Happy Birthday Ike!

Isaac turned 17 on January 27th!

 This year the kids are all getting their Passports for their birthday. Isaac had one when he was a baby when we moved to Saipan but that expired 11 ago.

(So cute right?)

 He's been chomping at the bit to leave the country. He wanted to go to Iceland by himself but I talked him unto talking me a long on a short trip to Amsterdam instead. I wasn't quite ready to send my baby to a foreign country alone..maybe next year. We chose Amsterdam because we found a direct flight from Portland and were pretty sure we'd get first class!

We had a total of 25 hours in Amsterdam. Left Portland at 1:40pm arrived in Amsterdam at 8am (11 pm our time) and hit the ground running to fit in as much as we could. We checked into out motel room (a Hampton near the airport) and rode the train into Amsterdam. We were taken back immediately by the beautiful city.

 We walked to the Anne Frank house (dodging bikes and mopeds along the way) and stood in line in the cold rain for over an hour to get in but it was worth the wait! I had read the Diary of Anne Frank as a teenager. Their hideaway is basically untouched today and is the same as when it was the 2 years they were in hiding. The museum does a good job of depicting what it was like and sharing Annes thoughts from her diary. (They didn't allow pictures). Pretty tragic how the Jews were treated and crazy that it wasn't that long ago.

From there we took a canal ride through town and stopped at a street market where we found a little cafe for lunch. We hopped back on the canal ride and ended up back at the main part of town where we walked some more.

It was a pretty epic day! We loved listening to the Dutch lanuance and taking in all the different sights, smells and tastes. We were both pretty tired with the time change so by early evening we headed back to our hotel room to get ready for our flight back home the next morning. It was a whirlwind trip but a perfect little vacation with Isaac! I'm so proud of the amazing young man he is and feel lucky to be his mom. 

His face says it all. It was a perfect trip!