The party was after lunch at the Youth Hostel where I had rented out a big room to have the party. It was a good space and clean. It was nice to be able to have it somewhere since I needed a lot of tables and chairs. So the jewelry lady came and set up and the cake lady came and set up and then the rest of us decorated and organized the room. I had a friend's nanny come in and do face painting. The girls loved it, but none of the boys wanted their face painted. I had 2 big coloring castles that I had made Jason bring back from the states! And then I had a bunch of games lined up for them. So they had a good time and there was plenty of things to keep the kids busy.
The DJ for the freeze dance!
I like the refs on each side to make sure everyone only pulls one string! Ha
Tonight was a low key evening after today and Amber enjoyed playing/building all her gifts!
Monday morning after I dropped the kids at school I came home and picked up my parents and took them to the airport. They were going to Amsterdam, Holland until Friday. So they will enjoy that. We visited there last year and liked it. The buildings there are so neat to see and we enjoyed seeing the Anne Frank House as well and the famous tulip garden outside of town.
After this I met 2 friends at a museum on the other side of town I had been wanting to visit. They have a tiny restaurant in there, so of course we ate lunch first and it was good.. Then my friend had checked about the new exposition opening this week, but it was still under construction. And since that is the first floor they had free admission since there is just a small amount to see upstairs. So we saw everything and it was ok. The expositions are really the neater things to see. The building is only a few years old and has a ton of windows and a lot of skylights so it is a nice building. That was pretty much the day and then went back to school for pickup and the boys each had a friend over and Amber stayed busy still opening all the gifts and playing with everything!
Tuesday morning we woke up to a couple of inches of snow and it continued on and off all day -ugh! I had French and exercised and then organized things from the party and laundry, etc. After school Sean met with the older boy for math and Amber went home with a friend. Then the boys did tennis. From here I drove over to my friend's house to pick up Amber. I have to drive down this big hill. Well people are going so slow b/c of the snow. The guy in front of my had some type of Dodge car that looked like a Cadillac. Well I am not sure the front tires ever really gripped the road. The back tires were fine. He front tires were just sliding the whole time. I really can't believe he got the car down the hill without hitting anything. I was afraid to pass him for fear of being hit or him sliding into my car so it took us and all the people behind me like 10 min. to get down this long hill. Coming back home and up the hill wasn't any better. A taxi cab got half way up the hill and then got stuck with his back wheels just spinning. So finally he got himself over enough to the side for people to pass him.
Wednesday I went to the mall to go grocery shopping and do a few other errands, but I got side tracked by the display at this one store. They had all their spring colors out and so I walked in. They have T-shirts here that are reasonably priced- about 17 euros, good price for here. So I was getting some of those and a cardigan then wondering in the store. It is like a bigger department store. So as I am going down the aisle I spot the brand of clothes that I like and it isn't too expensive. I saw these pink jeans and couldn't resist trying them on. I actually liked the way they fit so I got a couple of shirts to go with them and a scarf of course! We will see how this goes. Here of course this is normal, but not really for me! I texted my friend what I had bought and I got a note back "shut up".
I know Amber will like them!
Today was her half day and so I picked up the girls for lunch and then back to school for ballet. Sean's sports class ended last week on Wednesday and now bball will start but it is on a different day so I put him back in the RE class with Jacob and he will finish the year out doing that. He wasn't that thrilled about that idea.
After everyone's stuff ended two of the kids had dental cleanings. The dentist told me she was moving back to Sweden at the end of the school year. She is the fifth person to tell me she is moving at the end of school. Spring is the time when everyone finds out or decides to move back. So 2 people I know are moving back to Sweden, 1 to Japan, 2 to the states and I am sure there will be more people by the end of the school year.
Jacob's dental cleaning was fine and nothing wrong. When she looked in his mouth she was like, someone has been losing a lot of teeth! She said that he has good teeth and a good bite by European Standards, but she didn't know if that would be good enough for American Standards. I said I thought his front teeth were a little crooked! Amber couldn't handle the way she had cleaned the rest of our teeth so she did the little brush that goes along your teeth and polishes them like at home. Then she put fluoride on her teeth and said she has a little spot on one tooth and needs to start taking fluoride. So she wrote us a prescription for it. It is just a pill that she will have to take everyday.
