Brussels Trip: Part One

 I know I haven't blogged in...5 months, but here I am! I may or may not decide to post pictures of earlier happenings later on, but right now I don't feel like catching up. Instead, I'm gonna write about our Brussels/Paris trip, because that's what I want to do, and  I generally do what I want.

   The night before we left, Jeff gave Henry a blessing of comfort and peace so he wouldn't feel scared while we were traveling. After his blessing (and mostly because he couldn't sit still) his hair was a bit crazy. So I took pictures.

  When we woke Henry up at 5am to leave for the airport, he seemed strong and fully prepared for our journey. Wanna know how I know? Check him out:

Doesn't this make you think he's saying "I got this, Mama."?

 

 And while we were waiting in the SLC airport, I snapped a few pictures because...well, that's how I roll.

My calm baby waiting to board the first plane.

  
     Getting to Brussels was quite an experience. Henry has been on a plane one other time in his life (Seattle-Oct. 2012), but for such a short amount of time that we didn't really think it was an accurate representation of how he would do on planes in general. We were pretty hopeful though, because he's just such a happy kid who is really easygoing the majority of the time.
 
    This ended up being the case on the flight from SLC to Dallas/Ft. Worth. There were people on the plane that asked us afterward what our secret was for keeping Henry so quiet and we had to tell them that it's just Henry's happy disposition rather than anything that we've done. It still made us feel really cool, and I think that I sub-conciously took some credit for Henry's plane behavior and thought that I must just be a really great mom for having such a calm baby. Oh the lies we tell ourselves...

Henry playing with a plastic cup on the first flight.

   When we stopped in Dallas we were able to see my aunt Lindsay and uncle Jared Pyfer, as well as their youngest, Vann. Lindsay picked us up from the airport and took us to a steakhouse to grab some lunch and wait for Jared to finish up with work. Henry started to get really tired, so we brought his car seat in and let him take a little nap in there while we visited, but he really resisted sleeping and didn't rest for longer than 30 minutes. He was calm enough to let my uncle Jared hold him, though, which was really sweet.

 

Isn't Jared such a handsome dude?! Those Pyfers just can't help it!

My uncle Jared, his youngest Vann, Me and Henry Baby.

Vann Joseph Pyfer, one of my youngest cousins.

     After lunch we went back to the airport and got ready for our 8.5 hour flight to Paris. I was actually relieved to find out it was only 8.5 hours long because I had it in my head (not sure exactly why) that our flight would be about 12 hours long. It was still the longest flight I'd ever been on and I was determined to keep my cool and be patient the whole time. Henry slept intermittently, never for more than 2 hours at a time, and he was becoming really cranky because of it. It seems we've sleep trained him so well that he is now unable to fall asleep on our laps/on the boppy because he only associates sleep with his crib or his swing. Man. I didn't think that would be such an issue.
  Even though Henry was kinda cranky on the plane, he still managed to flirt with 3 different women sitting near us, and a flight attendant who took a particular interest in him. We saw him "wave" for the first time, to those women of course, by opening and closing his hand while smiling at them. It was pretty much the cutest thing I've seen. We also had an entire row to ourselves because when Jeff checked us in, the kind woman behind the desk saw that we were traveling with Henry and somehow counted the other seat in our row as occupied so we could have the whole thing. I'm SO grateful we got the whole row-because we most definitely needed it! When Henry occasionally fell asleep on his boppy, we were able to set him down in the middle seat so we could have our laps free. We were also able to put a bunch of his stuff there that we needed to keep handy instead of under the seat or above our seats. They showed us 2 movies on the flight, "Premium Rush" with Joseph Gordon Leavitt (which was terrible and made no sense), and "Journey 2" with Josh Hutcherson, which I didn't even bother to half-pay attention to. Lame.
   We eventually made it to Paris, though, and fortunately the airport is attached to the train station, which made it easy for us to catch our train to Brussels. While we were waiting in the freezing cold train station, Henry was starving. So Jeff found a bathroom, filled up his bottle, and gave it to Henry. He refused to eat it. He was screaming and writhing because he was so hungry, but wouldn't eat his bottle. I guessed that he might not like the taste of the water, so Jeff went and bought some bottled water (which was a whole thing because of how our debit card gets finicky in other countries) and we made him a new bottle. This whole thing took about 20 minutes and Henry was screaming the whole time. Everyone around us was staring-some with expressions of sympathy, others looking more annoyed than anything else, and a few looking at us with what might have been contempt.
   We eventually catch our train and a couple of hours later make it to Brussels. Jeff thought that the train station would be the same station that is directly next to our hotel, which would allow us to just walk over, but it turned out to be a different station, which is situated much farther away from our hotel. So we need to take a taxi, but we couldn't find an ATM to get cash and most taxi's wouldn't take cards.
    At this point we had been awake for 24 hours, Jeff had been sick for 3 days, and we were just barely keeping it together. We thought that we were just stuck and were trying not to panic. I didn't have any idea how we were gonna get to our hotel.
    Unbeknownst to me, however, Jeff had been able to get a few Euros out at the Paris train station, so we communicated to a taxi driver that we only had a few Euros and asked him if he would take us to our hotel. Luckily, he said he would and a few minutes later we were at our hotel. I collapsed by the side of the bed and prayed/cried for a few minutes.
   This was-without a doubt-the longest trip of my life!!!
   So after we crashed in the hotel room for about 3 hours, we decided to try and stay awake so we would be able to sleep once nighttime came. We thought about going out and getting something to eat, but we were both so tired that we didn't end up going anywhere. Fortunately for us, all Henry really eats is formula so we didn't have to leave our room.

