Performing Arts Week

The last two weeks were filled with much entertainment.
Chloe finished her first horseback riding camp and put on a great show for us on the final day. I was pretty amazed at her fearless riding. She has always been cautious with animals, even our cats. That's why I was surprised she even wanted to try horseback riding. But she seemed totally comfortable out there and was kicking the horse to give the order to speed it up to a gallop. They even performed a few tricks like standing on the horse and riding backwards. Very proud of this new endeaver she took on. My hopes for her not to like this and give up her dreams of owning a horse and riding into the sunset did not pan out as I hoped,but she is young..there is still hope.

Last Sunday we took a trip down memory lane for me and we all went to the Circus! I remember going to the circus every year with my parents and going to check out the animals like lions and elephants doing tricks. So I was a little disappointed when there was not ONE animal present. I guess the animal rights movement has been pretty active in the circus world, which I completely understand, even though I did miss them. But the kids did not know any better and they loved the clowns and acrobats hanging from the ropes off the ceiling and racing motorcycles doing stunts inside a cage. We had a great day and overall the nostalgia was still very much present! I have to add something Chloe said, because kids do say the darndest things..but oh so true: We had noticed one of the clowns resembled our late grampa Al Longoria so we chuckled a bit, all of a sudden we noticed Chloe quietely crying giant crocodile tears. She said she was missing grampa Al. I told her that grampa was in heaven and is missing her too, to which Chloe answered with absolute certainty in her voice "grampa is in heaven... there is no pain in heaven... so he can not possibly be feeling what I am feeling!" Well, what do you tell you child now? Smart kid.

While pregnant with Chloe, Will and I went to San Francisco with Will's brother Michael and his wife Cheryl to see the show Riverdance (you know, the cute Irish dancers tapping their feet completely synchronized with eachother). I don't remember much of that night except for the fact that I threw up on the ride over there and still eating Thai food right after?? Anyhoo, "Riverdance The Farewell Tour" came to Belgium this week and of course we were there. I bought tickets for the four of us and surprised Will and the kids with it. The show was awesome!! The music was so powerful you could feel the bass in your soul and the dancing was just amazing. The kids liked it a lot, but since the show did not end until ten thirty they both konked out with wide open mouths the last half hour of it. If you have a chance to see this performance, I strongly recomend you do so!

Now that we are out of money from going out so often, we are ready to start a new week of STAYING HOME.

Until next time,

Lesley

The Avid Starbucks Hunteress

While I was living in the US there were many things from Belgium I craved and just the smell of some things familiar brought back all the memories attached to them. Well, now that I am living in Belgium, one thing I miss very much is ...STARBUCKS! We have wonderfull coffee over here but the whole Starbucks experience is something I associate to many wonderful memories of meeting good friends, fun conversation, of course great coffee drinks and customer service.

Belgium opened up its first Starbucks at the Brussels airport a couple of years ago, which is about an hour from my house. I would not mind taking the drive over there but having to park in the airport parking lot and walking all the way to the departure gates is just not the experience I was looking for.
Option number two is Aachen, which is a city in Germany about 45 minutes away. Needless to say I have been over there about a dozen times JUST to get the Starbucks experience I was missing and that has been great.

Now, the point of the story, A second location in Belgium has opened in the city of Antwerp, about 40 minutes away. and it is the largest Starbucks in Europe to date. As I wrote in my last blog, Will and I went to Antwerp for Valentines day. I had strategically picked that place to have a wonderful Mocha as part of the fun weekend AND booked our room with a window view to those nice block letters spelling STARBUCKS COFFEE. So, I think I can pretty much say one of the most disappointing moments of my life was when I opened the curtains of our room and reading the words: STARBUCKS COFFEE, OPENING FEBRUARY 24TH!!! Remember, this is Valentines day, so NOT the 24th.

No way, this was not happening to me! I was not about to give up not that easily, no way Jose. I walked by there about 7 times during the weekend just to get a glimps of anybody maybe working inside or something, ...ANYTHING. And..as usual, determination and positive thinking pays of: As we were waiting for our train to get back to our town, all of a sudden the doors open and an entire Starbucks crew is working inside!!! Like a dream! I drag Will inside and we talk to the manager who informs us that the crew is practising for the grand opening and that we could order whatever we wanted for free!!! The words "Grande Soy White Mocha, Two pumps, No whip" never sounded so great to me ever before.

My wishful thinking did not even stop paying off here, the manager invited the 2 of us to the pre-grand opening for friends and family to enjoy all the drinks and food for free to make sure it was up to American standards! Wow, how great was that. Of course I have been married into a Mexican family way too long to not take this opportunity a step further and kindly RSVP for 4:-) We took my brother and his girlfriend and had a wonderful time.

Moral of the story: If you really want something, dont give up because most of the time there always is a way to get what you want. Second moral to the story: appreciate the little things you have, because you do not know how much they mean until they are gone!

Until next time,

love, Lesley

My new blog!!!

I have been reading my friend Megan Woolsey's blog for a long time and finally made the belated newyearsresolution to start my own blog. I always thought nobody wanted to hear our day to day stuff but I always looked forward to reading Meg's stories about the simplest of things, that I thought this would be a great way to keep people up to date on our adventures and in the meantime keep up my English skills while living in Belgium:-)

The whole blog thing is new to me so all the cool tech stuff (like pics, video and music) will NOT be in this first blog post, I need to play with it a bit to get better, but at least I do not have to fit my text into small boxes like my last newsletters, pfff, that was a pain. Now I can just freely write and write until the inspiration runs dry. So get ready :-)

This week is a little different than normal because we have "Krokus" Vacation. It's usually the week of ashwednesday and the beginning of Lent. Belgium is originally a Catholic country, and even though religion is completely seperated from State, we still have tons of Catholic traditions and holidays. As most working moms know (except for you lucky schoolteachers), a week off school means a lot of planning for the kids to stay busy.

Chloe is on cloud nine because she has asked me for about a year to learn how to ride a horse, but I was a little scared of the whole idea. She seemed too small, and that is a loooong fall for a little person. But this week almost half her class signed up for a weeklong horseback riding camp so there was no way out and I had to let her go. She is doimg great and I am glad they teach her everything INCLUDING cleaning the stables and grooming the horses. Hopefully this will make her understand we will not be buying a horse anytime soon.

Lainey joined her cousin Sienna this week at a playcamp at her school. They do arts and crafts, games and as long as there is still snow, they have lots of snowfun. Lainey makes sure to let me know she will be riding a horse when she is in first gade, because this camp is more for small kids, not kindergardners. Too funny to see all the kids watching Hannah Montannah in Flemish in the kindergardner room and the bigger kids watch it in English with subtitles, no wonder Lainey feels so mature for her age. She is super smart!! :-)

Will and I had a very nice Valetine's day. We took the train to Antwerp and went to a great Sushi place we actually discovered last time Will's brother Chris and his wife Jen were down. They will understand when I say we ate the whole boat by ourself!! It was very yummy, and I was happy! They don't really have much sushi here, so this was a treat. We had a very nice hotel and it was nice to get away. It is soo easy to get stuck in the rut of daily living, and we get so tired that we end up in the couch at night. You have to get out and plan things in advance, because otherwise if you wait untill the moment you end up saying..we'll just stay in and relax. So therefor, I am becoming a planner.

I hope things are great with all of you guys, and untill next time,

Lesley Groven Serrato x