This is 29

Yesterday, I turned 29.

I don’t have a lot of angst about getting older; I like myself a little more with each passing year as I get a little more mellow and patient and friendly, and I’m loving this stage of life with Bart and our little girls.

Also, we started out the day with hot pain au chocolate, so it’s hard to think that 29 won’t be a great year.

(And then instead of charging us the 70 euro fine for not having train tickets for the 15 minute ride to Amsterdam Centraal station to catch our train to Paris, the grandmotherly conductor let us off with a warning and told us that from now on we should remember to buy them BEFORE we got on the train – we’d tried to buy them before we got on the train, but we were so tight for time and the ticket machine wouldn’t read our credit cards four times in a row, so we’d just figured we’d buy them on the train itself once we got on, which apparently is highly frowned upon (to the tune of more than triple the regular ticket price). Paying 70 euros instead of the 10 euro ticket price would have basically ruined my entire day. A free ride up to Centraal station was definitely a much better birthday gift).