Mom and Dad are having a nice time in Amsterdam, but cold and tonight was their tour through the red light district! I told them not to bring me back anything from there!
Thursday Amber got to visit the fire station for a field trip so she was excited! This morning I drove 2 other friends and we went to another town maybe 30 or 40 min. away to a spa place. My friend needs to go and be in the water for her shoulder from surgery so we joined her. I wasn't sure I would enjoy this but it turned out pretty good. We go in and she goes to this pool with jets around it and it is an indoor/outdoor pool. You get in the pool and it is like 95 or so degrees, my type of pool! And you find the jets along the edge of the pool and you stand at each one for a few minutes and then you move on to the next one. They start out shooting at your feet and then end up at your back. It felt very good. Then we went outside in the pool and it was really pretty with all the snow around and the sun was out and there were more jets or we just stood in the middle facing the sun. Then they had like a whirlpool area in one side of the pool so we did that too. I think we spent about an hour in the pool. We were the youngest ones here by about 30 years! Then you get out and shower off and go to the locker room and change. Everything was nice. Once we were ready this place has a restaurant so we went there for lunch. We all had a seafood special and it was good. Then I dropped everyone off and grabbed our after school snacks and headed back to school. Jacob wants to do track so the meeting for it and the first practice was today. When we were coming back from the spa it started totally snowing like crazy. So his practice was in the gym after the meeting. Amber ended up going over to a friend's house last minute and Sean went to a friend's house last minute. Sean's friend had a brother doing track with Jacob so I brought him home and then just picked up Sean after track. Jacob seemed to enjoy it. It will be 2 days a week but they have to take a bus over to the football, soccer stadium, to practice b/c they don't have any more track space at the school. Then we drove over to pick up Amber, my poor friend that had gone with us today had come down with the flu or something b/c now she was sick. So I got Amber and we raced home and had some dinner and then left for guitar. I am not sure we will be able to continue all of Jacob's stuff b/c now track last longer.
Friday the kids didn't have school because the school had Student lead conferences, which is really like an open house. So we all went in the morning b/c I had asked to have our family's time slot then. We started with Amber.
She showed us around her room and her work and her portfolio of things she has done. And then the books the class has made of different holidays. Then she showed us her French room and what they have been working on and the music room as well and we saw some videos from her class. Then we put her in the babysitting area and went to Sean's room and saw all his work. Then his friend's mom came and picked him up and he had a playdate at a friend's house. Lastly we did Jacob. Jacob has really done a nice job this year of being very independent with all of his stuff, school, activities, etc. So we had a nice time going through Jacob's portfolio that he had prepared by himself for us to see. Then Jason needed to get going to work after Jacob's French class so just the 2 of us went to his music class. From here we picked up Amber and ran to the store to get some fresh salmon b/c I was going to make salmon patties for dinner.
Sean came back after lunch and we went to the airport to pick up my parents. They had a nice time in Amsterdam. We came home and hung out. Everyone enjoyed the salmon patties.
Sat. we decided to go to the town of Bouillon in Belgium. It is a pretty area with the river and forests. So this town has a big fortress that you can tour and then a bird show. So the kids loved just being able to run through this fortress. It is in ruins, but together enough you can tour it. It is long and has lots of hideouts, stairs, ramps, and good views of the little town.
Then we watched the bird show, well mom hiding, but the rest of us watching.
He had an American Eagle, owl, vulture, and other falcons. So that was neat. Then we went down into town and ate at an Italian restaurant and then walked around to find a chocolate store open since we were in Belgium, the land of good chocolate.
But is seems they all were closed for lunch- ugh! So we found one of them was opening back up soon so we waited and got some good chocolate to go!
This place was a little over an hour away so then we drove back home and then later in the evening went out for Chinese back down in the city center right behind the Palace.
No comments:
Post a Comment