Let it snow, let it snow.

The weather conditions are really strenuous this year. We have had snow for about a month now off and on. Great for the kids and snow fun, bad for day to day business. We have a large Christmas market in our town called “Winter land”. It is the total picture perfect Christmas card come to life. Wooden mini log cabins all over serving warm holiday season goodies like waffles, split pea soup, fried dough balls with powdered sugar, glüwein (a warm beverage made from red wine, herbs and fruit pronounced: gloovine), and of course in the middle of the market a giant indoor wooden café where people young and old gather to drink and be merry until the wee hours of the night (not us of course). Right next to this cafe is the big skating rink. Will decided to take the kids skating already while I finished up my last hour at work before I would meet up with them. So nice to know that your husband is out strolling in Winter land with the kids, totally taking care of, I am so lucky....(can you feel it coming)...I call Will to tell him I should be there in about half an hour when I hear a certain uneasiness in his voice. I did not want to tell me over the phone but persistent me made him tell me, so he reluctantly said: “I lost the kids"......What the???!!!!!&&&&###. Will said he was buying a warm waffle and when he turned around they were both gone. Let's pause for a second, is it just me or does it seem things like this always happens on somebody else’s watch? I parked the car and started looking for them, after picturing my kid’s faces on a milk carton, when Will called me to tell me the security guard had the kids. They were lost for about 20 minutes. Chloe was feeling okay, but Lainey had a bit of a trauma. Every time she wanted to bring up the subject she started crying again. All ended well and we all went ice skating after wards, well, I was the designated picture taker so I stood on the side. They had such a blast, even though they all fell pretty hard and very often!
Still continuing the snow fun, we all went out to our old neighborhood with snow clothes on the go build a big snowman! We all worked very hard and Will told us that this was actually his very first snowman of this magnitude. It takes quit a gentle touch to roll the snowball bigger and bigger without eventually breaking in pieces. Once again, a successful Serrato family adventure.

We also celebrated our St.Nicholas Day. In Belgium Saint Nic comes on December 6th. This does not mean we celebrate Christmas on the 6th a swell. Over here, Santa has nothing to do with Christmas. On the 6th we celebrate Saint Nicholas' birthday (which really is that day), and Christmas is the day we celebrate the birth of Jesus. We do pass out presents on Christmas but they just come from the parents and family members. Of course our kids are lucky and we partake in both our culture's traditions, so they believe in both "Saint Nicholas" on the 6th, the saint who rescued some children back in his day arrives in Belgium from Spain by boat and delivers the packages on his white horse, And "Santa" the big bellied, raindeer riding guy with helpers. The difference in the gifts is that the ones from St Nicholas are not wrapped and the ones from Santa are wrapped under the tree. We also do not leave cookies and milk but we leave sugar cubes and carrots for the horse. Funny huh, so different but yet kind of the same. Well, let's just say the morning was a success and they loved their gifts.

Happy Birthday to Will! Will had his birthday on December 16th. He turned 42!! Wooow, what a mature person. For his birthday Will thought it would be a great challenge to tackle a small home project…tear out the entire kitchen including wall and build a new one!! Happy Birthday to you :-) Will and my mom’s boyfriend Albert have taken on this huge remodel and have been going at it for about a week now. Tons of challenges with an older house of course. Who ever said walls are supposed to be straight? After the new kitchen we are also repainting the entire inside of the house and replacing all the flooring of the first floor. We had hoped it would be ready before Christmas but by now we realize our holidays will be spent at my mom’s and brother’s house:-) It will be soooo worth it when it is all done! It is pretty cool to have a handy hubby.

Staying in the birthday theme, I should mention that we celebrated Lainey’s birthday with her entire class! Lainey’s birthday you ask? I know, her birthday was in September, but the class party never came to be due to a variety of circumstances. We finally booked the indoor play land party she insisted on getting. It was a really cool place. They all first play (the place is packed with jumpy houses, trampolines, games, climbing structures…. Then they all get food (choice of hamburger and fries or crepes-this is Belgium :-) After some more playing they get an ice cream of their choice and at the end every guest gets a toy to take home! The party lasts as long as you want. I thought this was a cool formula and it was only 10 bucks per kid!!!! No mess in my house and they had a blast. For sure worthy of repeating.

Little child of mine say what?

Driving home from school, I was singing to a song on the radio going all out, including pretty inventive dance moves, when Chloe jumps up and yells: “Mama STOP PLEASE, we still have to live here you know!!

Lainey was in the bathroom when Will got out of the shower, stared at him and said: “papa, did you know that if you did sit-ups you could get abs?!”

