Beersel Castle

You can click on the pictures to make them bigger and see us better.

I know it looks like we're really into castles, but they are just so accessible here and we can walk through them within an hour or so. This one took about 20 min. to drive to. Supposedly it's the only example of medieval military architecture still intact in Belgium today. It was built during the 13th century with the mission to protect Brussels against attack from Flanders. The country is doing a huge restoration to it right now. I told the kids it might be neat to visit it again right before we leave Belgium (assuming everything goes well with our visas and we're allowed to stay for the full 2 years) to see if we notice any work completed with the restoration. We were trying to figure out what some drainage type holes were as we walked along the wall of the castle and later read that defenders dropped stones and hot oil on intruders. I was just nervous my 5 year old's foot would slip, with her whole body falling through the hole, and she'd be in the waterless moat. K and I both discussed that the size of the hole was large enough for that to happen.

Chocolate Chips Have Arrived!

My dad, having the innate need to fix things, bought me a huge bag of chocolate chips from Sam's Club to stuff in K's luggage for the trip back home. After hearing how expensive they were here, he decided I needed the biggest bag American money could buy...so he went to Sam's! K also had a much requested bag of Sam's Club pancake mix in his carry on. Every Saturday and Sunday morning we make eggs and pancakes for the kids, and our bag of mix was running dangerously low. An airport security lady asked as his bag was scanned and rescanned if he had a lot of powder in his bag. He must have been really tired because he just stood there for a second thinking and then remembered the pancake mix and said, "Oh, yeah, I have pancake mix in there." Good thing it wasn't syrup because it wouldn't have fit into the little baggie required for liquids. All of the American goodies made it home safely. We'll be making batches and more batches of chocolate chip cookies until we're tired of them...could that really happen? I doubt it.

Movers Update

Just an FYI in case you're dying to know...the movers did come yesterday to get our empty boxes. They were even an hour early! Now we can park my car back in the garage!

Cooking Class with J

When you're the new mom in school, you're immediately asked, "Oh, what would you like to sign up to help with?" A sweet Canadian mom was scheduled to cook with the preschoolers Feb. 4, so I decided it would be great to have someone show me to ropes my first time, so I agreed to help. I sat J down at the kitchen table one day, asked her to look through a kiddy cookbook (from my cousins, Amanda and Jon, last Christmas - thanks guys!) and told her to tag a few recipes that she thought would be fun to make with the class. We decided on homemade pretzels. Yum! So after preparing with Line (the other mom), we showed up this morning to make pretzels. Inside the kitchen is an island just the right height and size for mini chefs along with an oven, microwave, sink, dishwasher, and plenty of utensils. The plan was to take a few pictures, but with my excitement for the day (teaching again!), I simply forgot. J told me this morning anyway that, "You'll have to ask my teacher because I don't know if you're allowed." I had premade the dough so all the kids had to do was roll it into a snake just like they do with play dough, form the pretzel, brush egg over the dough, sprinkle coarse salt on the top, and we'd put it in the oven for 15 min. With two of us moms there it was a breeze. The children were well behaved and had a great time with us. I even met a little girl from J's class that's going to one day man the Clinique counter. While I was helping her make the snake part of the project she says to me, "Your skin is so nice and smooth!" Wow! What a compliment from a 4 year old!

Playing at Bois Des Reves

Belgium is often described as being rainy. Everyone says you can't sit around and wait for a sunny day, you just have to put on your rain boots and rain coat, get your umbrella, and go outside to do what you had planned on doing! So when it was sunny four days in a row, I was wondering if we were setting another Belgian record. The kids and I decided to head to a local park, or provincial domain, as they're called, one of those days. We typed the address into the TomTom, gathered our warm winter gear, and headed 20 min. south. Along the way we passed some chickens alongside the road and a one lane tunnel until we finally had "reached our destination" according to Tom. We turned left onto a road that had an electronic arm and a button to push just like at a parking garage. So I pushed the button thinking it would raise the arm and we could go swing. The button didn't work so I pushed a couple more times until a voice finally said something in French. I asked in English if this was the park. Nope. From the back seat I hear R say, "Mom, that's weird. It's the first time the TomTom has been wrong." I didn't tell him that I might have turned too soon since I thought it would be better if he thought the GPS made the mistake, not me. We drove just a few hundred yards farther south and saw the signs for the park. After parking the car we ventured into the park to find a sign and ticket machine saying we needed to pay a Euro for each child playing on the equipment. After paying, a ticket to prove payment is printed to keep in your pocket in case people decide to come validate tickets. It's based on the honor system. I'm not sure what the fine is if you don't pay, but I'm a rule follower and wasn't about to find out. It was worth it! The play area was enormous. It was about the size of 2-3 parks all put together back home. I took one picture and then the words "out of batteries" appeared on my camera. I couldn't talk the kids into going back to the car for the charged one. Instead, they played hide and seek in the sandbox, swung, walked a tightrope, climbed the pretend rock wall, and burned off many calories!

Belgian Waffles

We have come to love waffles already! These waffles can't be bought just anywhere, they have to be from random street vendors selling them hot off the waffle makers wrapped in a thin sheet of wax paper! To best describe them, we have decided that they are comparable to Krispy Kreme doughnuts bought fresh at the drive through. They melt in your mouth just like the Krispy Kremes, are dripping with sugar, and I'm sure they're fat free too. R and J ask for them every single time we're out sightseeing and smell a faint whiff of them from some unidentifiable direction. We always end up finding them! I guess it's one of the things we already love about our new home.

Manneken-Pis

After first arriving in Belgium, our desire was to start our adventures right away. I did not have my camera cords at that time, so I decided to come back to it later on the blog. We had our pictures taken with Manneken-Pis, a very well known fountain here with numerous costumes received as gifts from diplomats around the world. There are a few debates as to the inspiration behind such a sculpture! J acted repulsed that a fountain of a little boy peeing was on the street corner! She absolutely did not want her picture taken with "that peeing boy". She eventually did come around and we, like all the other tourists, took our picture in front of that peeing boy to prove we were actually in Belgium now.