Just a quick update.
After the 10 days of bitter cold in December, we really haven't had much of a winter. True, we are enduring frequent storms and some steady rains, but we have also had some really nice weather.

Below some pictures of a day at the park with the boys two weeks ago. There is this great park about half an hour away that has just a huge playground. There is also a petting zoo and water bikes and an outdoor pool, but the water bikes and pool have not been open yet - obviously.



It's funny how different these tow boys are. Stoney is a big climber and will always seek the highest point anywhere and then climb it (as you can see in the pictures). Monty is - literally - more down to earth. I am not sure if he has fear of heights or if playing in dirt is just much more attractive to him. He prefers to play in a little wooden house (but not climb on it's roof as Stoney would do) or pretend he is playing "store" or things like that. He enjoys slides, but is not the real tall ones and he can't get to excited about swings. Whereas again, for Stoney it can't go fast enough or high enough. Leland says he'll probably want to climb Everest one day.
Their differences were also very obvious when my parents took them to the Zoo in Antwerp.
(Leland and I went to Brugge for a weekend. My parents watched the boys and we got to have a date for the two of us.) Stoney just runs from one animal area to the next. Always so eager and curious to find out what is more, what is next; while Monty just stands there in awe of every animal. He spend ten minutes looking at the back of a hippo (because it was the only part visible above the water) convinced that it would surface at some point. He had to go back to the turtle cage with Opa because he had to show Opa there were turtles in the left corner of the cage too! He is so funny that way. He is really showing more and more personality now that he is almost four. (Unfortunately, he is also showing quite a lot of temper tantrums)

Something about Brugge: Brugge is this really pretty old town close the the Belgium coast. It was very important in the 14th century, because of the trade and cloth making. I was kind of cold the Saturday we were there, so we went into some museums. There is a nice museum of Flemish primitive painters there - I had been to Brugge before but never gone in that museum yet. We also went on a boat ride. Brugge claims to be the Venice of the north, which i think is a little presumptious, but it does have a lot of water. But hey, Amsterdam or Leiden have a lot more water then Brugge. Anyway. We took a couple of pictures, not a ton, because the post cards are usually nicer, but these turned out okay.