Willpower

 I let my friend, Amy talk me into this program.  Powerhour Bootcamp, and it's really awesome!  It is just what the picture says...it's a bootcamp.  Each class, we do different workouts involving weights, running, pushups, planks, etc.  It's a great workout, very challenging, and exactly what I love.  I do miss Gold's Gym!  But, there is the eating portion of it.  It's basically The Zone Diet.  I get it...it's easy...but when I know I am on a "diet" I am a complete and total failure.  I started the diet three days ago (might I add that I am down 8 lbs  since Christmas...before starting this bootcamp.)  But now, I have eaten more in those three days than I've eaten since I got here.  I'll get weighed next Thursday, and I am totally prepared for weight gain, more inches, and a very serious lecture from Dan and Angela.  They are the instructors.  Not nearly as harsh as Bob or Jillian, but I'm prepared for the discussion they will most certainly have with me.  Ugh!  

Part of the problem is...THIS!

I swear it talks to me.  Oh, how I LOVE it.  I had never tasted it before coming to Belgium, and I probably should have kept it that way.  See the scrape marks on the side of the jar.  Yep, that's from me just eating it straight from the jar with a spoon.  I'm beyond pathetic.  Wish me luck on the "diet".  I can do this...I will have the willpower and see it as more of a lifestyle change than a diet.  After all, I paid for it!  I shall try. :)

Until next time,

Wendy

Bomb Shelter?

No, no not a bomb shelter. :)  Several expat friends suggested that I stock up on goods in the U.S. and ship them over in our sea container.  They gave me a great list of suggestions, and I made it a point to pick up items each time I went to Walmart.  Chris and I also made a run to Sam's Club.  But, it's kind of like Christmas...you keep buying and not realizing just how much you really have.  Once we got it all unpacked, we realized we have our own little Walmart in the basement of our house.  The supply certainly won't last throughout our stay, but it's nice to go to the store and only shop for food items.  Here are a few pics of our personal shopping center.

This and That...Random Wednesday Happenings

First of all, Happy Birthday to my sister-in-law, Amy!!!  The Vastines hope she has a fantastic day!!!

Here are the kids...ready for school.  The "T" in Thomas stands for tiger snake, and the "A" in Allison stands for Athlete.  It was fun to see all of the kids leaving school today and how they were all dressed up.  Some kids really worked hard on their costumes.  One girl was wearing a painted box that looked like a juice box with a straw.  Another girl had a box around her that looked like a vending machine.  Uhhh....they had one night to do this!!!  My kids are at a big disadvantage with this craft challenged mother.  Poor things!

We had a pheasant visiting our backyard today.  What is it with me and birds???

Thomas was the one that spotted it.  He was pretty scared at first.  "Mom!!!  What is in our backyard??"  But then, he was fascinated by it!

Chris bought me flowers for my birthday.  They still look beautiful and look how huge some of them are!!!  The flower arrangements here are beautiful.  You can get them at every grocery store.  I suppose folks buy a lot of flowers to make the inside cheery...to counteract the dreary outside.

Tonight, the kids had their first piano lesson via Skype with Mrs. Witzig.  I would say it went pretty well.  We are so appreciative of her willingness to do this.  The kids are so excited.  It is one aspect of their lives that has remained constant.

And, look what they were selling at school today....Girl Scout Cookies!!!  Oh, was I excited.  Friends have been selling them on Facebook for their kids, and I've been wishing for just one box.  So today, I bought not one...but four! :)

The fire department came to the house today to remove the owl from the chimney.  As of 8:30 this morning, he was still alive...staring at me from just inside the flue.  Unfortunately, there are two turns in our chimney, and their equipment could not accommodate for that.  I think they felt really bad that they couldn't help.  We now have the number for a chimney sweep that will hopefully come by the house tomorrow.  We have raw meat in the fireplace hoping to lure him out of the chimney, so we can get him out, but I'm afraid he isn't going to last much longer.  I just feel really terrible for the poor thing.