We want to wish everybody a very merry Christmas and a wonderful new year!!!

Until the next time,

Love, Lesley

New York New York!

Neew Yoooork, concrete buildings that dreams are made of, there is nothing you can't do!!
Alicia Keys is right! There is such an amazing energy in New York that you just can't find anywhere else in the world, and we have been many places!
We started our trip with a 4 day Anthony Robbins seminar in New Jersey. This time the experience was special to me because Will joined the event for the first time, while I volunteered as usual! Since this experience had made such a difference in my life it was important to share this with my husband. I was a bit nervous because I was not a hundred percent sure he was going to be as enthusiastic about it as I was. Luckily for me, he loved it and he felt he learned so much! I highly recommend A.R. empowering events to anybody.
After the seminar we went to New York City! We got a small hotel right in the middle of Manhattan. Perfect location because we were walking distance to almost everything!
Since we only had 4 days there, we had to see ALL the tourist staple sites. We walked with our mouths open on Time Square (which was EXACTLY as I always pictured it) gazing at all the bright lighted neon’s and billboards, we took the ferry to the statue of liberty, shopped on 5th avenue, bought a ring at Tiffany's.......oh no, sorry, I am confusing my dreams with reality, checked out the financial district with Wall street and ground zero, strolled around Central Park for a couple of hours (how huge and beautiful right smack in the middle of the busy city), and (even though I hardly eat meat anymore) had to eat a hot dog at one of the famous hot dog carts on the street corner.
We really wanted to see a Broadway play so we bought tickets to see "Rock of Ages" with Dee Snider. It was super good, especially if you like eighties rock. We loved it! As we left the show, we realized my gloves were still left inside the theatre (do not ask who's fault this was, because this is an open and ongoing investigation with the accused still not ready to enter a plea), we returned to the theatre just to find it closed, BUT, through the back door the actors were leaving! So we got an autograph and a picture with Dee Snider! Sooo worth losing the leather gloves for that were only 1 week old and later replaced with cloth ones by the accused :-) Oops, let it go Les, let it go.
We took the metro to go see the statue of Liberty on the second day, which was about a half hour subway ride. They told us it was the very last stop so we didn’t have to worry about getting off at the wrong stop. Sounds easy right? Well, Will and I do not do "easy" very well. We both fall asleep and wake up about 25 minutes into the ride. We start collecting our things for the soon arrival when we both come to the realization that...we took the subway into the wrong direction! We hear the intercom message: "now arriving at our last stop The Bronx!
Aaaalrighty then, here we are. We decided the Bronx was not the best place for us to go walking around by ourselves, so we stayed on the train and headed back into the opposite direction. Since it was too late to go all the way back to Liberty Island(we did go to see The Lady the next day which was a breath taking experience!) we decided to get off at a random stop close to Greenwich. Well, as life always seems to work out for us, we had the BEST time there that day. We walked around Greenwich which is a great small part of the city filled with local coffee shops, small boutiques, and small restaurants in the midst of lots of trees. Not a very touristy part of New York, but very popular with the locals. We just sat on benches to check out the locals and how they live (which we both really enjoy) even got a little choked up when I saw tons of little kids in uniforms get out of school to go home. I do not know why I got a bit emotional, but it was just like in the movies except these kids were real and this was their life in NY. I think it has something to do with me always having been fascinated with America as a young child and all the books with pictures and documentaries I watched were always about NY. I always wondered back then how the kids there were living compared to me. Now I was HERE and I saw these kids in real life. It is hard to explain the emotion.
Our hotel did not provide shampoo nor a hair dryer, so I came up with this great idea to get my hair washed and dried (called a "blow out" we were told) in Soho since this would most likely cost less than buying a blow dryer and shampoo, right? Not in Soho! After going in 4 hair salons we settled on the cheapest one and had my hair washed for 50 bucks!!! So much for my "money saving" theory :-)
I had never been to NY except for a one day flight only when I worked with United Airlines
What surprised me the most is to see how much the food industry changed! I remember all these fast food places and pizza joints and hot dog carts. This time, I was really pleasantly surprised to find a plethora of healthy food choices. To be honest, it felt as if there were more heath conscious places then junk food, which surprised me from last time I visited. Organic everything! We had Organic Soy Latte's, fresh fruit smoothies, organic soups, even ate at a hummus restaurant (one of many). I do not know if it is because we are eating healthier nowadays that we noticed the change (kind of like when you want to buy a new car and all of a sudden you see that particular car all over), but I do believe the country is starting to realize that we CAN make a difference in the quality of our lives. One of the places I personally really wanted to see was (I know I should say the Guggenheim museum) was the Plaza hotel! Remember the movie Bride Wars with Kate Hudson and An Hathaway? It is beautiful, and if you are ever in the area you should attend the tea service. You will feel like a millionaire for not much money :-) My dad told me about it but unfortunately we could not stay for the tea because we had to be at the airport, but we did go inside and were in luck to catch a wedding! One day when we win the Lottery we will renew our vows there and, of course, you are all invited.
We also combined our sight seeing trip with a small family reunion. We met up with Will's cousin Jaime (James, Jimmy,.. depending who you ask :-) Will had not seen him for about 20 years! In my family I don't even know my second cousins (barely have contact with some of my first cousins :-) but you know them Mexicanos and their familia! After about two tequila shots you would have thought they were brothers. It was cool to have a local take us to some wonderful restaurants in the city and show us some of the hot spots in the New York night life scene. We ate some remarkable food and had such a blast partying with him. I will spare everybody the details, but let’s just say neither Will nor Jaime remembered the cab ride home (la cucaracha..la cucaracha....tequila!!!) We had a great time, thanks Jimmy!
New York! It really is a special place with a unique feeling of endless possibilities! No wonder so many people write songs about this Big Apple! What a fantastic trip, definitely worthy of many more trips to come

