This afternoon Amber had one of her good friend's birthday parties to attend so her and I went to that. Amber had a great time running around with her preschool friends and eating way too many cookies! I enjoyed chatting with the parents more then our minutes at drop off. Jason and the boys ran to a park halfway between here and the school and spent some time there before running back. Again just enjoying this beautiful weather! Here is a picture of Amber's favorite house here. We drive by it everyday on the way home from school. (On the way to school we go a different way) Can you guess why it is her favorite? She keeps asking me either when can we get our house painted like this or when can we move into this one?
Monday I ended up being at the school 4 times again! Dropped the kids off, ran home to sign up for conferences. You sign up online and trying to get 3 of them aligined was easier to do on the computer then my phone. After I got that I went back to school for the PTO meeting. I volunteered I thought to help out with the wine tasting event and I guess I am now the chair for it, go figure! So that meeting was 2 hours at school. When that finished I picked up Amber early and took Jacob out of French class just a bit before lunch to get him into the Chiropracter. The Chiropractor only has 2 days with after school hours and they are always booked. So this worked out ok. Since Jacob had that nasty fall at the park I figured he needs to be straightened back out. The chiropractor said he definately needed some work, even his shoulders were different heights. We seem to like the chiropractor here a little better then at home. At home you are in getting adjusted for maybe 3 minutes and then stretched, here he works on you with some different techniques for about 20 min. So then we took Jacob back to school. He has classes all over the school campus here, so different from home. I picked him up from his French class, no intercom to call him down. I get a pass from the office and walk over to Sean's building where Jacob's French class is and then when we returned we got him a pass at the office and he went upstairs and put his stuff back in his locker and then walked over to the high school side for his music class. The kids are expected to know when and where their classes are and walk to them by themselves. Since there are different levels of French within 4th grade the kids all go to different French teachers. As you can guess Jacob is in the beginners level.
The boys had ball skills after school today and played volleyball. When I came to pick them up Sean was missing his sweatshirt, which is like a weekly occurance. So he goes back to look in the gym and it isn't there and he thinks it must be on the coat hooks outside his classroom. So I tell Amber and Jacob to come on we need to go to walk over to Sean's school. Well Amber is being stubborn and won't get off of the rock she is playing on, so Jacob says he will stay with her and watch her while I run over with Sean. So I think great Jacob is being responsible and I agree to it since it will take like 2-3 minutes. I come back and Amber is still on the rock, and Jacob is down from her quite a bit talking to a friend with his back to Amber. I ask him how is that watching her? He said, "Well I didn't leave!" It will be awhile before we leave Jacob in charge!
Jacob was excited that he has no homework this week since here they are having their ISA testing for 4th grade this week. I think it is like those standarized tests they take at home.
Here is a picture of Amber playing with her dolls in her housy outside. Later, I found Jacob in there with a chair and playing too! Not with the dolls but making food out of leaves!
Today Jacob was describing something to me and said "it was about 20 meters away." Too funny hearing him use the metric system to describe something. Of course I really have no idea how far that was but just listened and agreed. After dinner we had to drive out and pick up Jason at work since we finally returned the 3rd car we have had for a month. And on the way home we stopped at the cleaners and grocery store to grab a few things since I was out of food and they can't bring peanut butter and jelly to school. Just in the last 2 weeks Amber has decided she doesn't like peanut butter anymore. Crazy. She was eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches all the time and now she doesn't want anything to do with it. So we will see how long this lasts.
Today we either missed the glass recycling people or they didn't like something in my bin b/c they never picked it up. I normally put out the blue plastic bag across the street with certain recyclable stuff, and then the blue and green bins on Sunday night, but I forgot last night. So I did it all this morning before we left for school, but maybe that was already too late.
Tuesday after I dropped the kids off I drove to the mall and I had an appt. to get my eyebrows waxed- long overdue. But it went well. Only one guy there spoke English and he wasn't doing my eyebrows, so a lot of hand motions can get you by quite well. She just had me sit in a chair that tilted back kind of on the side but sectioned off of the salon. I think she must have spilled it on my eyelid b/c it is a little red and sore. She waxed them and then put creams and powders on and she gave me a mini face massage. It was more expensive then at home but not by too much it was $21. There aren't many places here that do waxings. Alot of places do permenant hair removal. Most salons are small and don't do waxings or nails.
This afternoon Amber and I made Apple Cobbler with some of the apples from the apple pickings. It was delicious! I wasn't sure how it would turn out since they don't have the same brown sugar like we do, and the oats are not exactley the same either. But it turned out so good. I think it is half gone already!
