Common thread: always a reason to celebrate

Three months ago Will had received news at work that the GE contract was up and could not be renewed due to low UK call volume and the British recession. In Belgium an employer is obligated to give you a minimum of three months notice so Will had some time to look for another job. For some reason we were not really worried, we have been through this a few times before and it always seems to work out. He was bummed because of his coworkers (he has made some great friends) and he was going to miss them. They all wanted to get together for drinks to say farewell to Will.
Well, the day before his last day his boss called him in to ask him to stay on another 6 months since call volume had picked up a bit and they were hoping with summer coming it was going to be even busier. Will accepted the six month contract and we were happy to hear that his schedule was now going to be a lot better for us! Once again proof that worrying about things before they happen really is not of any use. Of course, Will's friends decided to still get together for the goodbye party and just changed it to a welcome back fiesta, really any excuse to party hardy those guys :-)

My dad, which most of you know, has a wine wholesale business and retail store. He goes twice a year to a big wine venue were wineries from all over the world come to present there wines to hopefully get the opportunity to export their products to these winesellers. He decided to make it a company trip, since my brother and I both work for my dad, and we all went including Will and my brother's girlfriend Evi. Since this venue was close to Brussels we stopped at the Brussels airport for a...Starbucks coffee and off we went (you know if there is a Starbuck within a 20 mile radius I AM SO THERE). We had a great time tasting wine after wine after wine.. We found some great products that we decided to purchase so I guess you can say the trip was a success and we had fun. Thank goodness we brought Evi..she doesn't drink and drove us home.

"Carnaval!!!" known in America as "Mardi Gras" has come to our town last weekend. The words "Mardi Gras" litterally mean "Fat Fuesday" in French. The Catholic tradition started ages ago where everybody partied, ate and drank lavishly on the Tuesday before Ash Wednesday because they were getting ready for a 40 day fast before Easter. Today, we still have a party on that Fat Tuesday before Ash Wednesday, but the big parade and street party known as "Carnaval" happens on different days during Lent for every town because many of the floats appear in more then one city.
The kids had so much fun. They dressed up and they take a big bag with them to town because all the floats throw out candy!! They both came home with a bag filled to the top with goodies. How fun is that?! The weather was a bummer this year, because it sprinkled and it was a bit windy, but we still had fun. Music in the streets, everyone is out. It is for sure a must see when visiting.

Will had other plans this weekend: a boys trip to...Poland! He and his friend Ward took a plane and flew off into the sunset for four days to Wroclaw, a big city in Poland. He said it was a fantastic city with lots to see. The people there make very little money. The two of them ate a large meal, and you know Will can put down some food, including many beers and their bill was eleven dollars. They felt like kings. Boys will be boys and they never came home before 6am, because there was always just one more good Polish beer or wodka to try. When in Rome...

Little child of mine say what?
Lainey is always very quick with her answers, and very correct. We call her Judge Lainey since she always wants to make sure thing are correct and just.
I think I held Lainey on my hip for the first 4 years of her life, but this last year she has grown quite independent. But just the other day she asked me to hold her again and as I picked her up I asked her: "why do you want me to hold you, is it because you love me so much?" she answered "no, because I dont want to walk". I went on and jokingly told her: "wrong answer Lainey, you should say its because you love me so much". Lainey replied: "No mama, you should always speak the truth, because otherwise you are a liar".
Thank you judge Lainey.

Until next time,

Lesley

Food-Fun Week

Well, our good intentions of staying home this week to save money went out the window. It all started with a phone call of my friend Winde: feel like going to the wellness center for some pampering and some bubbly? OFCOURSE!! I grabbed my bathingsuit and off we went. 3 hours of pure relaxation. After soaking in the hot tub with a bottle of Cava(the Spanish Champagne)and some good old laughs and conversation we tried to endure the sauna and steam room for as long as we could stand it. After some swimming in the heated pool we each got a thirty minute massage...heavenly. We had a wonderful time and vowed to do this on a more regular basis to get our juices flowing again. I really do think treament like this should be covered by health insurances of all mothers, so write your congressmen ladies :-)

Saturday night our friends Winde and Steph and Will and I were lucky enough to get treated by our friends Jens and Tanja to a wonderful Tapas diner. Three couples having a feast of scrumptious food and beverage off the calorie and weight watchers point charts! It was nice to be out with them because all of us have young kids (ours are the oldest!) so it doesnt happen often that we all can make it to dinner together, so when we do, it's catch up time. We swore not to go out for drinks after since we all had to get up early the next day, but of course, "when the cat's away the mice dance on the table!" In this case the kids are the cats and us moms are the mice....we were in bed at 3:30am.

Sunday morning was my birthday brunch. I know what you are thinking, my birthday was in January, I know. As I said earlier, it is very hard to get all of us girls out on the same day without work, kids, husbands or hobbies getting in the way of our plans, so this was the first Sunday most of us could make it. We went to a very cosy breakfast place in Hasselt called "The Coeckepanne", which means the pancake. I love their deluxe breakfast with fresh squeezed orange juice, fresh fruit with yoghurt, chocolate croissants, egg and bacon omelets, and breads with a plethera of fancy cold cuts and salads and of course to finish it off..a nice latte to go with the crepes. Absolutely NO more room in my stomach, or my pants for that matter. A wonderful birthday brunch with my friends. Thank you to my girls for the great presents and thank you to the dads for watching our babies!

Sunday afternoon we took the kids to our local "kermis" which is like a carnaval. They loved it of course. We thought we would teach them how to deal with money so we told them they each had 25 Euros to spend on rides. Chloe quickly negotiated that snacks did not count because we as parents should feed them anyway, so this left them with the full 25 bucks to go on rides and play games. Chloe's favorite was definitely the trampoline jump. They put her in a harness and pulled her up about 20 feet into the air and then release her onto a trampoline to jump. Totally fun to watch. She liked it so much that she went on it twice! Will and I got in on the fun in the bumpercars. I would never get competitive in a kids ride, that would be majorely immature...Our kids shot their first guns too! They had to hit the balloons with these BB guns to win a prize, and we were soo happy Lainey, after 10 tries hit 1balloon on her very last shot. Super cute! After a few more rides, and a bag of "smoutebollen" which are basically deep fried doughballs with powdered sugar (and an absolute MUST at the Belgian carnivals) it was time to go home. And our very responsible children? They had money left over!! Do not ask me who they got that from.

Well, our week is over and it is time to start work again. I just wanted to end this blog with something the kids said that made us laugh or cry or got some type of emotion out of us someway somehow, because kids do say the darnest things sometimes..I really want to start writing them down so I will forever remember.
Lainey is becoming more Belgian than we thought. I told her that I loved her, and she said she loved me too. I asked her how much she loved me? Lainey answered:"mmm, I love you a 100 meters mama":-)

Until the next time,

Love Lesley