Little child of mine say whaaat?

Lainey asked her dad if she could have a cookie before bedtime. Will had said no and she came to me asking for the same thing. I explained her dad had already said no and he would be really mad if I reversed his ruling. She replied with tears in her eyes:" you can do whatever you want because HE is not the boss of you, you are the same"

Chloe asked me when we were going to have a new baby brother or sister. I told her to pray to God and hopefully he will bless us with a baby. Chloe answered: " Okay mama, I can pray a lot, but without you and papa doing the "gross part", there is not going to be a baby!"

Until the next time,

Lesley

Finally, a blog update!

Today I have officially not blogged for two months :-( I really wanted to have at least one blog a month, but it has been super hectic around here. We also lost our camera so we had no pics to share which makes for a boring blog. My mom sent me some pics she took, so I can finally send out an update.
The kids finished up the summer with a fun horse riding camp. They love to ride the horses and they teach them how to groom, feed, clean the stables and everything. The best thing about it: they are pooped at the end of the day!
September is always a busy and a bit unorganized month because school starts the 1st of September. New teacher, different homework schedules. Also, this is when the kids sign up for different activities, and September is free trial month in almost ever club, so we run around all over the place. Our Lainey is officially a big girl now, she started first grade!! Chloe is in third grade going on twelfth. The baby days are over.
I told the kids this year they had to cut some activities because they were doing so much last year. After trying different things, making a list, debating with us parents why they really need to do this...we eliminated 2 activities from last year...and added 3. So much for being in charge. Here is the final list. Lainey: jazz, ballet, theatre, judo, art class, volley ball and flamenco Spanish dance on Saturday. Chloe has the same except she switched the art class for modern ballet and the theatre for street/funky dance. I went to city hall and applied for my taxi license since I already qualified for the 500 practice hours.
We went to an awesome air show two weeks ago with my parents. It was an all day event where airplanes would do tricks in the air. Very cool. We even saw a F16 top gun flying at Mach speed! The fastest and loudest plane. It was such a rush to see. If you ever have the chance to see an air show, you should. It was totally worth it!
The kids both had their birthdays this month. Our Chloe is 8 and Lainey is 6. We basically had 6 parties in one month, since my mom's birthday also was on the 2nd!
The kids had a blast though. Chloe picked a bowling party with her class. As great as communication is between male and female, Will ended up having to work that Saturday, leaving me to entertain 17 children! Can you say headache? It actually went very well, and they had a great time. Lainey picked an indoor playground with jumpy houses, climbing toys, slides, trampolines for her class party. Totally Lainey!
While Lainey picked a shopping spree at the toy store to spend her birthday money, Chloe has been asking for an entire year to go to a fancy restaurant called Exquisa. This is a gourmet restaurant that got second place on a national television show for best restaurant. Needless to say the price tag is pretty heavy. We thought she was just joking and told her that if she picked this she would not get ANY other presents because this was way too expensive. There was no changing her mind. After a year of wanting to go to this place, she got her wish and we took her. She felt like a princess and ate lobster and caviar! Who's daughter is this? She had a blast and said she it was exactly what she wanted! Go Chloe!
Will and I got back from Bologna, Italy. It was wonderful. We met up with my cousin Frederik (who lives there now) and Chris and Jen (Will's brother and wife). We ate and ate and ate. My diet looked liked this: 3 cappuccinos every day (seriously the best ever), pizza every day for lunch (I do love the Italian pizza's with the thin hand tossed crust) and at night pasta with red wine! I gained two pounds in three days, but it was soooo worth it! I also bought my beautiful long, black winter coat, because "Design" is Italy's middle name and of course "Shopping" is mine.
We also had a race in our town. Will ran the 15K and did really well, for his age that is :-) He ran 1:11:59. I felt I biked about a 5K myself because I tried to catch Will at different stages during the race so even I was tired cheering. The kids ran a 1K too and did great! Fun day.
Will and I are getting ready to fly to New York next week! We are going to Tony Robbins for 4 days and see the city for 4 days! Super fun since this is Will's first trip to the Big Apple! Lady Liberty here I come!

