Still Settling In

We slowly but surely are settling in here. As more items in our house are fixed, others continue to break, always keeping K busy after a day at his real job (you know, the reason why we're here to begin with). K fixed our light in the dining room and sure enough the very next night the computer blew up. We both heard the 'pop' and smelled the smoke as he plugged it into the socket. Supposedly computers are compatible with the US and European voltage, however, our computer definitely isn't working! A super nice guy at K's work thinks he can fix it...wishful thinking I believe. I do hope he's right though, because right after the 'pop' the only thing I could think about were my Christmas addresses for family and friends that were saved to the hard drive. But like a wonderful wife, I kept my mouth shut, realizing K's stress level was rising.

Other dilemmas, like the light fixture, are showing signs of improving as well. I received a letter in the mail informing me of the arrival of the card at the local bank. The weather has cooperated and our fuel supply is lasting longer than we could have hoped. It could also be because we're back to normal Belgian weather: rain. Hopefully the fuel truck still comes tomorrow. We have heard horror stories about it taking even as long as a week after the confirmed date to receive fuel.

The children, as predicted, are learning more French than we could even hope to learn. After stepping off the school bus they both start speaking with some new type of French accent on every word they say. They call me Mama emphasizing the last 'a' like the French do. I don't know if they are mimicking their teachers' accents, but they definitely put a little French twist to the English words. J and R were debating at the dinner table a few nights ago as to the French word for 'mitten'. R thought it was mitten with a French accent placed on the word and J thought it was a word sounding something like goulash. After much debate and us thinking J was just making up her word (she is the dramatic one) we finally found out that they were both right. People at K's work confirmed that both words were for different kinds of mittens.