Grandma B's visit and Halloween!

I feel as though I begin nearly every post with the phrase "I can't believe it's        already" - but here it is, one week into November already, and I find myself saying it again - I really can't believe it's November already.  October positively flew by - and Bo keeps asking when it's going to be Halloween again:)

My mom arrived for her visit on Wednesday, October 19th - and we had a great time with her here.  Although we didn't do much traveling - apart from a day trip to Amsterdam - we seemed to fill our days nonetheless, and it was great to have her here and just be - lots of parks, walks and bike rides.  Although it can get a little chilly, we've been blessed with some beautiful fall weather.  Mom and I were even able to do a little market-shopping and coffee/croissant mornings on our own, since Bo's in school two days a week.

Brussels Grand Place

Mannequin Pis, of course.

This is a picture taken last year at a restaurant near the Grand Place...

This is from this year...and it looks like Bo's spaghetti-eating skills have improved slightly...

Bo with his teacher - Madame Laura.  As you can see from his expression, he's not a huge fan of school yet.

Will at swimming lessons.

Walking back to the train after going to a movie - The Atomium in the background.

 On Sunday mom and I left the boys with Scott and headed up to Amsterdam by ourselves.  It was a beautiful day - we had a very nice (peaceful) day visiting The Netherlands most famous (and infamous) city.  It really is a very beautiful city - but different than a lot of other Western European cities we've been to - there's not as much to actually 'see and do' - the best part is just walking around, taking in the atmosphere and the people.  Mom's one request was to visit the Anne Frank House, so we were able to get tickets ahead of time (thankfully - the line was ridiculously long) and tour that.  Although it was the second time I've visited, the incredible tenacity and faithfulness of Anne and her family was not lost on me.  It's unbelievable they lived like that for two years - and incredibly sad and heartbreaking how close they were to surviving the war.  We also visited Nieuwe Kerk (New Church), a beautiful church built in the 14th century, where we were able to see Rembrandt's "The Holy Family" - which was 'visiting' from a museum in Russia.  Other than that, we just walked around the city - Red Light District and all:)  By the time we left, I was beginning to feel like I actually knew where we were going - and it only took two visits!  The next time I'd like to visit the Van Gogh Museum, which we probably would have done, but is apparently closed on Sundays.

Introduced mom to Amsterdam's famous Pancake Bakery.

Mom in front of an Amsterdam 'coffee house'...

Anne Frank House

Anne Frank House

We had a wonderful time with mom, and I was really sad to see her go - a visit can never be long enough!  I think we're probably going back for Christmas, though, so it made the good-bye not quite so hard, knowing we'll (hopefully) be seeing her again in a little over a month.

With the end of October also comes one of my favorites, Halloween - and I'm happy to say that I believe I have completely instilled that love into my boys as well!  Living in a country where Halloween seems to just be taking off, I was a little worried we'd just kind of skip over it - as last year, although we had a party, we were in London for the actual day, and it just didn't seem to have the same appeal as it did in the states.  This year, however, was a different story - we started celebrating two weeks prior and didn't stop until November 1st:)  The Mother's of Young Children Group through the American Women's Club had a party and 'trunk or treating', I found a 'commune' with a neighborhood to trick or treat in, and we had our second annual Halloween party.

Our home-made Halloween Tree.

Having dinner at the MOYC Halloween party.

Our friend Jaxon won the "how many pumpkins are in the jar" contest:)

Spider Men pals...Bo's 'Robin' costume hadn't arrived yet, so he was Spider Man instead for the party.

Scott manned our car for trunk or treating.

The boys and their friends Aidan (astronaut), Jaxon and Grayer (a knight).

Robin arrived!

Trick or treating in Overjise.  It was a bit of an ordeal...we had to sign up way in advance (they closed it at 500 kids!), provide our own candy, and go there ahead of time to get our access passes!  Typical Belgium.  Anyway, it was actually very worth it - we felt like we were in a movie - they blocked off the streets, kids dressed up everywhere, houses decorated - even the 'local' houses seemed to get very into it.  It was lots of fun!

