Tonight Jacob lost his 2nd tooth since the start of school! He didn't lose any last year and now he has lost 2. The tooth fairy had a hard time getting it out from under his pillow. But then he got a 2 Euro coin for it so he was happy in the morning!
Monday for lunch I went out with my friend that is leaving and her neighbor, who happens to have the same landlady as us! We went to this healthy restaurant. It only has 3 items to choose from each day and they change every day. It is a tiny little restaurant. So we had the soup and main dish combo, so red pepper soup and then a little bit of the main dish. It was a salad with pineapple, blueberries, veg, and then 3 pcs of chicken medallions with pepper. It was very good.
After lunch across the street was a cupcake store. I have never seen one here, but we were in a different part of town that I never go to. So we stopped in and I picked up a couple of cupcakes to share with the kids after dinner.
The kids are always asking for a dog so I picked up a Reindeer dog for them!
He smells so much better then a real dog!
After school the boys had a lot of homework, and Amber went to the neighbor's house to play. I got dinner made and then my pumpkin pie squares to take in for the Thanksgiving talk I am giving to Amber's class tomorrow.
Tuesday morning Jacob had to be at school early for the musical practice so Jason took him and dropped him off. I took the other 2 to school and I stayed and I did a Thanksgiving talk for Amber's class. Amber borrowed her friend's Indian Halloween costume.
I talked to them about what Thanksgiving was. Only 2 people in her class had celebrated it, or at least remembered celebrating it! I read a book about Thanksgiving, we did a dance, I brought in a craft and then I brought in the pumpkin pie squares. About half the kids tried the treat and they liked it. My kids were glad there was some left over at dinner!
Then I came home and got some a couple of things wrapped for Christmas. I bought a ton of rolls this year. One roll I bought only wrapped 4 things, and they weren't big!
Then Jason and I went out to lunch to this place I wanted to try. It was Italian and ok. They didn't have a real big menu, but it was a nice lunch.
After school Sean went home with a friend, we had to drive one of Sean's friend's home as his family has the flu, and Amber had a friend over. Once we got home her friend only wanted to play at his house so I had to call the mom and she came and picked him up and then Amber ended up going over there. Jacob had tennis and then I spent awhile driving around picking everyone up!
I got 2 pecan pies made tonight for Thanksgiving, my favorite meal of the year!
Wednesday I ran to the store for a few last minute items and came home and made 2 loaves of poppy seed bread for Thanksgiving, yum how I love this day! I picked up Amber and her friend at lunch and we had a little cake for her friend's b'day and then off to ballet.
Then we waited for the boys to finish and came home and I finished making my Cranberry Gelatin Salad. Tonight is the night the Elf comes and visits the kids! Sean had just said the other day he wondered if Sam the Elf was coming this year. So I have his note and a little gift for each of them from Sam.
Sam is the Elf on the shelf that comes and visits to watch over the kids and reports back to Santa how the kids are doing. Also every night when he comes back from the North Pole he sometimes gets into trouble and hides or does something that the kids have to find! He stays until Christmas Eve when he goes back to Santa. It is a lot of remembering for me to hide him each night for like 30 some days! Tonight when I tucked the kids in bed I told them not to let the turkeys bite! They are all really excited for Thanksgiving tomorrow even thought they still have school! Then Jason goes upstairs and is in the hallway making turkey noises, too funny!
Happy Thanksgiving!! So Sam the Elf came last night and it wasn't until right before we left for school that Amber spies him by the Christmas tree.
So the kids were excited to see him and a gift! Today is not a holiday here so the kids had school and Jason work. I met with my friend for coffee and then home. After lunch the electrician came to fix a few things in the house, and I made the last item for dinner tonight, sweet potato casserole. After school Jacob's best friend that is moving tomorrow came over.
I had him take a family photo of us. Tonight would have been a busy night since we would have had Jacob Bball practice, Sean tennis and then Jacob guitar. But since it was Thanksgiving we went over to my friend's house who was nice enough to host it and she invited 3 families. We had a great time! Here is a picture with all the kids and my friend!
Unfortunately, tonight we had to say goodbye to our good friends here and it was not easy to do. My friend who had us over and myself gave her a nice Luxembourg picture coffee table book. We will miss them, but hope to see them over the summer. They are moving back to the Quad Cities. Jacob was quite sad when we left.
