This afternoon the kids drew faces on their pumpkins and enjoyed that.
Monday Jason got up very early and took the 6:20 am flight out of here and flew back to the states. I tried falling back asleep after he left but a mostiquo was flying around my head. I couldn't believe that they are still out in the middle of October! Jacob really wanted to go with Jason but obviously couldn't and was very sad. But we will be heading back around the holidays so that is coming up soon. I sent him with a big list of things to buy at Target! I can't wait to get my stuff! It is mostly food stuff they don't have here and then socks and shoes for some of the kids. When I talked to Jason after he had landed he said some boy had thrown up behind him on the plane, so it was a little smelly.
Today I had a lot of errands to do. One thing I did get to was mailing the boys postcards to some friends back home. They have these little P&T shops in the mall and so I went in there and I had to buy stamps for the post cards, lick them on there- yuck, and put them in a bright yellow mailbox. They said it takes about a week or so. And it cost about $1.25 to mail each post card. I went to my weekly cleaners and I still can't understand a word in her question she asks me everytime, but I know she is asking if I want the clothes on hangers or folded so I point to the moving rack of hanging clothes and that is that!
The worst is when I buy something that I am paying cash for and I don't understand the numbers they say so I am leaning over the counter to see the register with the numbers on it so I can pay them. Oh well!
The boys are busy getting ready for United Nations day on Wednesday this week. They have to learn about the UN and make posters of their countries and tell about their flag.
On Tuesday I noticed some men put markings on the street and surving the land across the street. Right now across the street for about a block there is just trees (pears) and big overgrown bushes some of them good blackberry bushes. I imagined at some point while we were here they would finish building in the lots around us. I guess I had hoped it would be awhile longer! Although seeing how slow everything moves here it may still be awhile!
Tuesday after school Amber had a friend over and was so excited. We brought her home after school and then her mom and the baby came later. She told me that they were going to be moving back to their country before Christmas. We will be very sad to see them go. You tend to make friends here fast since everyone is at some point new and all in the same boat. The normal length of stay for foreigners is 3-5 years. So people are not here too long. But the girls had a fun time playing and got into the playdoh, then the boys got into the playdoh, then there was playdoh being tracked throughtout the entire house!
Today Sean forgot his homework at school. Every week he forgets something!
The school uses some British ways of spelling some words. So this week color is on Sean's spelling list and the way it is to be spelled is colour. This will be diffecult when the boys go back and have to spell their words correctly the other way. Some other words they use here are garage for mechanic or car servicing place. So they would say, I am taking my car to the "garage" to have the winter tires put on. (Here everyone has 2 sets of tires). So the word for parking garage is "car park" here. The express way is called the "motoway" Queueing means a line, normally of people. So people would say "Skip the queue and buy your tickets ahead of time"
Wednesday was the big United Nations Luncheon at school. Preschool didn't participate and they actually took a bus and went to the theatre. They had a fun time!
For the American dish I brought in Corn Bread for Jacob and Sean's classes. They don't have corn meal here and I had ordered it through a website that we buy mountain dew (for Jason) and other American products. Other Americans brought in Chocolate chip cookies, rice krispie treats and turkey and cheese roll ups. I volunteered in the 4th grade area and the spread was huge. A lot of sushi from the Japanese. I would say more people brought sweets then main courses. The problem with the people who brought main dishes were they dropped them off at 8am or so with their children and the food had no refridgeration or warming area and the kids didn't eat until 12. Neither of my boys tried the sushi, but otherwise they enjoyed trying some of the other foods. They also had to wear some costume or something from their country so my boys wore their BlackHawk jerseys. And then American Flag tatoos on their faces!
After school the boys had RE and then in the evening Jacob had guitar. As I am starting to think about the holidays and even having friends over here I wish I would have brought more of my stuff from home. I didn't bring any of my holiday stuff over since they don't celebrate Halloween, Thanksgiving, etc. The big displays of toys came out a few weeks ago here and I was surprised since it seemed early, but someone told me that here the children get their presents on St. Nicholas Day in the beginning of December. So it will be interesting to see how things go here.