After school Sean went to a friend's house and Jacob had 2 friends over. And Amber was upset because she didn't have anyone over. It is harder for her since most of her friends stay at school all day until 3:30.
The handyman came over this afternoon. He is from the UK and speaks English but he talks so fast, has an accent and uses some different words so I had a hard time understanding what he was saying. But I just needed a few things done. One problem we have here is that since the houses are made out of cynder blocks Jason's drill doesn't work on the walls, so the handyman was able to hang a few other things for me. So I had people and kids coming and going this afternoon.
Wednesday we went in to school a little bit earlier and all had breakfast there. The boys have been asking when we could eat in the cafeteria since it is open for breakfast . So today it was a good day for Jason to do this with us. Today in Amber's cooking class they made vegetable soup.
Tonight after dinner Jacob had his guitar lesson and he really enjoyed it. It was back at school. The guy doesn't use a guitar book he just makes up his own lessons. It is more then double the cost of the lessons at home so we will have to see how this goes. Other than that pretty slow day (:
Thursday I had my second French class for the week. I think I am going to need to start eating some M&M's during class because this is putting me to sleep, and I am the only one in class! Not good.
Today at pickup for the boys it was messy because it was raining. Since we have to walk aways and in and out of buildings it makes things complicated. In the evening I had a sitter come over and I joined Jason for a work related dinner. It was a going away dinner for one of his colleagues and his wife. It was nice to meet some people Jason works with. One guy said this about the rain "This is what it looks like here until spring. You can tell when it is winter here when the rain gets colder." This is not going to be good ):
Friday I had my preschool coffee with other preschool moms. Then grocery shopping at the big store like Target since I wanted to get some trick or treating bags for the kids. They are going to do the trick or treating event put on by the American Women's club, because otherwise they don't celebrate it here. I am starting to miss the radio stations from home. Here I can't understand what they are talking about for the news and I have found the stations that play some American music, but they tend to play the same songs. So not much variety.
Friday night was pizza and movie night. We watched Willy Wonka and Chocolate Factory. Sean does not like the part where the larger boy gets stuck in the chocolate sucker up machine after falling in the chocolate river, and so Sean was hiding behind a little fort he built.
Saturday we went to the Farmer's Market downtown, although it was a cold and rainy day so we didn't stay long. Then we went to the sports store that carries the boys uniforms. It is a ways out of town. I picked up another uniform for them and then the warm up suits too. Sean has gym 2-3 times a week and he has to wear his PE uniform to school on those days and I can't keep up with the washing of the one uniform. Then we drove out to Belgium! It was a whole 20 minute drive. Jason dropped me off at IKEA. I think we are closer here to IKEA in Belgium then we are at home to one. I browsed there for a few things and Jason took the kids over to Arlon, Belgium and got or made my christmas present. I must say he is ahead of the game this year. Normally he doesn't know what to buy me and I end up just buying some things for myself. So I am interested to see what it is. They met me back at IKEA and Amber tried to tell me a couple of times what they had done, but I kept telling her it was a secret for mommy's christmas present so don't tell me. We will see if between her and Sean they don't spill the beans before Christmas. Then we ate lunch there and it was nice. The kids liked their meatballs. Then this evening we got a sitter and tried a nice seafood restaurant downtown. It was nice, but a long over 2 hour dinner. We tried out a new sitter tonight since the one we normally use already had plans. I have a list of sitters from the school of girls that go to the school and are interested in babysiitting. So I try and use the ones that are close by since their parents don't want to pick them up afterward and they say they have to take the bus home and I don't like that idea of them being out there at night waiting for the bus and I am not sure where the bus stop is from our house. So I always offer for Jason to take them home. And since he has to drive them I try and find someone close. So earlier this week I called this girl and I thought she lived on the street real close to us and so I get it all set up for tonight and then she tells me she lives 2 towns over. Crap I am thinking. I guess our neighbor hood and hers there is a street with the same name. Now I have already booked her I don't want to cancel her so I keep it. Then tonight when she is suppose to be here she wasn't and I waited about 5 minutes and then called her and I think she just plain forgot. She was waiting for the bus at the mall with some groceries and had a foreign exchange student with her. Ugh. So Jason agrees to go pick them both up at the mall and she puts her groceries away here in the fridge, but the poor French girl doesn't speak much English and is now stuck at my house with the sitter. The babysitter did speak 5 languages though. They were both very nice, but teenagers -yikes!
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