Little child of mine say what???
After the bedtime rituals and five attempts to get the kids to go to bed I raised my voice and said: "this is the fifth time I am asking, go to bed now, mom's tired you know". Chloe's response: "if YOU are tired maybe YOU should be the one going to bed"!

Lainey told me she is never going to get married because she wants to live with me forever. Chloe responded: "You can still get married and live with her, look at mama, she still lives with bompa (grampa)".

Until the next time with lots of NY adventures,
Love, Lesley

Awesome Summer!

We have had such a great summer this year.
Three whole weeks visiting the homeland. The vacation met all of our expectations. We did so many fun things, met up with so many people, ate so much food...could not have asked for more..well, maybe even more days but when do we ever have enough vacation days. The kids had an amazing time. I actually did not see them much this trip? They were always surrounded by cousins and friends, having a blast. It was a sure shock back to reality when we got back, resuming their routine activities and playing with 1 cousin :-) School does not start until next week for them, so they had a fun time still going to dance camp for a week and this week they are at horseback riding camp which they love. Like I said, this summer has been amazing for them, not one minute of dead time.

We know that there are many people we did not get a chance to see on this trip, and we really missed you guys. Hopefully next time we will meet up. It is hard to see everybody, which is why we usually have a party so everybody can come to us, so next time we come you can be sure we will have a party again, so save the date next summer. Three weeks seems like a long time, but it goes by fast because we try to combine extended family time, immediate family lounge time, friends’ time, taking care of business stuff time, shopping time, kid’s entertainment time, and just Will and I time all in one vacation!
Well, we had a blast, and the kids did great traveling! We always have airline personnel tell us how wonderful they are and so well behaved. I just do not see the need to mention that it is not always like that at home. Lets keep them thinking we have the perfect family and they messed up somewhere at their home :-)
I think I have told you guys before that Will and I can never go on vacation without the not so usual travel drama, so I will just let you know our travel adventure from Belgium to Tracy, and we will leave it at that:

7AM all our bags are packed by the door (plus an empty suitcase we always take to store all our overseas purchases:-), we are ready to leave to the train station which is about a few blocks away from our house, so we all walked. I am standing in line for tickets and the train leaves in about 13 minutes. Suddenly we realize the empty suitcase did not make it. I will omit whose fault this was in this story since this is a matter of opinion:-)
Will decided to make a run for it to get the bag at home while I purchase the tickets. He looks to see which platform to go to and it is platform 8. Chloe is standing outside so she can she Will run and while I buy the tickets the ticket person tells me the platform has changed from platform 8 to platform 1. I yell out at Chloe to flag Willie down when he comes so I can tell him about the platform change. Now, we have about 5 minutes left until the train leaves (and let me inform you, this is NOT Amtrak, when they say in Europe that the train leaves at 3 minutes after the hour it leaves at 3 minutes after the hour).
I ask Chloe if she sees him and she says Yes, he is coming. Chloe comes walking in and tells me Will did not see her and ran down to the platforms!!! To give you a visual of my position: Crowded train station, two kids, three huge suitcases, three back packs. I have to run down to platform 8 but can not leave all the stuff behind and the kids can not stay by themselves in this busy place.
PANIC in my head. Luckily I see a person I know (barely, we had not seen each other since high school). I asked her to please watch the stuff and the kids for me and I bolted to platform 8...just to see the doors close and Willie riding off into the sunset!!!!

NOW WHAT?? I have the entire luggage, the kids, and all the tickets. Will has no ticket, no phone, does not speak the language and had an EMPTY suitcase! If this is not a red flag for terrorism then what is.
I decided to get on my train which was leaving in 1 minute because I did not want to miss our flight, and I would figure out what to do later. My "friend" helped me get all me stuff on the train and I went looking for the conductor. After explaining the whole story he called the train station to get the cell number of the conductor on Will's train. They had already found him and luckily this train was going in the same direction and we reconnected at one of the stops!