Friday morning we slept in a bit since the kids had off of school, no relation to Thanksgiving. After breakfast we left for the weekend in Brugge, Belgium. It is called "The little Venice of the North". It has canals, but only 12. It was a 3 hour drive. We were staying at an hotel apartment in town. We arrived at 2pm and the room wasn't ready. Their small parking garage was full and the close parking garage was closed. So we had to find the next one which was about a 5-10 min. walk from the hotel. We parked the car and walked around town. We saw 2 of the old churches, beautiful buildings
and lots of chocolate shops. Belgium is know for its good chocolate. I had the map and was leading the way except I went the wrong way, oops. Just south instead of North, all still part of the city. So Jason got out his blackberry and we found our way back to the hotel. Our hotel was pretty close to their big market square. Here in the square was one of their Christmas markets with an ice skating rink in the middle. Our room was ready so the lady walked us around the corner from the hotel since we were staying in their apts. It is basically a building they bought and remodeled into 8 apartments. I was very impressed with the hotel and the apt. When you walk in there was a hallway and if you go left the apt. had a great room with a couch, dining table and a murphy bed (bed that folds down from a storage unit). Then a mini kitchen off this room. Back to the hallway and if you go right there were 2 bedrooms and a bathroom. So it was a great set up and plenty of space for us.
We unloaded all our chocolate and things we bought and hung out. A bit later we headed back to the close square and went to eat at this cute restaurant. It was right on the square and was all decorated for Christmas. This is the Belfry tower which we climbed up on Sat.
We got a table right in front of the window to view the square. It was really neat. They must eat later here b/c we got a table for 5 of us no reservation around 5pm. That is pretty good. By the time we left the place was almost full. After dinner we took a horse drawn carriage ride around town for 1/2 hour. We all curled up under a blanket since it was a bit chilly out.
After the horse ride we walked around the Christmas market in the square. It was very pretty decorated for Christmas. Then we came back to the hotel and Amber and I watched Amber's gift from the Elf, Mary Poppins. Amber had never seen it.
Sat. morning we slept in. Amber didn't get up until a bit after 9am! We walked around the corner back to the hotel for the breakfast. Typical European breakfast, rolls, pastries, lunch meat, jelly, juice, cereal and yogurt, and hard boiled eggs. If these places could only have pancakes and french toast we would be set!
Today we left our place around 10am and didn't return until about 4:30. We walked to another square this morning that had a bunch of cute shops right before it. In this town about every 5th shop is a chocolate shop. So of course we stopped in another one and picked up some goodies. I even snuck in a box of Jason's favorite chocolate for Christmas. They also had the cutest, small christmas store with a tiny upstairs. I am glad we got there before it was super crowded or you wouldn't be able to move. We picked up our christmas tree pickle and a few little other things. I love Nutcrackers and they had some really neat ones. But the smallest one was $45. I saw this cute one that wasn't that big but it was decorated like a gingerbread man and this one was $150. From here we went on a canal boat tour for 30 min. As we get on the boats our neighbor friends from Lux got on too- too funny! The canal ride was nice but it rained the whole day.
From here we walked to the Gruuthouse Museum. It is a very neat mansion. It had huge fireplaces in almost every room.
After this we walked back to Burg Square and saw the city hall. It is a beautiful building
and when you go upstairs you see the Gothic room. The whole room is painted and it has a huge fireplace at one end.
We tried to see the church next store but it was a bit after 12 and it was closed until 2pm. We had lunch at a cozy little restaurant and had the special of the day. It was tomato/vegetable soup, 1/2 chicken, and chocolate mousse for about $18. It was a lot of food and it was good! Next we walked back to Market Square and up Belfry Tower. It was 366 small, winding steps up to the top where the bells are.
They only let 70 people in at a time so we had to wait a little bit. At the top there are 2 big bells and it happened to be 3pm so it chimes a song and then dings 3 times. It was a bit loud.
Then after going down all the steps we walked over to the chocolate museum. It was the history of the cocoa bean. At the end there was a demo of chocolate making and then a little sample. Then we went back to the hotel to rest a bit and dry off and unload our stuff. We had stopped at another christmas market and picked up mittens, sweatshirts for the boys, legging for me, etc. Funny stuff they sell. And one chocolate shop we had seen was selling Gingerbread houses so I bought one fully decorated this year instead of the mess that happened last year!
For dinner we walked back over to one of the Christmas markets and just stopped at a booth and got brats. They were good, but hard to eat in the rain. Then the kids played a carnival like fishing game and they all won a prize and were very happy. Jason and I stopped and had a drink at another booth, champagne and their hot wine with Amaretto. It was ok. We walked around the rest of this square and then got some hot "Belgium Waffles" with hot chocolate on them. Yummy! Then we just walked back to the apt, the kids were excited to play with their new toys and we watched a Charlie Brown Thanksgiving that we had downloaded on the Ipad. I love those shows!
After the Charlie Brown Thanksgiving was a History of the Mayflower with Charlie Brown. I had never seen this one before. I should have showed this for my Thanksgiving talk in Amber's class. It was a really good movie!
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