Hope your Wednesday is going well.  Until next time...

Wendy

Reality Bites!

We are at the three-week point of our time here in Belgium, and I think it has hit Allison that we aren't going home anytime soon.  She had a rough day today at school.  She forgot she had a French test, and we'll just say it didn't go so well.  She started to cry when she saw me after school.  As we were walking to the car, she said, "I hate it here!  I hate this school!  I just want to go home!"  It absolutely broke my heart.  I know she is hurting, and I want to make it better.  But I know in time, she will like it.  I will say though...they have a tremendous amount of homework.  It is 2+ hours every night for Allison.  And, it's not "right there" answers.  They are very thought provoking with multiple answers and most are short answer.  They have very little down time in the evenings.  Combined with late bedtimes, they've just been all out of sorts.  But tonight, they were in bed by 8:45, and we are praying for a more positive day tomorrow.  

On the flip side, there have been so many positive things that have happened to Allison....

1.  She joined a writing club (and informed me it was free.)  They meet the first Thursday of every month and share stories they have written.  They critique each other's writing and offer suggestions for improvement.  They also discuss what they liked about the piece as well.  She is really excited about that.

2.  She now has a violin!  She will start private lessons next week to get caught up with the other 5th graders.  

3.  She was invited to a birthday party.  It's a Harry Potter party, and they are requesting the guests dress up.  She talked about it all night last night!

4.  She really likes the girls in her class.

5.  She ate the cafeteria food today and said it ROCKED!

6.  Tomorrow they get to dress up for school according to the first letter of their first or last name.  She chose A and is wearing her soccer uniform.  She is an "athlete".  I know if you have had Allison on your team...you just laughed.  LOL!  FYI...Thomas is wearing a camouflage shirt with a tiger snake around his neck.  That is just so Thomas!

7.  And, I received emails from both of their teachers complimenting how well they have settled in (Allison's teacher said "remarkably well"), they advocate for themselves, ask questions, and they already have many friends.  That makes this mom very proud!

So see...it isn't all bad, and they are loving riding with me to school and back.  It sure beats the stinky bus, with the driver who doesn't speak English, and the teenagers who "make out" in the back of the bus.  

Here she is composing her first story.

I had to include some pictures of the evening entertainment from last week.  The kids wanted to do shows for us.  Thomas has the moves like Jagger and Allison was channeling her inner Rihanna.  It was hilarious!

Just for the record...I would never let her leave the house like this.  How do you like Thomas' really cool hairstyle?  He did it himself.

Owl update...Chris is using his McGyver skills as we speak.  He has a mirror taped to some cardboard and is trying to look up into the flue.  I'm not sure what he's going to do when he meets that owl face to face.  We could hear the poor thing hooting last night.  It sounded really pathetic.  We even put food down in the fireplace to lure him back down, but so far, nothing has worked.  We'll keep you posted.

Until next time,

Wendy

Disneyland Paris

Are you prepared?  This is going to be a very long post.  I've included several pictures here, but I will be sure to post all of my pictures on Shutterfly when I have them uploaded.  So, we decided to make Disneyland Paris one of our first big destinations.  Just a few days prior to the weekend, I booked the hotel and tickets, and we left Saturday morning anticipating a wonderful weekend.  It didn't start off quite as expected.  The address I googled wouldn't work in the GPS, some people got rather irritated (my significant other), I made the irritated individual turn the car around (we were less than a half mile from home), so I could print out the directions (I'm old fashioned) and find a new address for the GPS.  Thank goodness we did, or never would have made it there.  After leaving one hour behind schedule, we were finally on our way.  It was very foggy, so we didn't get to enjoy the sights of France, but we arrived safely just before noon.  We checked in at Newport Bay Club and headed to Disneyland.

Here is the entrance to Disneyland with the Disneyland Hotel in the background.  This particular hotel was not in our budget.  You couldn't have your picture right in front of the Mickey bushes (like Orlando) because it was under construction.  Since it was January, it seemed like Disney thought this was a good time to do several updates.