  Since Jeff was still sick on Sunday night and Henry was exhausted, Jeff suggested that I go out to dinner with his team so I could get a chance to get away and have fun. And boy did I!

Stas and Arky, ordering food.

Axel with his mini-crock put of mussels

Stas let me try a piece of his duck. It was pretty good.

And Axel wanted me to try one of his mussles. Even though I'm really afraid of sea food, I thought that I should be daring and give it a go. And I had Axel take video on my phone so I could prove to Jeff that I had actually done it.

 I also ate my first *real* Belgian waffle. I don't really like waffles a whole lot to begin with, but I thought that I should definitely try a Belgian waffle in Belgium so I did. 

Belgian waffle covered in chocolate.

So I have to say...I still don't like waffles. But at least I tried! And I got to lick up that delicious chocolate out of the waffle, so it wasn't a total loss. :)

After a couple of days recovering from jet lag (which isn't pretty-see the pic below), we've gone out to see some pretty cool sights.

This isn't even the worst that we saw. Poor Henry.

This beautiful church is right across the street from our hotel. This picture was taken from our window.

A super old castle that is a hotel and (dilapidated) restaurant.

Side view of the castle

The "Old England" opera house

View from the hill leading up to the Royal Palace. That Spire is in Grand Place.

I love statues like this! I just wish I knew who it represented...

Outside the front gate of the Royal Palace.

Royal Palace.

Henry and Mama.

My happy boy!

This boy LOVES to look at himself take pictures (thank goodness for my iphone that lets me turn the camera around)!

One side of the Royal Gardens

Henry, sitting on the stone fence, watching the cars go by.

 While we were out at the Palace, I saw this bus go by and just HAD to get a picture...

 I just had to get a picture. Mostly for my sister Karren, but it made me laugh really hard (a little too hard, I think).

   We've taken Henry out to a few restaurants while we've been here, but he gets bored at them REALLY easily and we often have to eat quickly and leave immediately afterward. At one restaurant we didn't even get a chance to order before Henry got to be too fussy and we had to leave.

The mirror entertained him for a little while.

 But we left right after we took these pictures. Poor Henry. He hasn't been on a normal sleep schedule since we left home, so he just gets tired at the most inconvenient times for us. We've had to mostly just go to dinner by ourselves (without the rest of Jeff's team) so that all 3 of us can go and Henry won't be miserable.

I'll get some pictures up of Grand Place and the Mannekin Pis tomorrow. You'll love those!

Only a day and half more in Brussels before we move on to 2 and half days in Paris!