Think it's over..haha, we got to the airport and some guy almost runs over Chloe, as I pull her back two cops jump him and make a violent arrest, two more cops come with machine guns..chaos. We got on our flight, ready to go....NOT, a passenger decides to verbally assault a flight attendant and needs to be removed from the plane.
Finally we get to Washington, just to find out we did not make our connecting flight. The customer service agent was so rude to us, I really had to try to keep my cool (Will had lost it in about 35 seconds into the conversation). She finally found some MISTAKE in our booking and if we wanted to continue our journey we had to pay 600 dollars!! We refused and she said we could wait at the airport for months if we wanted to, it would not change a thing. We felt held hostage, so unfair. We finally paid it and of course, no more available flight until the next morning.
We laid out some airline blankets, and slept in the airport!!!

Next day we get on the flight and arrive safely. But because the family did not know exactly when we finally got on the flight, we still had to wait 3 hours until we were picked up!
39 hour trip complete!!
The kids did great though, they just saw this as an adventure. When we woke up in the airport Lainey said: "Wow, this is the biggest hotel we have ever stayed at!!". Always great to have the kids put things in perspective.

I will write a new blog soon, I just wanted to thank everybody for making our trip everything we could have hoped for! The kids still talk about camping with the family, the family trip to Santa Cruz, swimming with the cousins, going to friend’s houses, tea party with grama and of course they LOOOVE their American Girl dolls they got for their birthdays! They really play with them almost every day! Will and I also had a wonderful and productive time at our marriage retreat, which could not have happened without the lovely babysitting services :-) I truly recommend everybody to go to one of the marriage encounters. You can find them at www.wwme.org or if you need more serious work :-) www.retrouvaille.org.

Can not end a blog without...
Little child of mine say what???

Chloe was not eating her veggies and I told her how she was wasting food and there are children in Africa who are dying of hunger! She replied: "I don't want to be selfish, let’s give it to them!

Lainey was praying before bedtime and said, please God let Chloe have more respect, papa be more patient, and mama....nothing, she is already perfect!!!!!!!!!!!

Until the next adventure,
Love, Lesley

Unleash The Power Within!

About 4 years ago I ordered the Anthony Robbins cd's "Unlimited Power" off an infomercial. I was not in the best place in my life and his infomercial spoke to my heart. They came in the mail a week later, and I listened to the first cd and never opened the rest of them!! One of my issues (heehee, yes, I said one of them) is that I am an all or nothing type of person. Now, this is sometimes a good thing. If it is something I really want to do I always work my hardest when given a task, stay until the last person when working an event, never missing anything when going to a seminar-not even going to the bathroom, doing extra tasks when working, when cleaning the house I will spend hours to create the WOW factor. But, the negative side to this is that I also am terrible at doing a little at a time, the day to day stuff. If I can't make it to a class for a valid reason, I will skip more of them, when cheating on my diet I go for broke, and if I can only clean the house a little bit I won’t do it until it gets out of hand and the WOW factor can be reached again. The little things that go unnoticed are something I really need to work on. (I guess I just realized as I am writing this that I need recognition for things and if they go unnoticed I do not have the same drive, ...interesting.) So the reason I did not do the other Tony CD's is because in CD #1 Tony says to do them for 30 consecutive days so they will become a habit. Well, some things got in the way and I had to skip a few days here and there so my "ALL" rule was broken and so was my focus. I always said I was going to get to them when I had 30 consecutive days. Now, of course I can just shoot myself because I really think this would have helped me BIG TIME during those days. But hey, never regret, just learn right.
After living in Belgium for about a year I saw the CD's in a box and looked up Tony's website and found out he was coming to Chicago for a live event. I just knew I HAD to go. I told Will all excited: "Tony is coming, Tony is coming can I go"? Will kindly reminded me that Tony going to Chicago does NOT mean Tony is "COMING" when we live in Belgium :-). My mind was set and since Will did not feel the desire to spend the money (does he ever?:-) I took my girlfriend Nele and we went to Chicago last October.

Most of you know I went to this event but most of you do not know how much of an impact it had on my life so far. I loved it so much and I have made some major changes in my life mentally as well as physically.
Mentally, it really taught me sooo much about myself and the way my mind works, my human needs and how they drive me, my priorities, my dreams, my relationships, my past beliefs and my goals for the future.
Physically, I have become almost a complete vegetarian (well, I still eat fish, I think this is technically called pescatarian?) but I do make exceptions once in a while since my decision to not eat meat, including chicken is mostly health based, not so much based on principle. So an occasional treat is allowed in my book: Watch out Shorter's Ribs in Tracy, we are coming on vacation! We also stopped eating most dairy (which was easy since the kids are lactose intolerant), and we eat loads of leafy greens daily.

