Party Time!

We had 4 days of clear, sunny skies, and warm temps for 4 days.  That is pretty much unheard of around here. Friday night I was really concerned that we'd wake up to typical Belgian weather, and I'd be stuck with 20ish kids in my house.  That would be a complete recipe for disaster.  Saturday we woke up, and the weather was great!  We couldn't believe it!  I ran to the store and picked up the order for 30 helium balloons and rushed home to decorate.  The party turned out fantastic.  Dane said it was better than his hunt club party 2 years ago.  We were glad, considering that this party cost us about an eighth of the price!  I made the decorations, the pinata and the cake.  The rest were inexpensive games.  We had a water balloon toss, and Angry bird egg hunt, and an egg toss.  We went over party time by 1 hour and none of the kids wanted to go home.  That's always a good sign <-as in accomplishment, nothing else!

He rubbed off =)

I shared this photo with my mom and told her how our kiddo was singing the theme song from Indiana Jones while his friend was smiling ear to ear.  She told me how it reminds her of my grandpa.  It really does.  In so many ways, the kiddo is like his great grandpa.  I'm so glad that he got his good natured, high on life personality from him.

What the hail!!

Yes, as in frozen solid precipitation!  Okay...  So maybe this isn't new to me.  Aside from the fact that I've been caught in many hail storms, I'm also married to someone from the Texas panhandle.  I know hail!  It's a fairly regular occurrence here.  The thing is this...  my ability to speak French is very iffy at best.  If I need to call for help, the poor person on the other end of the line will just hang up on me.  I can almost promise!  Why would you call for help, you might ask?   I'll rewind just a tad...  I was in the shower with the window open(yes, we do that here. I know. It's weird.) and I hear that the rain has started.  No biggie.... that's what our weather consists of seventy five percent of the time.  Suddenly, the rain sounded loud and heavy.  I sat there for a second and did a quick "oh, it's hailing now."  Again...  No biggie.  Then, as I sit with a mound of shampoo on my head, I realize that the night before I read an article talking about our region of Belgium having the highest percentages of tornadoes.  I don't mean for Belgium(let's face it.  Belgium is tiny, and having high percentages of anything really isn't that impressive.) I mean for this part of Europe.   So...  I rinse my hair quickly, jump out of the shower, get dressed and put my shoes on.  I looked outside and it was almost pitch dark.  Luckily, this hail storm wasn't a big producer.  Nothing dented my car, and no tornadoes gave me a free ride to Kansas.  

I wish I had taken pictures sooner.  This was after it had already begun to melt

craft much?

     I've never been accused of being a crafty person.  Probably because I have very little patients.  Those crafty things tend to take time.  Though I have all the time in the world here in Belgium, I have very little desire to sit around and work on something that's going to require my attention for the long haul.
     This year I decided to have the kiddos birthday party at home.  This will be the first time we've ever hosted a party at our house.  I took that once step further.  Not only are we hosting the party ourselves, but we(I) are also going to be as hands on as possible.  One of the things I decided to do myself was to build  the piñata.  At first glance, this seemed like an easy project.  Throw some ripped up newspaper into a water/flower mix and stick it on a balloon.  No big deal, right?  Then I decided that I wanted the piñata to look really cool and to really be within the theme of the party(Angry Birds.)  Sounds easy, right?  Well.... Until you figure out how much candy weighs.  It probably didn't help that I couldn't buy cheap, light candy.  Oh no...  I wanted this piñata to be durable and to be able to hold a few pounds of chocolate!  So...  After several layers paper paper-mache made with glue, a bit of masking tape, primer, paint, construction paper and a few secret ingredients, I now introduce King Pig! 

I'm going to hate to see him go!

Mazout!  Or fuel oil. It's made up of Carbon, Hydrogen, Sulfer, Nitrogen and a little bit of Oxygen.  The hubs and I have learned that this is something you never want to run out of!  Many Americans refuse to rent a house with Mazout.  Mainly because they feel that it is expensive.  Really, in the grand scheme of things, mazout is not expensive.  It's just that when you buy it, you buy it in bulk, so it's not uncommon to spend 2000 US Dollars for a delivery.  The great thing is that you have very very low electricity bills!
Yesterday when we checked our tank, we had approx 600 liters.  In a couple months, we will request a new delivery.  The Mazout truck will come to the house and a hose will run from the truck to our tank that sits beneath the garage.  The truck will pump a pre determined amount of mazout into the tank and the nice guy that works for the company will hand us a bill.  It's amazing how quick a family of Floridians can freeze in a house when the tank runs low!  We won't talk about how cold the showers get!

Very similar to checking the oil in your car!

It's very important to not run out of Mazout before you see this truck at your house!

9 years and not under 1000 grams anymore!

