Atomium

J's class has been studying architecture and encouraging the families to seek out famous buildings in the area. She rattles off many facts about the Atomium that was built for the 1958 World's Fair. "It has some rooms that you can sleep in," she claims. "There are elevators to get up into each ball," is another of her facts.
"It can be either silver or blue," she says, "depending on the color of the sky." We also discovered today that it has a Belgian flag flying on the top ball.
After heading out of church this morning we found the Atomium and ate our lunch on a bench in full view of the site. Then we decided to stroll along some of the walking paths in the area. A favorite pasttime of many Belgians is walking through the footpaths. We found the amphitheater above that created quite a view of the Atomium.


R here is intrigued by the pick-up game of soccer in a local park during our walk. If you click on the picture, you can barely see a church in the background that we thought about walking toward, but somebody (even though they wouldn't admit it) was acting like they needed to go potty so we decided not to press our luck.

Technopolis, Belgium

Student Led Conferences at school lasted two days. My children had their conferences Wednesday leaving Thursday open for fun! We were going to head out for the zoo, but with 80% chance of rain, we changed our minds and ended up inside at Technopolis in Mechelen, Belgium. Memories of the Children's Museum in Indy came flashing back as we stopped to enjoy the exhibits.

My thoughts were back home as we walked through the Grossology section based on the book by Sylvia Branzei, a favorite among my fourth graders! I took many pictures to show them all the exhibits.

This was a huge game of Operation with rubber guts and bones to excavate.
Here was a station equipped with smelling devices. The kids would stick their hands under the table, squeeze the bottle to release a scent that comes from the body, and identify the smell by pushing a button on their left side. The bacteria would light up as green if the child guessed correctly. The scent choices were either from the mouth, feet, armpits, or bottom. The hilarious part was that the kids had been skipping from one exhibit to the other, not even reading signs. So I just told one of them to come smell this and squirted the scent as they took a huge whiff, only to surprise them with how nasty the smell was. You can tell by the look on R's face how disgustingly real those scents are!
Looking into these nostrils, the children shoot germs into the nose, some being knocked down by the nose hairs. Others are shot right into the nasal cavity. After a few balls make it up, the man says, "AAAAAhhhhh choooo!" as all the germs come flying back. This definitely paints a picture of how our body works!
J is sliding down the digestive system. She started in the mouth over to the right (you can make out the lips) and ended up in the stomach.
After venturing out of the Grossology section, we made it to the much advertised bed of nails. Trying to get the picture, I missed where the nails came up to J through the holes, but you get the idea. She said it didn't really hurt, but just a little on her elbow bone.A museum for kids isn't complete without a water area where the kids can play! J is shooting a ball with water, pushing it to the coils.
R explores building a bridge with wooden blocks.

Lunch was yummy...consisting of J's whole head and R's eyeballs.

Can you catch a cloud? We couldn't!
Not daring to look down, I rode this bike on a 5 meter high tightrope. The kids weren't quite tall enough.
R flew a plane. My brother is a pilot and we thought it would be funny to see if a real pilot could master this simulation.

The kids also raced against various animals, explored with bubbles, and enjoyed many other activities. They had a great day and reported that their favorites were the water and Grossology areas.

Eurpean sidenote: Many high school kids were visiting this day on a field trip probably for science class. Anyway, they were from the public schools and it was surprising to me to see some of them outside taking a smoke break. Culture Shock! Kids back home aren't allowed until they're 18 - basically out of school. So you would never see teens smoking at school functions! Here the law is that vendors aren't to sell cigarettes to anyone under 16, however, there is not an actual age limit for smoking. I have been overwhelmed at how many Europeans smoke. Do they not have the same awareness we do at how unhealthy smoking really is? I'm not sure.

Student Led Conferences

Coming from a teaching background, student led conferences are intriguing and I couldn't wait to have my kids lead me! J couldn't either as she skipped home from the bus Tuesday, holding my hand saying, "Tomorrow I get to be the teacher and you're the kid."

We started off on Wednesday with J's in Pre-K at 1:00. They are to last an hour, so I curiously wondered how we would fill the time. There were so many activities these little ones participate in I couldn't believe it!
We climbed the stairs to the loft area in her classroom where she eagerly told about how her reading buddy and her contributed to the classroom model.

