We've lived here in Belgium going on seven months now, and I feel like, for the first time, the vacation's over and we're settling into our 'real lives.' I kind of felt like this would be coming - we'd been travelling so much, had a sequence of visitors, and had a month-long Christmas season - I was worried I would sink into a homesick depression! But, I do have to say I'm enjoying just sticking around home for a while - I'm sure the fact that we have a trip planned back to the U.S. in about six weeks helps!
Scott's brother's wife, Jen, came to visit at the end of January for a few days, and, although I'm not sure it was much of a vacation for her, we really enjoyed her visit! It was a pretty quick trip for her - she arrived on Thursday morning and left Monday morning - but she was quite a trooper - and certainly didn't seem to be as affected by jet lag as we were when we moved over here. The boys were so excited to see her - Bo was definitely a bit uncertain at first, but by the end of her visit, she could hardly go to the bathroom without a little shadow. He also took it upon himself to try and wriggle himself into her bed in the middle of the night - if only it would've worked - ha!
We had a pretty low-key visit - just hung out and showed Jen how we live here. We did take her to the Grand Place on Friday - and because I took a wrong turn out of the metro station, she got a lot little more of a tour of downtown Brussels than we bargained for. On Saturday we dropped the boys off at a friend's house and took Jen to Bruge, a quaint little Belgian town about 15 minutes from the coast known as 'the Venice of Belgium' - as it has canals throughout. It was wonderful to be able to do a little sightseeing and have a nice dinner without having to wrangle in two little boys throughout the whole meal.
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| Michelangelo's Madonna and Child in Bruge's Church of Our Lady. This is one of the few pieces of Michelangelo's works that can be seen outside of Italy. When we first visited Bruge in the fall the church was closed, so this was one thing we definitely wanted to see this time around. |
Since Jen left we've just been hanging out around here. The weather hasn't been too bad, so we've been able to get to some parks and I've been able to walk to get Will from school, which is always great. Will plays basketball in a league at the British school on Sunday - Scott coaches. And I use the word 'play' very loosely. Bo and I tagged along a couple of weeks ago...not sure I would have the patience to coach four to six-year-olds basketball! A couple of weeks ago the four of us headed to Technopolis - a local children's science museum. The boys had a lot of fun - as did Scott and I!
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| Will creating a dam - probably his favorite thing there. Civil engineer career in his future?? |
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| Trying to create a giant bubble |
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| Scott lying on a bed of nails - Will's at the controls. You push a button to make the nails pop up. It was a big display on the physics of weight distribution - very neat. |
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| Bo loved all the water activities - note the missing shirt! |
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| Brushing giant teeth. |
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| Buying groceries to make his mama dinner:) |
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| Checking out at the grocery store. |
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| Falling through the blocks of 'ice'. |
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| This was kind of cool - as you pedal the bike, you can watch the skeleton in action. Very appropriate for Will right now...he's preoccupied with his bones for some reason...? |
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| Making pizzas in the pizzeria. |
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| Elephant feet! |
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| Feeding a squirrel nuts. |
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| And...time to go. |
Of course we couldn't just let the Super Bowl pass by. Although the game started at 12:30 AM here, we had a couple of friends over earlier for some good (not-so-good-for-you) football food. Scott actually stayed up to watch the game - and by that I mean stayed on the couch - he slept through most of it.
We've had some play dates and met a few new people as well. Scott and I were actually able to go out on a date last Saturday night - some friends of ours offered to watch the boys. We had a nice Valentine's Day - I kept Will home and we had some friends over for brunch. A new guy that started at PWC in the beginning of the year has two daughters - the older one will be five in April. Claire has become Will's new 'best friend' - as he calls her. It's always nice to see him playing with someone who speaks English!
We've had a few interesting 'living in a country where not everybody speaks English' experiences lately. A few weeks ago the doorbell rang and I answered it to find a man speaking very animatedly waving this envelope around. From all I could gather, he was here regarding our meter - as he kept pointing to it (it's located right outside our front door.) Well, I of course had no idea what he was saying, and he, looking very frustrated, wrote something down, handed me the envelope, and left. I gave it to Scott to have translated at the office the next day and didn't think about it again until he called later and told me it was a very good thing I didn't speak English. Apparently the guy was there to shut off our electricity because we hadn't been paying our bill since we moved in (allegedly). The envelope said that he would return in a certain number of days, and if I still didn't understand what he was saying, he would just go ahead and dig underground outside our building until he was able to cut off our electricity - at our expense. What?! Turns out the previous owners never cancelled their policy - with the opposing electric company in town - so we never saw a bill because they were all being forwarded to their address. Our electric company, along with our moving company, was able to straighten everything out, and, all's well that end's well. So, long story short, sometimes it pays to be ignorant:)
We don't have too many plans coming up for the next few weeks, a friends birthday this weekend, then Bo turns 2 next Wednesday! I can't believe he's going to be 2 already...time has just flown with him. He's definitely turning into a 2-year-old already. Very busy and into everything. Just pushes his little stool all around the kitchen to help himself to whatever he wants - climbs up on the cupboards and all. His vocabulary has exploded over the last few weeks - and he copies everything. He's turning into a little manipulator...he'll ask for something - usually a cookie or something - he's got a terrible sweet tooth - and when we repeat 'you want a cookie?' he'll say with a laugh, 'ok' - like it was our idea the whole time.
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| Somebody knocked the sprinkles all over the floor... |
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| Why let them go to waste? |
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| Bo and his 'baby' - who's usually always as naked as he is:) The kid has a serious issue with wearing clothes. The other day Scott came home from work and asked - in all seriousness - if I ever even dress him anymore. |
We've had our share of illnesses run through the house. The latest is a terrible cough that has been plaguing Scott and Will for going on two weeks now. Will's is getting so bad I had him home from school a couple of days this week and at the doctor and Scott came home from work at 4 today (a record!) and went straight to bed. The other night we took the kids to 'Quick' - their version of McDonald's with a play area. He was running around - which was our mistake - we should've known better, and at one point couldn't stop coughing. I saw it happening in slow motion: all of a sudden, he started throwing up - right there in the middle of the play area - all over. Not one of our finer parenting moments. Needless to say, we cleaned up and got the heck out of dodge.
Finally, I am now taking donations for the 'Scott Miller European speeding ticket fund'. In Belgium, it is very rare to be picked up and ticketed for speeding - they mostly get you with cameras. Our first few weeks here Scott received two - in a matter of a few days. Well, he's been clean...until now. My darling husband was clocked going over 40 kilometers over the speed limit coming out of a tunnel - and the fine...let's just say it'd be darn near enough to buy a plane ticket home. Looks like I may need to learn how to drive a stick shift after all...
Have a great week,
Jackie