Needless to say, I was the first to sign up for the seminar when I heard Tony Robbins was coming to Rome, Italy. I put myself on the volunteer list to work the event. I was accepted and it was such an amazing experience. I would recommend everybody to go to one of Tony's live events.
For those of you who don’t know what Robbins does and think I have been absorbed by a strange cult (which a lot of my Belgian friends think :-) here is the scoop in a nutshell:
Tony Robbins is NOT a guru. He avoids this term because it comes with the presupposition that people are dependent upon HIM to create their change in life. We are all responsible for our own change.
He helps to coach people on how to find out what they really want AND how to achieve this more quickly and more easily with his techniques. Yes, he believes in positive thinking like "The Secret" BUT he says the secret is only step one of the process. We have to put it into action. We can be positive and say that there are no weeds in our yard a million times, but unless we find a way to get a mower and work in the yard to get rid of these weeds, this positive thinking will get us nowhere and we will not be having people over for a barbeque any time soon :-).
Knowledge alone does not equal power. Knowledge + Action = Power.
I believe everybody can use a coach, including top executives, grad students, homemakers or even the president. We all have areas in our lives we could use some guidance. He also uses NLP (neuro linguistic programming) a specific technique to help people get over certain limiting beliefs or fears (like fear of flying, phobias, helping people to stop smoking, relationship issues, weight loss..)but he does not really go into that as much in the seminar, more focus is on getting yourself out of your past and into your future!
So basically, a man who tries to find out what makes you happy and then helps you find any possible way to get to that happy place !! What a crazy person right. I would NOT go see him, what a psycho cult of happy, positive, motivated people! :-)

Anyhoo, I had a wonderful experience. I know I already went to the same seminar, but I learned just as much if not more this time. Every time you go you learn something different because you are in a different state. I was worried I was going to be too busy working that I was going to miss the entire event and would miss the lessons Tony was teaching, but it is so strange, I learned just as much this time if not more.
The volunteers were wonderful. Just imagine 150 positive upbeat motivated people all wanting to pay it forward!
We had a person in our group called Alex who has MS. He could barely walk and when he spoke it was very hard to understand him. He comes to all the Tony Robbins events to crew because he feels this seminar changed his outlook on life and he is a much happier person now. He was such an inspiration to all of us, because this guy never let his disability get in the way of any chore. We all worked with him over the course of the 4 day seminar and gotten to know him and how hard he worked. The third day into the seminar, somebody stole his backpack with his computer inside! The whole crew was just devastated, especially since it was Alex and we all decided to pitch in the money and we bought him a new backpack with money in it for a new computer. We gave it to him on the last day and he started crying (actually, we all were!). After the thanx and hugs he proceeded to tell us his "Welcome to Italy" story.

Upon his arrival to Italy he was picked up by the local police because they thought he was mentally disabled and unable to travel by himself. He tried numerous times to tell them that he does this 3 times a year and that he travels around the world to volunteer with Tony Robbins, but they laughed at him and said it was illegal for him to travel alone in Italy. They took his passport, took him to the police station, called the embassy and ridiculed him. Finally after the embassy confirmed his story (three hours later) they sent him to the event in a taxi. Alex arrived 5 hours late to the crew meeting but never told anybody why. He worked his butt off and NEVER used his story to get extra sympathy.
My faith in the goodness of humanity was restored :-)
I came back ranting and raving and Will is now going with me to the next event!!!

I am sooo glad I was part of this, even though I worked from 7am until 2am EVERY DAY and slept about 4 hours a night. What I got back was so much more. As I said in one of my last blogs, I have been identifying with so many clichés lately, so here it goes again: "the more you give, the more you get!!!"

I can not end my blog without
Little child of mine say what?

Chloe asked me if I got my book signed by Tony and I told her there was no opportunity for me to get it but I had something better: I told her "Tony held my hand and kissed it!!!!" She thought about it for a few seconds and responded with a pouty face: " I'd much rather have an autograph then a kiss on YOUR hand!