Using a finger, the students practice writing their names in blue sand. Her favorite part was erasing it with the wooden strip.

They also have a Smart Board in her classroom and the teachers did a reading activity on it incorporating architecture, they're theme of study the past few weeks.

Looking through her portfolio, she recalled and expressed to me her many accomplishments under the loft as we looked through her work.

Right outside her classroom is a map of the world with strings indicating the countries all of the students moved from to live in Belgium. Pretty diverse - huh?

As an art display in the hallway they also showed off their new and improved houses. The top is ours. We sent in a picture and she dolled it up complete with a fountain and colorful roof tiles. I think we should definitely take her architectural advice and get a fountain!

These teachers are so smart - they even had a paper mache area where we made an Easter egg together. Then I was part of the mess, and not the teachers. How clever! :)

The bottom line is she loves art and I'm so thankful she can participate in so many crafty projects!

Then it was R's turn at 2:20. He cracked me up as we found his to-do-list on his desk of items we could discuss together. I asked, "So, Buddy, what do you want to do first?" "I don't know." He's usually undecisive when it comes to things like this. "What does the top of this paper say?" I asked him. "Student Led Conferences," he replied. "So, lead me," is all I said, and he took the reins.

So proud of his clock out in the hallway, we had to get a close up picture of this thing so all could see! His teacher bragged on his handwriting. Thanks to Mrs. McNaught and Mrs. Clark!

We moved all over the classroom from the math game with tens and ones to the computer where we watched his presentation of the Memory Box he brought in to the classroom. He also did some word sorts and I was to "buddy check".

We read through his portfolio as well discussing his writing and colorful illustrations. Then out to the hallway again where the students had found man made and natural objects, glued them to an egg shaped paper, and brought them in for the display. We helped with that part at home. Then the teachers had the kids write descriptive words about their egg on a piece of paper. The parents retrieved one from the box, read the description to our child, and they had to guess which egg it matched. What a fun game!

What an eventful time and how fun to see what the kids do throughout their days at school! I'm so proud of both of them!

Waterzooi

At an attempt to embrace the culture, I have taken 2 cooking classes here and in my own kitchen tried to duplicate what I've learned. K has been pleasantly surprised at how well the dishes have tasted (or he's just faking it to keep me happy!). The one we tried yesterday was Waterzooi which originates in a city here called Ghent (we actually visited it in December or January). Waterzooi means "watery mess" in Dutch, which if I would've known that earlier, I wouldn't have been quite as excited about learning to make it. The dish contains chicken, potatoes, carrots, leeks, onions, thyme, chicken stock, and cream.

The children struggle with trying new recipes (imagine that!), so before tasting this we all made comments Mom would love to hear about the new recipe like, "Oh, this is the best!" or "Wow! This tastes yummy!" hoping the dish would live up to these new compliments. After praying for the meal, J immediately procrastinates on taking any bites. R dives in and decides he "kind of" likes the new cuisine. (Of course you don't have to worry about the 6'7" hubby as he devours practically anything I put in front of him like there's a time limit and then I'm stealing his dish.) We wrestled with our parenting skills, discussing whether we should start allowing peanut butter sandwiches when we know a meal is not the kids' top choice. If we're having something not many children would like, we usually let the kids eat chicken nuggets or some other fool proof meal. This was edible though, and J still hadn't even tried it. After sitting in her chair for about 20 minutes while R and I finished, she finally took a bite and wouldn't you know, she liked it! Although I did not hear,"Wow! This meal is the best ever!", she ate most of it and went to bed with a full tummy.

"My Ami"

R loves to come home and play a great game of football on the XBOX after finishing homework. He was talking about his team and telling K how he had picked Miami one afternoon. J pipes up with her 5 year old snood voice, "My Ami? You don't have an Ami." He responded, "No, it's Miami." "Well, it's not 'Your' Ami. You don't own it." Oh boy! She's got a lot to learn about sports!

Making it Just Like Home

Easter egg hunts, pictures with the Easter bunny, crafts about Easter, all of these things we did at my parents' church back home, so when the American Women's Club had a similar program Sunday afternoon, we were there!

