Griffin Family

 On Wednesday, July 31, 2024, we started the day at the breakfast buffet in the hotel. It was FABULOUS!!! (It would have cost $25 Euros each if we hadn't gotten it with our room). They had a jam bar and fancy pastries and fruits and eggs and so much food!!! It was delightful! Our group got on a tour bus. We stopped at the Molen Van Sloten Windmill and the Clara Mia Cheese Farm and Clog factory. Then we went to the heart of Amsterdam and did a walking tour around the area. The time with the tour group was about 4 hours and then the rest of the day we had to ourselves.  The group we were going on the River Cruise with consisted of about 20 people from the St. George area and 80 people from the Salt Lake area. The pre-tour group was about 30 people from the group of 100 that we would eventually join. It was really fun to get to know all the people from our area. The boat only had 143 people total so most everyone was part of our group.  We stopped at the windmill and took some picture

We had to leave home bright and early on Monday, July 29. We got up at 4 a.m. and headed out by 4:30 a.m.  Eldon and Diane drove over and left their car in our garage for the two weeks. We met at the Morris Murdock on Bluff Street. When we got there we loaded up on a St. George Shuttle Bus. They saved us the front seat again (which is awesome!) and we drove to Las Vegas to get our 9 a.m. flight.  When we arrived at Morris, Eldon couldn't find his phone. He had handed it to Diane who, it turns out, placed it in the cup holder and forgot it in our car. He couldn't find it anywhere and so they had many days of angst as they worked to get the phone. They never did get it while they were in Europe but did end up getting it returned to their house eventually. That story is much too long to tell...but it did cause them some stress. Great stress. For many days.  We flew from Las Vegas to Detroit. Had a short layover and then flew to Amsterdam. Doesn't seem so bad, right? It took al