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Published: November 22nd 2007
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The Crew
Here we all are in front of Gravensteen, with Eliza asleep in the backpack. From now on our new rule goes as follows: you are more than welcome to come visit us where ever we are, BUT you must bring a babysitter! Our friends from home, Stephanie and Dan, arrived last weekend with their daughter Amelia and THE BABYSITTER. We have been having a terrific time with everyone. The girls are so excited to have a playmate around, and the grown ups are excited to have some good times of their own. It has been so nice in the evenings to be able to go out to dinner (as we did Monday night indulging in some seriously rich Belgian food) or just even send the kids upstairs to be read to for an hour and a half while the adults enjoy a nice bottle of wine.
Saturday we did the usual tour through town. It was a beautiful weekend with the sun shining, but the temperatures quite low. Sunday we all went to Gent for possibly our last visit to the favorite Gravensteen Castle. We had a great day. It is official that they never tire of castle life. Monday Jonathan had to go to work. We lazed about for most of the morning and
Chit Chat Time
Emma and Abigail explained all about the window seats in the castle and Emma and Amelia made good use of their time in it. then rallied to go to our amazing playground in the afternoon, despite some rain and chills.
Tuesday we spent the afternoon in Brussels. I got to do some Christmas shopping and we all enjoyed walking through the city with all of the displays up for Christmas. The highlight was seeing the Mannekin Pis dressed up. We have seen postcards of the little fellow with outfits on, but had never seen him for ourselves before. This week he was dressed up as a typical Belgian student and apparently he will be dressed up for the next month in a variety of ensembles. We stopped mid afternoon at a nice little Italian restaurant and enjoyed some good food there which refueled us for the rainy walk to the station. After the kids were in bed we made mussels and frites (actually we went to the local frituur and bought the frites) and drank wine and played cards until (ugh) 2:30am. The week went by too fast. By the time Wednesday rolled around we were happy to see that the weather had warmed up and the rain that was promised seemed to be missing us for the most part. After our late night we opted for another very low key day around Leuven. Dan and I went grocery shopping to stock up on turkey day supplies. Stephanie and I managed to sneak off into town for a few hours for some shopping while Dan hung out with the girls and did all the prep work for the Thanksgiving side dishes!
We made potato leek soup, salad and sausages for dinner. The kids were in bed early and the adults played more cards. I managed to actually get six hours of sleep last night!! A record for this week. The week has been punctuated by an excess of amazing food, great (of course) beer and wine, picturesque sights, laughter and good times. I suppose there are worse weeks of excess to have to live through.
Next up: Thanksgiving Belgium style. After that, a weekend in Amsterdam!!
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