the museums. We saw so many amazing collections and objects.

And we also goofed around some.

Seriously, though, the Rijksmuseum had a room full of model ships and Eddy just.

We also made a special pilgrimage to the Van Gogh Museum to see this painting that grade school Eddy copied in pencil as a child.

It is displayed proudly in our home always.

Okay. So other than museums. Windmills. Obviously.

We also went to the beach! It was lovely.

But the zaniest and most amazing thing I did was tour a stroopwafel factory in Gouda. Ask me about it sometime. The story is long and amazing and ends with stroopwafels.

Eddy and I also took some very compelling boat rides (because canals, you see.)

There were some beautiful bridges with charmingly low clearance.  Seriously, the captain asked us to duck many times.

We took pictures on the various boats.

But mostly there was just a whole lotta this kind of thing.

Which led to a little of this.

Also this.

Look. We went to the Netherlands and it was amazing. That's all she wrote!

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Molly's First Beach

We recently had an opportunity to take our Molly to the beach.  It's a rare treat since she is dog and human reactive and borks her head off at basically anyone she sees.  We've been trying hard to travel more with her, not necessarily to expose her to people and dogs more often, but just for enrichment.  Lately, we've been on a somewhat bonkers sleep schedule and with Daylight Saving Time, we knew we'd have an opportunity to get her out to the beach before anyone else was likely to be out there.

Did I mention it was early?

The first early morning walk went so well, we thought we'd take both Norman and Molly to the beach on the second morning.

But don't feel bad for Normy-B just because Molly got a lot of special attention on this trip.

He had plenty of fun.

He was even allowed beach-y fun during actual daylight hours!

You may not be able to tell from this post so far, but there were actual humans along on this trip as well.

We did stuff and ate stuff or whatever.

But mostly we just spent our time making sure the dogs were completely spent.

They slept four straight days when we got home.

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Float Scam

We recently went to Lincoln City over a weekend mathematically calculated to have the highest probability of finding one of the hidden glass floats distributed along the beaches as part of the Finders Keepers art project.

We began the weekend all lovey and optimistic.

Let me spare you the suspense.  We did not find any floats despite the fact that we braved hours of inclement weather (IT HAILED ON US!) and spent many, many hours combing the beach.  This is why we now refer to Lincoln City simply as "Float Scam." But I digress.  Despite the fact that we were a bit too obsessive for our own good, we actually had a lovely weekend.

We soaked up some sunshine.  But, you know, through our clothes because it's cold at the coast this time of year.

We ended the weekend looking, well, not too much worse for the wear.

But still. Float scam.

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Xmas Cabin in the Woods

Over Xmas break this year, we decided to take the doggos on a little cabin adventure.

Even though she's scared silly of other dogs and strangers, Molly actually loves a road trip. She was so excited to go that as soon as her crate was loaded into the car, she stationed herself there to make sure she did not get left behind.

Once we arrived, it didn't take the dogs too long to settle into their new surrounds.

They liked this spot especially because the cabin was right on this beautiful little creek.

Norman loves him some creek fun.

There were tons of woods to explore and not explore near the cabin.

There was even a little bit of snow. But, like, in the parking lot of a restaurant.

Plus, there was lots to do inside as well.

There was even a whole, IDK, mind map(?) wall about D.B. Cooper. So that was totally normal.

I became OBSESSED with these little rings over trees games.



Also, we brought Dutch Blitz with us and played tons of rounds.



We had such fun that we might even make this a Xmas tradition.

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Eddy Loves Lighthouses

Eddy had a birthday trip this year too! We got up bright and early in the morning and headed out to the Original Pancake House for our favorite buckwheat pancacke breakfast.

Then we hit the road to the Oregon Coast Aquarium!

We started the day watching tons of feedings.

Then we wandered the rest of the aquarium at our own pace.

There was even a pretty outdoor area where we watched a seagull hunt a crab only to lose it during a seagull fight.

I wore my penguin hat despite the fact that this aquarium does not house any penguins. After a long day staring at the fishes, we headed to our hotel where they were kind enough to give us a room on the top floor with a very choice view from our balcony.

We took a little walk down to the beach.

The next day we headed down to the piers to see the sea lion colony.

We also saw not one, but two lighthouses.

Eddy loves lighthouses.

Very, very happy birthday to my very, very favorite Eddy Westbrook!

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