It has been a very hectic last couple of months. Not to make excuses but, -and now, as usual, this sentence will be completed with the list of excuses- in short our little kitchen project became a complete house remodel with breaking down a wall, filling up the wall holes with new plaster (a new project we discovered after peeling away 7 layers of wallpaper from the last 30 years), new flooring, new paint, new ceilings, electrical work and even gas lines rerouted. Pffffffffff. We were living like we were camping for over 3 months, and had no internet for a part of it. Now, all is done except for the little finishing touches, that will linger on for years to come of course. Next project will be the kid’s room!
The holidays were nice and of course busy. The kids loved their gifts, especially the UGGS they begged us to get for about a year now. Mom loved them too, super easy to get on and off for them and matching almost every winter outfit! I know they are pricey, but I really think they are worth the money, especially here in cold Belgium. The beautiful Christmas dresses they got from Grama and Grampa were a hit! They wore them both Christmas Eve and Christmas day! Santa brought them the Wii and the whole family loves it. My favorite is the dance game where you have to copy the dancers, hilarious and fun for the entire family. My ultimate favorite gift from my hubby, the Kindle!!! I am not kidding, I looove this thing. I am on my fifth book since Christmas! I really like the fact that I have 7 books with me in my purse at all times. I am not a fiction reader, I am however addicted to all kinds of informational books from self improvement, sports, money, biographies, health...you name it. I like to choose my topic depending on the time I have to read which makes it great to always have so many books with me at all times. If I were Oprah, this would be one of my Favorite Things! (I believe it actually was on her list?). Both Will and I had our birthdays and decided to go to London for a couple of days.
London is really cool. It is such global city but does not feel like a NY or San Francisco. No tall skyscrapers all over, lots of neighborhoods or districts. We did the double decker tourist bus (super touristy which is not like us usually, but years ago we tried it and realized you can see ALL the must sees in one day and then go on your merry way and enjoy the local life and hangouts the rest of the trip) which we now do in every major city we visit. Will was happy to finally see the famous bridge he sang about when he was a child, eat the original fish and chips, drink an English pint and sip some English tea.
I do love the English, they keep it simple. No fancy stuff, just straight to the point. The way out of a place is labeled "way out", the subway is called "underground". Makes sense right?
We combined the trip so we could also go to see my instructor speak at a seminar he was giving. For those of you who did not know, I have been taking a course since September to become a “health coach” with Joseph McClendon, the health coach guru. I love it and at the end of May I have to fly to Switzerland to do a 4 day “internship” and a final! There are quite a few Americans in my class as well, since Joseph was an instructor at USC/UCLA. I will keep you posted on my progress, but so far so good!
The kids are doing great. They are so excited to go to California this summer! Too bad people just can’t get along in the world and the oil prices keep rising because this sure does make it hard to get affordable tickets! My mom was just saying how the prices are exactly DOUBLE from when she used to come visit! Oh well, at least we know what we are working for right?
We are coming from June 26th until July 21st!!! That is almost 4 weeks! I forget how many weeks it is before company starts smelling like fish? I should call Will's dad to find out :-)
The kids are very busy doing all their sports, mostly dancing. They both had a jazz dance show and Lainey also had her ballet recital. They were super cute! Will has been running and just ran a 10K in 46 minutes. Not too shabby for an aging man huh. He is also playing recreation basketball with two teams now, so I better start getting my butt into the gym to keep up! Being a whole lot younger than him can only get me so far:-). I have just started running myself, I just could not do it during the winter, waaay too cold for me here, and since my cheapo husband will not spring for a gym membership, I guess he is going to have to deal with the winter Goodyear around my waist.
On a positive note, my dad is doing very well! He has finished all his Chemo therapy and they just did a scan which revealed that the tumor in the kidney is gone and the lymph nodes are back to its normal size. The left over malignant cancer cells in those lymph nodes are stabilized for now. He feels great but is still always tired from the chemo but this should get better in 2 months or so. All he has to do now is go back every 3 months to have a checkup scan to see how things evolve. The doctor said the cancer could come back in 6 months or 6 years, nobody knows but since my dad responded so well to the chemo he has high hopes this could last a long time! And if it comes back, they do the same thing again. So all in all this is the best we could have hoped for!
Little child of mine say what????
Conversation between Chloe and Lainey in the back seat of the car:
Lainey :"I don't understand why the baby in mommy's tummy had to die?
Chloe: "the baby was probably too handicapped to live so God took the baby to heaven"
Lainey: "Really,... I don't get how a wheel chair could fit in mommy's tummy?"
Chloe asked me what a "Casanova" was. I told her it was somebody who likes girls a lot and probably has lots of girlfriends, to which she replied: Oh, you mean like papa before you guys got married.
Until the next time,
Lesley