Today is May 17th.  In Germany, today is Fathers Day.  The people of Norway are celebrating the Norwegian Constitution Day.  For all my Christian friends, I'm sure you know that today is Ascension day.  The 40th day of Easter.  The day that Jesus is said to have ascended into heaven.  Here in Belgium, Ascension Day is a holiday.  Everything is closed, everyone is being Holy... And it's not even Sunday!
Here in our house.  It's the kiddos birthday!!  With today being a holiday, there's no school!  What better way to celebrate your birthday than to have a day off!  Talk about one excited kid!!

 I know that all parents get excited about their child's birthday.  I'm not sure if we get excited, or if we spend the day thinking about that day in 2003 when our life forever changed and in an unimaginable way.    I say "we." I really kind of mean "me." When it comes close to this time, every year, I think about how incredibly lucky we are.  Not only that we have an awesome kid, but the fact that we have an awesome kid who has conquered everything ever challenged with.  Has fought against, and beat, staggering odds.  Not only did this kid survive, but he can also walk, feed himself, breath on his own, talk.  You name it, he does it.  Just like every other kid.  The professionals tell you from the moment of birth that the ride is a roller coaster and that even after the years of physical, occupational and speech therapy, there will still be things that pop up and they'll have to be dealt with.  That absolutely is true, but this amazing kid has managed to face and overcome all of those obstacles.  Now days, it's no longer the forgetting to breath, or the speech, or the gross motor skills, or the horrible allergies(they are still an issue, but we've figured them out) it's more of an education obstacle.  I'm proud to say that with hard work, even that is something that is being overcome.  We just received the Terra Nova(standardized testing that all children do every year) scores and he did awesome.  In fact, he did better than awesome.  We're very proud parents.  I know that everyone is proud of their kids, but I think it's more than just being proud of him.  It's the fact that he's accomplishing things so big, and was given such grim odds of accomplishing even the basics of day to day living.  There's a lot to be said for that.  So anyways...  Happy Birthday to our little man, it seems like just yesterday that you were fighting for life.

Under 1000 grams

9 years later

Stopping for a second so I can take a picture of the soccer net he got for his bday!

Mothers Day

It's 2012.  I should get with the program, and start a blog.  Right?  So here goes...

It's Mothers Day, or so it was 25 minutes ago.  As usual, I can't sleep.  A natural insomniac.  Of course I've tried all the natural remedies, and even some not so natural.  I'll try this blogging thing and see if it helps...

Yesterday, while my kiddo was off earning an International Scout camping badge in Grobbendonk, the hubs and I decided to take a trip to Trier, Germany.  A couple of times every hundred years or so, the DOM of Trier will open it's doors to pilgrims from all over the world.  The last time this happened was in 1996 and before that, 1959.  Of course, I saw this as a once in a lifetime opportunity.  The hubs, not so much.  He saw it as a long drive(2.5 hours) with heavy Saturday traffic.  Of course...  We went.  He didn't kick and scream too bad.  His iphone kept him busy in the bumper to bumper traffic.  Once we finally arrived in Trier, we found parking.  Thank God(no pun intended!) for GPS and a "find open parking" option in English!  So there we were, within 2 kilometers of the robe that is said to be worn by Jesus Christ himself at, or just after crucifixion.  How cool is that?!   I thought it was super cool, and apparently so did thousands of other people, at that very same moment.  Needless to say, we didn't wait in line with all these people.  Instead, we took a lot of pictures of the outside of the cathedral, stopped for schnitzel like any good American and planned our tourist attack on the rest of the city.

This cathedral holds what is believed to be the robe of Jesus Christ.

Lunch at the historic Kelly Restaurant of Trier.

Next we were off to Porta Nigra.  Built in grey sandstone between 180 and 200AD.  It's the largest Roman gate north of the Alps.  In Roman times, this was one of four gates.  Porta Nigra was on the northern side of what was a rectangular shaped city.  We were surprised to see how great of condition it's still in.  Of course, it seems so awkward sitting right in the middle of a "new" city.  Yes, I'm aware that Trier is the oldest Deutschland city.  You'd never know it though from all the newer buildings!

The exterior of Porta Nigra

We were starting to get tired, and really, still just grateful that we found parking.  We decided to go visit the Kaiserthermen.  Or in English... The Roman Baths.  We had heard many positive things.  You know, the typical "Oh, if you go to Trier, make sure you check out the baths!"  Well...  We were thinking "Oh... We just spent 6 euro on this??"   They say that the baths are preserved ruins of the 4th century.  I don't know, maybe it's just me.  I feel like sometimes things shouldn't be preserved.  Or, at least you shouldn't have all of your preservations open to tourists.  It was slightly disappointing to see bricks and building materials in several passage areas.  Though this was slightly disappointing, I am still grateful that I had the opportunity.  

And what was my favorite thing about Mothers Day you might ask??  At 5:30 I picked my kiddo up from  his camping trip and I heard about all the great adventures of earning a camping badge from Grobbendonk, Belgium.  Oh.. and all the new Brit lingo that comes with camping with a bunch of Brits!!