When Will and the kids picked me up from the airport after coming home from the seminar I was going off talking about how wonderful it was and about Alex who got his computer stolen when Lainey taps my shoulder and asks me in the sweetest, caring voice while stroking my arm:" Can we turn on the music now or are you not done with all your stories?" I am glad my daughter sensed I needed to get this stuff off my chest even though she couldn't care less :-)

Until the next time,

Lesley

The good life

Another month gone by! At this rate I will be retired in no time!
When we used to visit Belgium we would sight see all the time. Now that we live here we have jobs, kids school and practises and family and friends get togethers, we seem to spend little time going out of town. So, we decided to go visit a few famous places in Belgium Will or the kids had not been to.
Our first trip was to "Scherpenheuvel". It is one of the most frequented shrines in Belgium. The origin dates back to the Middle Ages. On top of the hill (Scherpenheuvel means sharp hill in Flemish) a mighty oak tree was visible over a wide area. This tree seems to have been a centre of superstitious practises until a wooden figure of Our Lady Mary was affixed to the tree during the 14th century. In 1514 a shepherd tried to take the statue home. He remained transfixed until the little statue was put back into the niche. Since then the shrine gained a wider celebrity. In 1602 a little wooden chapel was built, which was later replaced by a beautiful basilica. Nowadays, milions of pilgrims come to our lady for guidance.
Why does it hold a special place in my family's heart? Well, after giving birth to me, and ofcourse me being the most wonderful baby in the world, my mom tried for 5 years to have another baby without success. She went to Scherpenheuvel and wrote her "wish" on a piece of paper and placed it in the "prayer box". The next mont... she was pregnant with my brother!!!
The kids loved writing their prayers on the little papers, lighting candles and throwing coins in the wishing well! You should see how sincere the girls were praying after putting their prayers in the box, you would think they were angels! Well, they are ofcourse! It was a beautiful day and we had a great time.

My mom's boyfriend Albert is a pilot for gliders and small motor planes. He had a gliding contest the other day and since the weather was gorgeous we decided to go watch! Little did we know that you see him take off and about 4 hourse later you see him land. Great! So we just had some fun on the field, had some greasy, woonderful fries, ice cream to top it off and we welcomed Albert back to land. He passed his exam.

Last Sunday the city of Hasselt organized a kids day all over the town. No cars were allowed so we took our bikes and away we went. They had sand in the street with beach toys, just as if we were at the seaside, tons of different types of jumpy houses, totally fun giant games (like connect four), silly bikes. Really super fun. But, Belgium would not be Belgium if we had good weather to count on, so...it rained!! This was a bummer because almost nobody came out that day. We did not let the weather stop us, so we had a really cool time and nooo lines anywhere. We got soaked...so what!

Another road trip: The Atomium. At the world fair in Brussels in 1958, the first post war event of its kind, bringing together over 40 countries, a giant structure was built as a piece of art. It symbolizes an iron crystal, magnified 165 bilion times, referring to the power of nuclear energy in full development at the time and which was intended for peaceful use. The Atomium is the most visited tourist attraction of Europe's capital.
It was cool to actually go inside it and see the view all the way from the top! Breathtaking. Even though the kids really did like it, their favorite part was playing in the fountain in front of the structure! Kids are so easy to please aren't they?

It was a beautiful sunshiny day in Belgium. Pretty rare for us so the entire country was having a barbecue it seemed. Acting as the followers we are, our family was no different. We had the family over at my dad’s house and after finding out the barbecue pit was missing a part we switched to plan B and my dad cooked up a feast, but we all ate outside so we still felt the barbeque spirit.
Since we had not been in our yard this year, the grass was pretty high. My dad’s mower broke so my brother brought over his lawn mower. Will took charge and tackled the rainforest themed backyard grass mowing job. After he was done and joined us at the table I, being the wonderful wife that I am, stroked his back and said:” Thank you babe for mowing the lawn”. He smiled and sat down. Then he turned to me and said:”I have always mowed the lawn”. I responded with:”I know, and I am thanking you for doing it.”. About five minutes later I look at Will and I see his face, he has the –I am acting like nothing is wrong but I am bugged–look. So, I ask...you can guess it.. “what is wrong?”. He said: I have always mowed the lawn and you have never thanked me for it. I told him that I realized this and it is never too late to start appreciating something, right? After a few moments he could not help himself and went on to say one more time (with a smile this time though): for seventeen years I have mowed the lawn and you never really thought anything of it, just expected it to be done. Okay girls, now I am getting a bit bugged. I said:"I just thanked you for doing something and you are turning it into a reason to be mad at me?" He defended himself by saying he was happy I was appreciative but that my act of kindness made him think of how often I DID’NT thank him before??? "#§çù£&é@". I give up. They call it a cliche, but I am relating to many cliches these days, so here it goes: "Ladies, damned if you do, damned if you don’t". :-)

Little child of mine say what?

I told the girls that our cousin Monica was getting married soon. Chloe asked :"to who?". I answered: "to Shane ofcourse"? she paused for about 6 whole seconds and said : "Good choice Monica!"