Like I said, a lot of the locals got pretty into it.

This guy played Michael Jackson's 'Thriller' and made the kids dance for candy.

Carving pumpkins

Witches Finger cookies.

Always the helper.

My friend Christie and I at our Halloween party.

The spread

Our littlest party goer - Brooklyn Grace, two days old:)

 November first, All Saints Day, is a holiday here, and since it was on a Tuesday, many just also take Monday off as well - Halloween.  Scott ended up working from home on Monday, and having Tuesday off, so it was kind of like he had a four day weekend - it was great!  Plus, the boys are on fall break, so we had the chance to do some fun things around here for a few days.

Halloween lunch - grilled cheese 'ghosts'.

On Monday we took a long bike ride to our new favorite park - which has a zip line - Will's newest sport.

It was a gorgeous fall day.

The park is actually site of an old nunnery - they decorated the place up for Halloween.

Our annual Halloween dinner - a 'snake sandwich.'

Happy Halloween!

On Tuesday, we decided to cross a couple of places we wanted to visit in Belgium off our list and headed south to the Ardennes.  The first place was Bouillon Castle, located in a little town of the same name on the border of France.  We were told about this castle a while ago from some of our friends who have since moved back - what they mostly talked about was a bird show that takes place in the castle's courtyard.  I use the term 'castle' loosely - it seemed more of a fortress - but it was neat to see.  It was a beautiful drive down - the Ardennes in the fall are incredible!  Unfortunately, I forgot to put our memory card back in the camera, so we had to use Scott's ipod for pictures...which really didn't do the scenery justice.

We had front row seats for the bird show - which was quite scary at times, as the birds were swooping around quite close to our heads - including a couple of very formidable-looking vultures...

The Bird Man - everything was in French, so we didn't have a clue what he was saying, but he appeared to have a good sense of humor, as he had the crowd laughing quite a bit - and Will too.  

We then drove over to Bastogne, which is located near Luxembourg.  Bastogne is the site of the Battle of the Bulge - the famous WWII battle in which the U.S. 101st Airborne Division, although severely outnumbered, basically held off the Nazis, who were murdering their way through the Belgian countryside at the the time.  The Americans suffered 81,000 casualties there.  Located there is a large American Memorial as well as the Bastogne Historical Center, which unfortunately is undergoing reconstruction until spring.

The star-shaped American Memorial.

View from the top.

Inside here are three different alters representing Catholic, Protestant and Jewish religions. 

Bo wasn't loving being on top of the tank.

So tomorrow we're back to our normal schedule with the kids back in school and all.  Scott will get to check Portugal off his list, as he has to go there for work this week.  We looked into flying the boys and me down, but it was a little too pricey.  Next up we'll be going from a family of four to a family of six for a weekend, as we're taking our friends' girls for a few days while they travel to Venice...so that should be interesting.  Scott's thinking of taking the week of Thanksgiving off, and potentially going somewhere, so we'll see about that.

The kids are good.  Potty training with Bo is going...ok.  I used to hear parents complain about the trials and tribulations of potty training, some actually saying that it was a low point of parenting a toddler - and I would just shake my head and wonder what could possibly be so hard about it - Will was sooo easy to potty train.  Karma is now laughing in my face - loudly - as Bo is definitely a bit of a struggle.  Will's doing well - and continues to truly believe he is a super.  On a daily basis he wants us to call him one super hero name or another - it runs the gamut from Spider Man to Batman to Metro Man (from Megamind).  Yesterday we watched the new Puss In Boots movie - you see where this is going.  So all day, we were reminded to call him "Puss."  Riding home from the park yesterday he was getting a little too far ahead and so I yelled for him to slow down.  He proceeds to yell - at the top of his lungs from halfway down the block - "Mom!  CALL ME PUSS!"  Not one of my prouder moments.