Welcome to Holland, land of the flowers! We began the day at 5am in order to make it to Floraholland, the leading flower auction in the world. In terms of floor space, the building itself is the second largest in the world and accommodates 48 million plants and flowers a day! In the auction room buyers can view the flowers as they pass through the room, transported by mechanical grooves in the floor. Above, the screen shows the price and quantity available, both of which go down over time. The buyers push a button to tell the auctioneer (in a little booth down by the flowers) how much they want to buy. The longer they wait, the lower the price...but wait too long and you miss it all together. Each lot of flowers takes only seconds or minutes to sell. Many of the flowers bought in the early morning will be in homes by the end of that very day, while some are shipped out on planes to farther away locations. The sheer size of the operation was absolutely staggering and worth the early hours (even though the children are pictured in pajamas!)
Our little Victoria outshone all the flowers in the garden! A mob of Asian tourists surrounded her and her sister in the above picture, ignoring the flowers and snapping pictures of them! Victoria loved being with her Daddy and riding on Mommy's shoulders...her favorite way to get around! She cruises in the stroller as well (to the right) and was also quiet happy in the petting zoo :)
Nancy bloomed birghter than all the flowers in the garden! A mob of Asian tourists surrounded her and her sister in the above picture, ignoring the flowers and snapping pictures of them instead! Above, Nancy didn't hesitate to run up and pet all the animals at the petting zoo. She was very brave there... as well as on the bridges and by the water and pretty much everywhere else! What a fun little playmate! 
Nancy is enjoying her new home! To the right, she is blowing bubbles outside our apartment in our "yard" (a tiny little common grass area, but it works for us!). In the center, she is putting in her very first screw! Her little table and chair set came with special IKEA tools and she wanted to screw it together herself, and she did! To the left, dancing with Daddy in the kitchen, she even found a way aroundthe heigth barrier! Up and to the left Nancy is copying Mommy blowing a kiss, leg lift and all!
Nancy is loving Belgian food, especially the baguettes! She has learned to dig her whole hand in and pull out the soft center. She was a milk addict before we left and we thought the lack of fresh milk would cure her...however she took one sip of the irradiated milk and instead of the grimace we were expecting she just asked for more! Below, in round three of Belgium versus the toddler, we'll have to call a tie. They have very little carpet here and our wood floors have caused more than one socked-feet slip up and ensuing tears. However I think Nancy learned to make the best of the situation as the below picture shows. She also was getting into the literature, to the right she is reading "What a Circus!" Though she enjoyed it, we have backed off of checking out books from the library after we tried several times to return this one. The library we got it from is where we used to live, now a good distance away, and we found out only open a few very select hours 3 days a week. In addition, there is no dropbox and they wouldn't accept the book at nearby branches of the same library. The above eye roll demonstrated by Nancy shows how I felt. 