Here is where the excitement is just about to kill me.  Have I mentioned how much I love Disney?! :)

 It seems I have left off the first picture of the kids on Main Street, but since most of you are on FB.  You've seen it.  It probably doesn't need to be said, but I cried when we walked in and saw the castle.  I'm such a sap!

Lunch at Casey's...We eat there on every trip, and we knew it was food that would make all of us happy.

That is one big hot dog!  We haven't been brave enough to buy the hot dogs at the grocery store, so we certainly enjoyed these! 

Here's the castle!  It's much smaller than Cinderella's castle in Disney World, but it is still lovely.  I think I took more pictures of the castle than I did of my kids.

I loved some different features that this park offered.  Here is Skull Rock, and next to it they were constructing Captain Hook's ship.  This was all located next to Pirates of the Carribean.  Pirates of the Carribean was quite a bit longer than the American version, but Captain Jack Sparrow wasn't added to it.  Thomas was bummed!

Here's Pirates!

Even though Jack Sparrow wasn't in the ride, we did get to meet him when the ride was over.  The kids were so excited.  He was really funny too and pulled Allison's hat down over her eyes.  

My boy...waiting to ride Buzz Lightyear!

She's quite the sharp shooter....well, not really...she couldn't get over 2,000 points on the Buzz Lightyear ride.  She does appreciate my love of pictures though, and often creates fun things for me to shoot.  What a great sport!

Here is Phantom Manor...we know it as The Haunted Mansion.  This was a great ride, but it was one that I felt wasn't quite as good as Disney World in Orlando.  Most of the other rides were actually a little better.  It was like they created these great rides in the US, and then found ways to make them even better when they built Disneyland Paris 20 years ago.  Space Mountain goes upside down!!!  That was a surprise when we loaded the ride.  The kids didn't care.  They loved it!!!

The parade was awesome!  This is one parade we haven't seen at Disney.

I was holding this waffle during the parade.  The Mad Hatter came up to me and eyed it while rubbing his belly.  I told him it was really good, and he said he thought it must be, but he had to watch his figure.  Then one of the dancers came by and rubbed her tummy.  We were laughing that two characters commented on it.  And then, one of Captain Hook's pirates walked up...raised his eyebrows, licked his lips, grabbed the fork, and TOOK A BITE!!!  LOL!!!  Everyone around me was cracking up!  I tossed the fork and ate the rest. :)

Acting out Rapunzel.  She even took her hat off and fixed her hair.  She's a crack up!

Thomas told me I had to write, "They never get my nose right!"

The castle at night....so pretty!

Here's our hotel.  It was very nice, but not quite up to the standards of the Disney hotels in the US.  But, it was for one night only.  We had plenty of room and a breakfast that was included.

We went to magic hours on Sunday morning, and for about an hour, we had the park to ourselves.  Here are the kids enjoying all the space on Main Street.

The castle at sunrise and my girl with her sunny disposition!

This is my favorite castle picture.

See the sunrise peeking through the castle.  It stays dark here until almost 8:30.  I'm looking forward to days with more sunlight.

We got to meet Mickey!  This was one of the few character areas that was roped off, so there was some sort of order in meeting him.  If there were no ropes, then it was complete and total madness.  Folks...they are Disney characters...not Robert Pattinson.  Chill out!!!

Only one more character shot...with Buzz.  We knew Sophie and Sawyer would like this one!

All you gotta do is rub that lamp!

What was even more fun than eating the cotton candy was watching them make it.  They thought that was pretty neat!

Disney is only a little over three hours from our house.  This is how they spent part of the way home.  I think they are in a Disney coma.

Overall, the weekend got two thumbs up.  We successfully navigated to France and back with no major issues (our headlight did go out.)  The kids were great, and nothing makes me happier than being at Disney.  

On another note...we have an owl in our chimney that was staring at us through the glass this morning.  More on that in another post.

Until next time,

Wendy