We were getting an ice cream and were deciding what flavor we should get. Lainey asked me what the flavor "forest fruit" was. I told her strawberries, rasberries, boysenberries.. She asked me if apples and pears were in there. I told her "no, just everything that grows in the forest" She told me she didnt want that flavor after all. When I asked her why not she answered : "I don't like trees"

Until the next time,

Lesley

Just daily stuff

I can not believe it is already May. This year is going by so fast. I guess I have been the busiest I have ever been before. I love my job, but working full time sure makes me realise how much time I had before we moved.
After we came back from our Tenerife vacation it was my dad's turn to go on his trip to Rome. I had to open the store all week PLUS do my normal job. Needless to say I was beat at the end of the week. Then, a week later, my brother left to Spain so Will took over his job after his normal job, and I had an extra daughter for the week. Three is for sure a lot more then two :-)
Both kids are getting so big and I have truly become the taxi mother. They are involved in so many activities and since the schoolyear is coming to an end our daytimer is filled with dance recital rehearsals, ballet exams, gymnastics performances, pffffffff. I told the girls next year they should only pick two activities each but I have a feeling this is only a reality in my own world since I saw the list of things they wanted to sign up for.
I guess I am glad they like to be involved, unlike me as a child. I always wanted to be home. Most people think this conflicts with my social character now, but as a child I just did not like group activities. I have been part of gymnastics, ballet, basketball, horseback riding, track, piano and guitar lessons and girls scouts....all for about 2 month. Ofcourse I needed all the gear for these sports I absolutely HAD to be part of. I think my parents finally gave up. I have to say I did learn a lesson (besides the self discovery that I basically can not stick with anything). My parents always let me quit right away. Now, I do understand where they were coming from. They came from a generation where the child's input did not matter and they were forced to do certain activities because those were socially expected of respectable families. I think they did there best to make sure we never felt this pressure by overcompensating and letting us join whatever we wanted and in turn quit whenever we had a bad day. So here we are, the next generation. What to do? Will and I try to find the way in the middle so we basically agreed to let the kids pick a few activities they want to join and then stick with it for the entire schoolyear (in Belgium the season of any activity is from september until june). Then they can decide if they want to rejoin or pick something else. The kids know this and I have to say they are a lot better then I was already. They certainly do not like to go to all their activities full of joy all the time, but they know the rule. It is funny though, sometimes they ask me: "is it June yet?" When I ask them why, they simply say:"oh, no reason, just curious". But they do not complain.
They performed their first acrobatic gymnastics performance and did awesome. I do not understand how they are so flexible. They did not get that from either of us. They were dressed up as clowns, and showed their skills. Even though they probably will not continue this next year, they learned a lot and enjoyed the season.

Mothersday was lovely. I got spoiled this year. Will and the kids treated me to a lovely brunch dowtown on saturday. It was so nice to have my girls be big enough to start enjoying things us grown ups do aswell. Chloe asked me to go to a spa and get a massage for her birthday???? Where is my baby??
The kids created some beatiful artwork in school including a poem they performed at my moms on sunday. I got flowers, chocolate AND a Swarovski chrystal treasure chest! (For those of you who do not know, I collect these figurines...and my birthday is Januari 2nd :-).

Last weekend Will and I joined our friends Jens and Tanja to see the Alisha Keys concert. I didn't really know many of her songs, besides New York, but man,...she is talented! Not too many special effects, just the piano and her voice. I know you can not know much about a person from a concert, but listening to her sing and speak, she really seemed to be such a genuine sweet, loving person. I really enjoyed the concert and so did Will. He did not even want to go at first, but he really appreciated her talent afterworths. Next week I have to return the favor and join him at a Eric Clapton concert. Lets hope I will be equally appreciative.

Little children of mine did what????

I came home from work on wednesday to find Lainey's front tooth loose and her lip bruised. For some reason we always seem to direct our anger towards the person watching the kids (even though we well know it could have easily happened under our own care). So I turn to Will with THE look and ask him what happened?
They had gotten dish washing soap and water, poored it on the kitchen tile floor and were practising ICE SKATING?!!

Little child of mine say what????

Will got mad at Lainey for something, and raised his voice. Lainey looked at Will and said: "You always yell when you are mad". Will felt bad and sad: "I am sorry Lainey, does it hurt your feeling when I yell?" As Lainey walks away she responds: "No, it just hurts my ears"

Lainey's bed time prayer: Thank you Jesus for everything, please help the people that are hungry, please help the poor kids, and please help Chloe not to be so selfish, amen.

Until the next time,

Lesley