Summer Fun

It officially felt like summer for a few days around here. The temperatures were "warm" in the high 30's Celsius for about 2 days. That was long enough for this girl. I have decided that because I was born and raised in Texas, I have been hot more than cold in my life and therefore, I have had enough of being hot. I am not pleasant when I'm hot. I am a complete wimp without air conditioning. As we are new to life without central air conditioning, we are experimenting with what works best and which is the lesser of two evils...being hot at night or waking up with interesting bite marks left by night time visitors. We discovered that with the windows wide open and fans blowing, that we are all much cooler at night. However, there are no screens on the windows to deter whatever little creatures might be flying around outside our windows to come in and say hello. I have had trouble sleeping at night because, unlike Hannah who imagines kangaroos coming in through the open windows, I imagine birds, bats, big ugly bugs that bite, etc. I'm beginning to understand why one family we met went to a lot of trouble to bring materials to make their own screens for their windows from the US and why another family moved every family member into the one room with the a/c. We'll figure out something that works. At least, whatever we decide will only be for a short time.

Our friends arrived late Saturday evening after some minor train complications and just left early this morning. We had a fabulous time. On Sunday, we drove North to the Belgian coast for some fun at the beach. On Monday, we explored downtown Brussels and on Tuesday we drove South to Han-sur-Lesse to visit a natural cavern and see the "wild" animal safari. We had a great time. Being our first guests in our home, they had to deal with the experimentation of keeping everyone cool at night. Because we already have our 7 passenger minivan almost to capacity, they also had to put up with separate driving tours. Taking two cars everywhere was a bit of a pain, but just something we'll have to deal with unless our visitors come two at a time. The kids were all exhausted from the day trips, but Nathan and Hannah were both sad that they woke up to find the house empty. Daddy is in Germany tonight as well, so the house seems really quiet tonight.

Nathan had a great time playing with his "boys". He adores Brevin and Justus and was thrilled to have a friend sleep in his room for the first time. He has decided Hannah is no longer welcome in his bed (not even for story time) so of course, now Hannah only wants to sleep in there or with us. She has been waking up every night at some point screaming for one of us or both of us. She had a great time with the boys as well. Justus was excited that since he last saw Hannah she has learned to talk and seems more like a friend than a baby.

Sarah has joined us at the table with her new high chair. Our new kitchen doesn't provide room for our old high chair, so last week we went out and found this great portable chair for Sarah to use. She isn't sitting upright well enough to use it quite yet, but she did experiment with some Cheerios on Saturday. Hannah and Nathan are so excited to have their baby sister at the table. They can't wait until she starts eating. We're going to have to watch Hannah very closely because she has asked at every meal, "Sarah can have this, Mommy, or no?"

Other than a few scrapes, bumps, bruises and bug bites that go along with summer time and being a kid, the kids are doing great. We are looking forward to more visits with friends and seeing more of Europe in the next few weeks.

The kids enjoyed the beach the most. They loved playing in the sand and splashing in the waves. They were a little less enthusiastic about visiting the same places in Brussels. There was no mouse in the Grand Place to entertain them this time and Mannekin Pis has lost his intrigue. We did give them a taste of the Belgium version of McDonald's complete with knock-off Happy Meal and toy, so that perked Nathan up a little bit. The cavern tour was really fun. We joined the French tour because of the two choices, French and Dutch, it was the shorter line. We figured since we wouldn't understand either tour, we might as well save half an hour of wait time. The guide realized at some point we were speaking English and she did a bit of translation at the end. There was a light show in the biggest room of the cave that was really fun and then we went on a boat ride on the river that flows through the cavern. We weren't allowed to take pictures in the caves so here's the website for some idea of what it was like.

The pictures are of some of the highlights of our visit. Enjoy!