K was leaving for England, so the kids and I headed to the AWCB after church for the Easter Party. They started off coloring some Easter pictures on beautifully decorated pastel colored tables decked out with balloons on the chairs while enjoying a snack of goodies as this was also a pitch in.


"What kind of flowers are these going to be?" I asked as the children then ventured outside to plant some bulbs. "Oh, we don't know!" claimed the sweet ladies helping the kids plant and water their bulbs. "It'll be a surprise!" Little do they know that at my house it will definitely be a surprise if the things even grow at all. I'm not known for my green thumb!

After planting the mystery flowers, we played some Easter Bingo only to have J win a cute little Ikea tea set! How funny because I can count on one hand the number of times she's played with her adorable kitchen upstairs, but she assured me these things would be put to use! Anybody up for a bet?

Right as we were finishing the game of Bingo, some children noticed a peculiar looking over sized bunny rabbit outside dropping not eggs, but various chocolates and candies all over the lawn. Good thing it was another sunny day in Belgium so we could have the hunt outside. That rabbit stopped by to tell the children to get their Easter baskets and head out. All of the kids found candy...it was everywhere! I finally had to tell my own two that they had enough in their baskets. Why is it that they never believe me? R argued with me as if I was going to let him eat the whole stash on the way home. There is always this need to have more, even though we're still working on the Valentine and Christmas candy. I used to be able to sneak it out of the house, bring it to school and dump it in our treat box, but now it's just accumulating in my huge baggie in the cabinet, waiting for me to take a few pieces every day since the children quickly forget it's even there after 2 days.


I was chatting with the coordinator later telling her how fun the day was when she made the comment, "Well, we just want to help the kids to feel like they're back home." They sure did a great job at that!

Even though the sun is right in our eyes, we are not complaining one single bit because we savor each and every minute the sun is shining here!

All in all we had a wonderful time - and the funny thing is we got a call from K right as we were finishing up asking where we keep the passports. Don't you just love how men act like they never know where anything is located in the house? He had arrived at the airport only to realize right before he parked the car that he had forgotten his! He zoomed home to retrieve it and made his flight with about 30 min. to spare.

Butte du Lion Muddy Adventure

While the kids and I were obtaining our visas in New York, K explored around our area on his bike and found a route off the beaten path to the Butte du Lion, a memorial to the Battle of Waterloo. We have chosen this as our workout the last few weekends since the sun has been out! We simply buckle the kids into the trailer and head out on our adventure. About a half mile away from our house, the terrain changes as we ride off the paved road. (You can barely see the memorial in the picture as it's the pyramid shaped figure.)

We first hit a dirt road dodging puddles (It's amazing to think there was actual fighting going on in these fields!), and passing many horseback riders along the way, only to come upon a short cobblestone road leading past a church and small private school. I tried to take a picture to show how uneven the road is, but you can't really get the true feel for the cobblestones until you're bouncing off your bike seat.

Then we come to another muddy area deep enough that this time my whole right shoe dipped into the mirky water. Pretty surprising! K even acted like I was completely crazy to let my whole foot go under the water, but who would've thought it would be that deep just a little to the right of his straight path? I mean, come on, I was balancing the camera in one hand and trying to avoid getting stuck in the mud at the same time.

Then we come upon another cobblestone road wide enough for only one lane of traffic. It's wonderful to hear the silly laughter from our kids as we go over those bumps and the uneven cobblestone.

Do you see the dirt pits along the curbs? That's where we end up riding when a car comes and I feel like a BMX biker about ready to lose control. We also came home by car on this route one time only to have our car hit bottom on some of the cobblestones in another uneven area.

We finally make it to the picturesque area where if you look closely, you can see people climbing the many steps to the top by the lion.

After the fun ride the trailer needs a spray of the hose!

You Asked for It...

Here it is! Many of you have asked about our living arrangements. I have taken some pictures of our house and there are definitely some crazy parts to it! We saw this same floor plan over and over while seeking a house here, so most of the room placement is similar to other houses in Belgium.

We have an entry that is common to other houses, and this nook where we placed a bench is typical as well. Right across the "hall" is the toilet. The picture doesn't quite do justice to the fact that the sink is tiny, and it only has cold water. I'm not sure why.

