It's Been Quite a Week!

Ed has always teased me that the week between Mother's Day and my birthday has always been a week long celebration, but I do have to agree with him this year! He really spoiled me this year! We went away on Mother's Day weekend and stayed in Maastricht Saturday night after seeing Luxembourg and drove around Belgium. We saw Bastogne where the Battle of the Bulge took place and the American cemetery in Luxembourg city. It was nice to see that the cemetery is so beautifully kept but sad to see so many young lives cut short. We also saw the German cemetery and was reminded that they too lost sons and fathers.

We stayed in Maastricht that night on the river and had a wonderful dinner.
The next morning we headed to Tongeren for my favorite thing to do - checking out flea markets!!! Ed found a great painted trunk and lamp made out of an old surveyors tool. I picked up some wooden bowls and some white stoneware potties (yes, I know that's weird.)


Thursday we headed to Amsterdam by train and checked in to our hotel. Kelly, our daughter had arrived in Amsterdam the day before with a group from her church. We met up for lunch and then took a tour of the Van Gogh museum. I think he was my favorite artist. The museum did a great job of displaying how his style progressed over the years of his life. We then went out to dinner with Kelly and then Ed and I headed down to the Red Light District. It was kind of sad actually. I couldn't look the young woman in the eye's. It sickened me to hear men making obscene remarks at them and laughing at them, but most of all I think I'm not happy with my self for going down there.

Friday was totally a fun, fun day!!!! Coffee with one of my daughters, two quilt shops, a bead shop, a canal boat tour, apple pancakes, and two English book shops, need I say more!!!!!!
This is a picture of Den Haan & Wagenmakers in Amsterdam. It is such a beautiful store! It is not a traditional quilt store, but sells mainly the traditional reproduction Dutch fabric that I just adore!!! I learned that the fabric is actually made not to far from Enschede, it would be great to go see it made, hopefully I can figure out how to make that happen.

We got back home Friday night and then Saturday morning, the day of my birthday we headed to Munster, Germany for the first big flea market of their Summer season. It's a great flea market and huge! Needless to say, I took a long nap that afternoon! Saturday night Ed took me out for dinner and boy was I surprised when several people we knew were there waiting to surprise me! I felt very honored and loved this week!!! Thank you honey!

Flea Market Treasure

This is my latest flea market treasure. It is an old graniteware bread box from the 1940's. I'm guessing that was when it was made. It does have some wear on one of the corners - (I call them character marks) but I only paid 8 euros for it and I've seen ones in perfect condition going for 50 euros and up. It will come in handy when the weather gets nicer and the little flying bugs start to invade our kitchen to eat our bread (we don't have window screens.)

I also picked up a toy barn that a gentlemen had made. I have a collection of German toy farm animals and they needed a place to stay! Ed gave me a horrible time about buying it - but I saw its potential!!! I'm going to paint it and try to turn it into a miniature version of a beautiful Dutch barn that you see in the country here. I'll post pictures when I'm done.

Flea Markets

I love flea markets, especially flea markets in Europe. Most items are very inexpensive - compared to prices in the States. The above picture is from the flea market at Tongeren, Belgium that we went to a few weeks ago. It is about a 3 hour drive south of Enschede. Antique dealers or individuals selling their stuff were lined up along the old streets. It was very cool! They have the sale every Sunday rain or shine. Luckily the day we went it was beautiful! To mark the end of a fun day we had an official Belgian waffle (yummmmmm!)

This was my treasure for the day, an old antique toy horse and an old box made from lit matches!