Het is herfst in Nederland! Thank goodness, we were very done with the heatwave. What have we been up to? More work and travel! Brandon’s job is taking him all over the place, and we squeeze in personal trips whenever we can.

A big trip we took this September was a stay at Disneyland Paris to celebrate our 8th wedding anniversary! We rode the Eurostar train and stayed at the Sequoia Lodge in the Disney Resort. The Disneyland station is literally right outside the park entrances, how cool is that? Between the two parks there was plenty to see and do. A lot of attractions were familiar, but very little was identical to Anaheim. It was an interesting experience to go to a place that is so similar to the parks we know inside out. Standouts were the Tower of Terror, and Phantom Manor, the Parisian version of the Haunted Mansion. The main focus on this trip, since we were in Paris, was the Ratatouille area! The ride was pretty cute, and it was nestled in a little square made to look like a Parisian street, complete with Bistrot Chez Remy, a Parisian restaurant that shrinks guests down to the size of rats. It was very cute, and the food was pretty good. Although we are sad to report that the ratatouille was not plated all fancy like the film. And although Halloween celebrations in the EU are not at all like back in the US, the park did have a little bit of Halloween merch, and a lot of really cute autumnal decoration. There were giant pumpkins dotted around the resort, scarecrows all over Frontierland, and plenty of ghostly statue photo ops. We had a great time together doing something new but also familiar.

We also visited London again, this time with the intent of seeing a West End show. Or THREE! Allison could not contain herself when she went to book this trip, so we ended up seeing The Book of Mormon, Hadestown, and The Play That Goes Wrong. All were awesome, we rode the tube like pros, and we even ended up having ramen at a pop-up Naruto restaurant. We love a theme.

Our latest home endeavor has been to have festive decorations in the apartment. We got rid of basically all of our holiday decorations when we moved. We knew we would not have a yard to convert into a graveyard for the month of October, or space for a full size Christmas tree, once we were in Amsterdam. But shopping for decor here, especially Halloween, is much more limited. So we made do with what we could find from the nearby shops. On the plus side, Amsterdam has quite a few expat shops that specialize in imported goods, so Allison was able to make punkin dip! We will not be missing out on festive snacks and sweets, that is for sure.

Until next time, doei!