A True International Festival!

Let me just describe the atmosphere for you...acceptance, enjoyment of others, diversity at its finest, kinship, respect, bonding of community...all of these words were our feelings Friday night as we witnessed our first International Festival. Everyone kept telling me, "This day contains my favorite activity of the school year," and now we know why.

About 25 booths representing different countries were set up in one gym so during the day children could walk around, gathering trinkets from each country visited while adding a stamp representing that country to their pretend passport. For example, France gave out small Eiffel Tower key chains and stamped passports with an Eiffel Tower. This was all followed by a parade including about 250 children from about 40 different countries. Each country had a theme song, their country sign, and dressed representing their country. Guiding the American kids was a child dressed as the Statue of Liberty followed by children steering a boat coming across the Atlantic Ocean. For the United States, the children had turned in white t-shirts ahead of time for tie-dying either red or blue. All kids from America wore blue jeans and waved the American flag during the parade. The chosen song was "R.O.C.K. in the USA".

R has his back to us here, but is waving his flag.

The ironic thing is the stereotypes we're taught to stay away from while living in the United States were celebrated by these countries and we all had FUN! People from the Netherlands paraded on bikes with baskets attached full of tulips complete with their native outfits. Students representing Sweden came out with ABBA outfits covered with blue and yellow sequins dancing to "Waterloo". Australians came through with inflatable kangaroos and crocodiles dancing to "We Come From a Land Down Under".

UK kids with their red double decker bus!

I just sat misty-eyed during the parade because I was astonished at how some children were the only ones (high school kids mind you - talk about having guts to get out in front of everyone!) representing their country. They were so proud as they walked across the small stage in the gym and the other school children just cheered them on to let them know we understood what it must have taken for them to parade in front of a huge crowd carrying their country sign and flag all by their lonesome. What dignity and pride!

The finale consisted of Belgium being represented with enormous fries and some guys walking around the gym on stilts.

The parade is done during the school day, and then around 7 the nightly festivities started with a repeat of the parade for all the parents and the booths changed up during the evening hours to contain food and drinks native to the countries. We tried some from all different countries...with our favorites being Namibia (who knew that was even a country in Africa?) and Germany. The kids couldn't get enough of the German sausages. I'm going to have to figure out where to get those things so I can put some pounds on these two little ones!

We left feeling a sense of community and acceptance from our truly international Belgian school!

Double Rainbow

After becoming sick with the vomits Friday night, R was quarantined for a day while the younger sister ventured to a Halloween party complete with pumpkin carving, yummy sugary treats and US party favors. The sweet lady hosting the party had recently been to "the base" where apparently there are 3 American stores. One happens to be a grocery store where people related to the armed forces can purchase American food and various holiday items at American Dollar prices - with American money! (There is actually a bank machine there for people to get cash out because they only accept American dollars.) Anyone with "base access" is quick to become a friend to many here. They are envied because the rest of us pay way too much for things like, oh, let's say, Krispy Kreme doughnuts (for one example), brownie mixes, Skittles (if you can even find these items!), the list goes on and on.

Anyway, all of that is beside the big point of the day. We happened to look outside the window and see the beautifully lit up rainbow which then became two! R couldn't believe his eyes...he'd never seen two rainbows at the same time!

You Might be a Redneck if...

Well, actually, we need to change this to say, "You might have been living abroad without visiting home too long if..." Did I mention I haven't been home since December? "if...you pay 10 Euros for a box of Krispy Kreme doughnuts." (I'm completely embarrassed to tell you how many dollars that comes to. $14.00) Can you believe I fell into that pit? I'm guilty! But look at how much enjoyment came from that one box? By the way, the hats were free!

Sidenote: We finished off all 12 in one day!

1st Day of School for J

September 1st was the 1st day of Kindergarten for J. She rode the bus with R, but couldn't understand why I wouldn't drive her to school like I had driven her older brother the day before. Oops!
I would have done it, but didn't get an e-mail to the transportation people in time. I just wasn't thinking, so I had to now think quick and make this sound like something special. I just replied, "Well, R didn't get his first day of school picture waiting for the school bus like you're getting to do." OK - to me that sounded pretty lame, but she bought it and cheesed it up for me. She was happy and even blew me kisses as the bus picked her up and drove off.

Here we go again...another year of coffees with other moms, volunteer meetings, lunches, running with my girlfriends, grocery shopping without disciplining children, and my sacred Wednesday Bible studies that I have grown to cherish. The dog just cherishes these morning walks as the bus comes about 3-4 minutes down the street from our house. As soon as she sees the kids get their shoes on, ready to leave the house, she's barking her head off as if we're going to forget that she loves to accompany the kids to the bus stop.

Baking with J While R's Away

The kids in Kindergarten didn't go to school until September 1st, so I had a whole day of girl time with our fast growing daughter. We made lasagna together for supper after taking the car to the garage for repair from this summer's hit and run incident.

It looks like Kelsey enjoyed our cooking the most. She's tuned in to the fact that I drop much less when I'm cooking alone than with my special helpers. Above, she's just watching the air to make sure nothing falls. Below, she scored!

Disney is at it Again!

At the local supermarket, the Delhaize, there are Disney Pixar cards resembling baseball cards, but with Disney characters from recent movies pictured on each. Every 12 Euros or so you spend at the store, you receive a pack that contains 5 cards in hopes of collecting all 216. Also, if you buy certain items you can receive an extra pack (like with a particular box of chicken nuggets). Then, you can spend 5 Euros more to buy a fancy book to hold all your treasured cards.

I drove home thrilled to pieces one day with my 16 packets for the kids. They love collecting these cards and would be just elated when they stepped off the bus and I informed them I had all the packs waiting for them inside. I was the best mommy in the world today!

I had them eating from the palm of my hand that night..."You would like to open another one of your packs? Ok - then finish reading this story to me, hang up your laundry"...you get the point.

It was a brilliant marketing scheme! I was shopping there exclusively - and buying much more than I needed - like 12 boxes of chicken nuggets, just to get some more cards. This was all happening to the point where I was wondering if I was a little crazy until with my limited french, I read a sign walking into the store one day that claimed on Wednesday, September 2, there would be an exchange of Disney Pixar cards from 3:30-5:30. Wow! The kids would love this and it would be such a great way to mix in with the locals. Anticipating the event, the kids of course wanted to try to fill up their books.

Here they are on a bench outside where we did exchange with some people. We had duplicates of various cards, as did other people.

Now, this is the long table set up outside the store with all the die hards (notice how many adults without children are sitting here trying to complete their collections - why do they have to do that? Don't they realize, this is just for the kids?). I was amazed at how seriously some of these people were taking this.

To further my unease I curiously came home and googled Disney Pixar cards on ebay and found some cards were selling for 12 Euros each!

The marketing scheme is over now and my kids each have about 20 cards left to complete their books. I was just going to let them be done until I learned the best kept secret yesterday. You can go on the Delhaize website and order any remaining cards you need for just 20 cents each. We did just that today and within 2 weeks (via mail) we'll hopefully have our much loved books complete!