Day 1 - Amsterdam

Nathan and I went to Europe for 12 days! It was a wonderful trip and Nathan's wonderful parents stayed with the kids while we were gone. I want to start off by saying that we couldn't have done this trip without them and we are so grateful for all they did for the kids, in the yard (they did a LOT of yard work while we were gone!) We love you Perry and Connie!!!

On May 20th we left home at 8AM for the Portland Airport. We got on a non-stop flight to Amsterdam, arriving there at 8AM on May 21st. With the nine hour time difference and long flight we lost a day going over.

Amsterdam was absolutely beautiful. We didn't see much of it because we had less than a day there. Our whole trip was like that. I like to call it our "Amazing Race" vacation because we stopped in each place for about a day and then moved on. We saw a lot!

We went to a place called Zaanse Shans. It has several working windmills and a wooden shoe shop. VERY cute!

The inside of a windmill that grinds dyes.

Inside the wooden shoe shop. These are the machines that they use to make the wooden shoes and a bunch of "raw" shoes in the foreground.

So many shoes to choose from! Yes, they do wear wooden shoes still! People wear these instead of steel toed boots, like farmers, mill workers, etc.

Then we went into Amsterdam. We went to the Anne Frank Annex which was a very humbling experience. We founds some amazing apple pie/cobbler. Most of our lunches were desserts because we just couldn't pass them up! Why have a sandwich when you can have apple pie?! Then we just strolled around marveling at the buildings, canals, and bikes! There are bikes everywhere! There are more bikes than automobiles!