The kitchen is typical of back home, and ours isn't the most updated, but we were sold on other features in this house like the American sized washer and dryer (that happens to be in the garage) and the backyard. I do love the dish drying area (common in most houses here) next to the sink that is just a tad bit slanted to let the excess water drain while dishes dry. I have to admit I do miss my garbage disposal. It's handy just scraping food into the sink at the end of the evening and turning on the disposal, but we've adjusted. I only know of a few Americans that have purposely added garbage disposals in their sinks, as they are very uncommon. The refrigerator is an American sized one since many previous renters have been Americans. The ones they sell here are smaller. Temperatures on ovens are in Celcius instead of Fahrenheit, so I usually bake on 180 instead of 350.



Over to the left is where the tv room is and the right doorway in the picture leads to the dining room.

Most homes we looked at while deciding where to rent had this type of set-up where there is a huge living room. We hang out here to play the Wii together or light a fire, and then there's the dining room attached. Our 20 something year old french teacher walked into our dining room the first night we met and said, "Wow! This is like a museum." I didn't know if that meant our furniture and decorating appeared ancient or he thought it looked nice. Then he added, "I thought these type of houses were only in the movies!" How flattering was that! Little does he know there's no way we could afford the 3,500 Euros a month rent if we were paying for this house ourselves. The company is paying for most of it.

We also have a television room that is more like a family room with the computer, television, and treadmill. The television has a slingbox that we bought at Best Buy before coming to Belgium. It is an incredibly amazing invention that actually even seems illegal, but it's not. It has a hook up to one of my parents' cable televisions back home. (There is one TV in a spare bedroom they don't really use.) Then it "slings" the shows through the internet. We placed a slingcatcher in our family room to catch the signals and then send it to our television. We can control the channels with a remote on our computer or even Tivo shows as well. There's nothing quite like American tv! I have to admit it's extremely hard to sit and watch American Idol and drool over the Papa Murphy's commercials knowing I won't get to eat one for quite some time!

The treadmill in the family room has come in handy, but now a new friend and I have started running together in our neighborhoods on Tuesday and Thursday mornings. She's a little more motivating than my treadmill's countdown lights.

The bedrooms are similar to the US. We each have a room and then there is a guest bedroom (with a bathroom) and a toy room with our weight machine. We haven't set it up yet, and needless to say, haven't used it either.
This is the toy/whatever room.


This is R's room.



This is J's room.



Right across from J's room is a very small bathroom with a door including a toilet, tiny sink like downstairs, and shower. The strange thing is that right next to that bathroom is another one with a toilet, 2 normal sinks, and a bathtub. So upstairs there are 4 toilets, 6 sinks, 3 bathtubs, and 2 stand alone showers altogether. (This could be a first or second grade addition problem! )
To flush, there is a button on the top of the toilet. You can't really see it, but it's there!

This is part of the hallway upstairs. Where I'm taking the picture is the entry into our bedroom. To the right of the picture is the hall that leads to the kids' rooms, bathrooms, guest room, and toy room.


Here's the master. You can see the arched doorway in the right corner of the picture that leads to our room. There is a tiny entry there with some cabinets and our dresser.


The master bath with a shower hidden on the left and the tub behind the door.

This picture is extremely dark, and I'm too lazy to figure out how to make it better, but this is the view out our window when we wake up every morning. If you click on it to make it larger, you can see the rolling fields that are right outside our back door downstairs.

Guest bedroom/Scrapbooking room and bathroom is below. The plan for guests is to have them sleep in R and J's rooms and the kids can sleep in the guest bedroom. That way there can be up to 2 people in each of their beds since they each have queen sized beds. We also have the sofa down in the tv room that pulls out into a bed as well. So, we could have a total of 6 guests comfortably sleeping at one time here. That's perfect because my grandma is still coming and bringing my parents and two aunts! We'll have plenty of room, and that's not even touching the sleeping bags. We could even have 2 more with a grand total of 8 guests at one time. That sounds like another math problem with the outcome equalling me having a nervous breakdown!!

I love these doors and when we first chose this house I envisioned opening them to let in some fresh air and sun while I scrapbook. Hasn't happened yet!

That's our new abode! Stay tuned in a few weeks for outside pictures after I've planted some flowers.