European summer

The title sounds more ambitious than reality: we spent some two weeks in Europe for the summer vacation. We were in Belgium and France and even did a brief trip to the Netherlands to visit friends.

The kids had a great time with the grandparents in the first few days, allowing the parents to rest a bit and we then all went to France, to our favorite spot near the Champagne region. We even managed to squeeze in an afternoon in Paris. Traffic was so smooth (with everybody being on holiday) that we managed to park right next to the Eiffel tower!

September just flew by, with a couple of birthday parties and the day-to-day and weekend activities. Here are some random pictures from the past period.

Some more pictures

Random pics of recent weeks

Japan!

Dear readers,

First and foremost: Apologies for the delayed update. Things have been busy since our last post. Among other things, we took a trip to Japan. The kids stayed at home with the grandparents (Nirmala's parents), with a little help from Raquel.

The Japan trip covered Tokyo, Kamakura, Kyoto, Nara, Naoshima and Osaka. Below a few selected pictures, in random order.

Naoshima

Shinkansen

Harajuku - Tokyo

Shibuya, Tokyo

Mt. Fuji, seen from Tokyo

Kyoto - Kinkaku-ji (Golden Pavilion) with some tourists blocking the view