Europe- Part 4- Zaanse Schans

Zaanse Schans, Holland

First of all, I have to give my dad credit for some of these photos. If it is a good photo with the right lighting, it's probably my dad's. I have a habit of planning the exact amount of time to do something, with no extra time AT ALL. Between this and letting Addison sleep until the second before we left, there was honestly never a time where I sat down on the bed in the hotel and actually looked at my camera settings. 

Zaanse Schans is a small working Dutch village and one of the only places near Amsterdam to get some good pictures of windmills.  Addison had kept Barrett and I from getting much sleep the night before, so my parents took off early and took a direct bus so they could get some good windmill pics in the morning light. We slept for a few more hours, grabbed some starbucks at the station, and took a train that was supposedly a short walk away from ZS.  We were so tired we took a pedi-cab and it was actually so far! Like down a long street, then through a whole town and over a river. (Luckily, that same pedi-cab driver was waiting for us at the end of the day when we needed him again or we might have just not made it walking in the heat.)

The rents

I'll strike my best pose while Addie naps.

The happiest baby ever and her amazing dad.

All along the river are different windmills that still produce paint, and oil and things.  We went to a little cheese factory and a wooden shoe factory.  

We stopped for some delicious dutch pancakes. I obviously got nutella and cream. But the strawberry ones looked good. On the topic of food, let's talk about Addie. She had turned one the day we were in Iceland, so she had been eating baby food for some time. About a month before she had gone through a phase where she wanted only real food, and only if she could eat it with her own hands.  Since she was out of her element on the trip I think it just made her forget this strange stubbornness.

This trip also totally got me over the hump of caring what I give her.  She is a great eater, and I always had her try every food, but it rarely consisted of a whole meal.  She did so great eating whatever that now at home baby food is basically caput!

Wanna talk high chairs? I do. Before we left EVERYONE told me that there would not be high chairs at most places in Europe and they would not be kid friendly.  We discovered that was half truth and half lie. 

The Lie: There are actually high chairs everywhere. Rarely though, like this one, they were not child proofed high chairs. See the pic above? Yeah. Thats just an actual chair that is literally very high. Addie had a hey-day standing up for the whole meal.  This was when I was glad she couldn't walk because she'd have just jumped down from all of them. Then there was the plastic kind with a big square tray--those were good. FYI: We actually found the best one to be the wooden kind with an oval seat and big bow type wooden piece across the front.

The Truth: There were NO baby changing tables anywhere. Coincidentally, a few months before we left, Addison had started rebelling against diaper changes so we had become pros at the Addie standing/crawling diaper change or mid-air diaper change. 

At one restaurant though, this cook saw me attempting a solo mid-air diaper change in the dimly lit basement restroom area and actually set up a total changing station for me in a empty storage area. So sweet. I felt like a million bucks. I am really all about little acts of service. If you can say or do or text ANY nice thing that will make someones day better you should. I try to do this all the time and sometimes get really sad that no one does this for me, so this guy totally made my day/week/I am not very confident so... :)

Had to include this pic! I loved pretending I knew what I was talking about and saying things like, we get off at Koog Zaandijk. Probably said them all wrong but it was really fun.  I LOVE trains. I wear rose colored glasses and somehow trains fit right into make a day amazing.

We headed home, played at the hotel, (Addie really enjoyed being wild on the beds), packed for Paris, and went to get delicious Quatro Formaggi pasta for dinner.  They all loved Addison and took her picture and gave her fries. Yes we got fries with pasta.  Mmm. Europe rocks. Fries with everything. We arrived at the train station right as the train pulled up.  Yep, I had once again planned to the minute.  Did I mention we got first class tickets? Off we went!