Vacation Week

A big accomplishment at the creche today -- Jack used the potty for the first time! I'm not sure if I'm excited or saddened by the fact that I'm missing the whole potty training adventure. He's been sitting on it at home, but with no results. I think seeing the other children using the potty at school must be having a positive influence on him. He's also becoming quite the talker!

It's a holiday week at school this week, so Amelia is off (but Jack is still going to creche). Apparently, All Saints Day is a national holiday. We went to Technopolis yesterday (a huge hands-on museum for kids), and they had a great time. Below is a picture of Jack and I from the Spy section of Technopolis...



Unfortunately, when we made it home yesterday, I ended up coming down with an annoying 24-hour bug (fever, chills, aches). I had to call T.J. home (though not too early) and I quickly retreated to bed. Amelia was quite the mommy, and brought me a bunny to sleep with to make me feel better. And sure enough, by morning, I had a pounding headache, but I had mostly recovered. Jack had actually had the same bug last week, so I guess he passed it on to me.

Amelia insisted today on getting a "Tom and Jerry" puzzle at the market today. Unfortunately, it's a 500-piece puzzle. I tried to explain that 500 is a whole lot of pieces, but she insisted. I anticipate that we'll lose the vast majority of pieces by week's end...

Car Free Day and Other Events...

I had forgotten to mention earlier that the Sunday after we left to come to the U.S. was "Car Free Day" in Brussels. And they meant business. In the Brussels Capital Region (of which we are a part, by just a few blocks), there was NO auto traffic allowed. If you had to use your car that day, you had to apply for a permit. The only traffic allowed was, I think, buses, taxis and emergency vehicles. There were barricades on the side of the road just outside our neighborhood, and on Sunday, there was a police officer manning those barricades to prevent any auto traffic from coming into the Brussels proper area.

T.J. had to drive to work that day, so he had to park his car a few blocks away, just outside of the city limits. It would've been fun to be here on that day and to ride our bikes on all the streets. Perhaps next year!

Face Painting
Here are the pictures from last week's birthday party. Isn't Jack the cutest?




Christmas Shopping
Just as in the US, the Christmas decorations are out in full swing. We've been seeing lots of toy commercials on our satellite TV ("I want that! I want that!"), and I'm discovering that most toys (at least, most toys that Amelia wants) are TWICE as much in the U.K. as they are in the U.S. TWICE!!! I think that they'll be slightly cheaper here in Belgium, but they'll still be close to double the price. Amazing. Luckily, the kids aren't really wanting for too many toys (except what they see on tv), so I hope to get by with lots of books this year!

There's not much else to report. Tammy and I have been attending all sorts of wacky classes at the gym, but we're enjoying our Latin dance step aerobics (for lack of a better term) class. It's really fun, the time flies by, and we're burning 500 calories a pop, according to my heart rate monitor.

More later....

The Faces of Jet Lag

We had a (thankfully) uneventful trip back to Brussels. The kids couldn't have done any better on the airplane, and they adjusted to the time difference much better on this leg of the journey. I'm not exactly looking forward to doing it again in December, but at least I'm not terrified of it this time.

We're getting back into our routine and we're happy to be settling back in. But I sure miss Quizno's and Walgreens and the mall and...

We're preparing our Halloween costumes. Apparently there are some celebrations around, but not to the extent as there is at home. Amelia is borrowing a ladybug costume, and I'm not sure what Jack will be.

My friend Tammy and I hit the gym today after a long absence. We thought we would try a Pilates class, but right after we got in, we found that it was DEFINITELY not Pilates. We found ourselves smack in the middle of a cardio class. It ended up being a lot of fun, but a lot of work. Trying to follow a cardio class anyway is hard -- trying to follow it in FRENCH is even harder, as you can imagine. (We found out that the Pilates class was being held in another room.)

More to come....