Sean is sounding really good when he is saying his French words. He definately sounds the best out of all of us!
Thursday- today during Amber's little gym class she decided to wait until the last minute to go potty and all of a sudden comes running out of the room screaming "potty, potty" She probably freaked people out who had no idea what she was saying. So we run to the potty but by then a lot has already come out. I didn't have a change of clothes for her in the car so we had to leave and come home and get changed and then just waited a bit and went and picked up the boys at school. Today Jacob lost his jacket at school. What is it with these children and their things! Seriously they have 4 things to remember- lunch box, book bag, possibly a snack container if they took it, homework and coat! This afternoon the electrician came over and replaced Sean's light fixture. The glass was all burnted that was covering the light bulb. He said who ever changed the light bulb last put in a 300 watt light bulb and this light is a 200 watt max. We bought all the lights from the previous tentants so we hadn't changed any light bulbs. Scary. I have the same light fixture in our closet so I had him look at that and he said it was also a 300 watt bulb, so he took it out and now I have no light in my closet until we buy the right bulb.
The boys started their Christmas wish lists with this Lego catalog we got. Sean was circling all those big expensive lego sets and I was saying this is getting to be too much Sean you can't get all of these. And his reply "Well Santa makes everything so it isn't expensive" So then I was trying to explain to him that Santa has to buy all his materials to make the toys so Santa still has a budget! We will see how long this flies!
Friday I was in line waiting for my tea with the preschool moms when I see what looks like Jacob's jacket he lost yesterday on the water cart. I went over and sure enough it was his coat. Yesterday he tried to tell me it wasn't his fault that he lost it. I asked him to please explain how it isn't your fault that YOU lost it! Today Jacob went on his first field trip. The 4th grade classes took a bus over to Belgium and went to a cave. It was a one hour trip away and they were gone the whole school day. I told him he better not lose anything there! He loved walking through them. It was a nice day maybe high 50's, but sunny. They even got to bring money and go shopping in the gift shop. He bought a big blue diamond. Here on the field trips the children need to bring their backbacks and carry their lunches as well.
Jacob noticed that in the school parking lot there are no spots specially labeled for Handicapped people, which we both thought was a little strange. There are however 2 spots up front for pregnant woman. He then says "Well I guess when you are pregnant you are sort of handicapped too!"
Friday for lunch we had over Amber's best bud and his mom. We had a nice little luncheon.
Sat. I took the kids to this new indoor playplace. It was very cool and decorated in a jungle theme. It is a 4 story climby thing with tunnels and slides and a 3-4 story big open slide. The boys were flying down this. This area was perfect for the boys, but a little much for Amber so she played in the smaller kids area.
We then came home and rested. Amber even reminded me I needed to put her down for a nap and I had to wake her up after 2 1/2 hours to eat something and get ready for trick or treating! Tonight was the night the American Woman's club sponsered the Trick or treating here.
They don't really sell costumes here, just a few pumpkins, witches, ghosts, the basics. So Sean is wearing one from Jacob, Jacob's we ordered and had it shipped to Jason's secretary in MI and then she shipped it over with mail and other items and little Tigger has been worn by all three of them over the years. Sean wore it when he was 2!
It was a lot of fun. We met up with a group of friends at the tennis club one of them belongs to not too far from the subdivision where the trick or treating was going to be but about 20 min. away from our house. The event started at 6pm and you could only go to the houses that had orange balloons on them and ended at 8pm. It took us only an hour to go through all the houses. I think there were only about 35 houses that participated. So it wasn't like at home where you go to every door, and we had to walk around a bit to get to all the participating houses. But it was a fun time. We went with 4 other families, and then of course saw other friends from school there too!
Afterward we went back to the tennis club and had pizza and the kids ran around downstairs on the indoor tennis courts which we could see since our table backed up to the window above. It was a good time and the kids were worn out at the end of the day!
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