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