Get Ready...Get Set...Move!!!

The moving company came last Monday and started packing all our belongings for our big move back to the US.  Woo Hoo!  Hurray!  Oh Yeah!  It is really happening.  It took all week but by Friday our stuff was packed into two big sea containers and on its way to Indiana.  It would be fun to hide a tracking device in with our stuff to see the route it actually takes.  We will finally be able to unpack in America sometime in mid August, six weeks from now.

Bob and I took our American car to the movers' warehouse on Monday too.  They will disconnect the battery, drain the gas and prepare it for it's 6 week boat cruise.  We cleaned it out thoroughly.  Considering I haven't driven the car in at least 2 years, we still found some interesting items in it; 2 exired 6 packs of Aquarius (Belgian Gatorade), 26 eurocents, $1 (American), a coupon that expired in 2008 for Tide laundry detergent, a lint brush, 12 bobby pins, a Belgian safety vest - lime green, 2 pens and assorted pencils.  Boring!


Our movers were so efficient.  If you have to choose a moving company in Belgium, pick Romulus.  This is definitely a plug for them!  Ollie Chapman was our contact person.  Great great great!

We have many pictures from the move but they are on Bob's computer.  I will transfer and post them asap.  Until then, just picture an entire house full of white boxes.

Hello - Goodbye

My luncheon table.  I am so proud of all the food!!

Before everyone started their summer, I hosted a Hello-Goodbye party.  I invited all of my friends.  When everyone arrived they were given a name tag which either read Hello or Goodbye.  If a guest was moving they wore the Goodbye tag and if they were not, they wore the Hello tag.  I have so many friends moving this year which is a little depressing for the people who are staying in Belgium.  I wanted this party to be a celebration of friendship, a chance to say goodbye to all my friends and finally a chance for the people who were not moving to connect with friends.

Jackie, Laurie and Clare



Shirley, me, Cristy and Brandi  With us is also a concrete replica of Mannekin Pis.  This is my going away gift and it's a fountain!  We all laughed so hard.  Cristy took all of these great pictures.



Lucinda and Brandi

Outside on the patio.  6 of these ladies are moving.

Kim, Ellen, Janet and Simonne

Me and Lucinda and her beautiful baby

Shirley, Simonne and Ingrid

Shirley and me

Debbie and Sonia

Leslie and Mimi.  Leslie was just visiting us in Belgium.  She moved last year so her name tag said, "Gone"

More on the patio.

Janet and Lisa

Goodbye!

Happy Father's Day

Happy Father's Day to my dad, Bob's dad and Bob!

We had dinner at a Chinese restaurant sitting right on a lake.  The setting was beautiful and the food was good too.  This is the restaurant we went to over 4 years ago when we first came to visit Belgium.  This was the place where our little family made the big decision to make our huge move to a foreign country.  We thought it would be a fitting place to have dinner tonight.  The movers come tomorrow to start packing up our belongings so we can move back to the United States.  It has been a wonderful 4 years of eyeopening and educational experiences. 

Mussels in Brussels

After my Mom and Dad finished their Baltic cruise they returned to visit us in Brussels.  Since there is no rest for the weary, the next day I took them along to do a little shopping to prepare for my golf trip the next week.  While we were out, we just HAD to take a little break at the beautiful Grande Place.

We had lunch at one of my favorite places, Chez Leon.  This famous eatery right off Grande Place is THE place to eat mussels in Brussels.  The food was delicious!  The seasons do dictate which mussel dishes are available at certain times of the year, so Mom and I both had baked mussels.  Mom's lunch was mussels cooked in escargot butter and mine were baked with red sauce and cheese.  It looked like a mussel pizza with no crust.  Dad chose to have black and white sausages, which we all thought were great too.  We topped off out lunches with the house draft beer.  It was so good!

Bill Visits Brussels Again!

Bob's childhood friend, Bill, came for another visit to Brussels.  He and his wife, Pam, came to see us last spring on their way to Amsterdam.  This time Bob and Bill got to live it up at the famous bar, Delirium Cafe.  If Bill has a worried look on his face it is because he has just realized he forgot to pack pants.  This was a Sunday and no clothing stores are open on Sundays.  Bill and I took a little field trip the next morning to our equivalent to Kohl's and found him some acceptable pants that he could wear for the rest of the week while he worked in France.  He probably paid triple what the pants would have cost at Kohl's so I hope he wears them again.  Bill, I am sure you will look very fashionable in your "Europe Pants" when you are back in your US office!!

Bill arrived on the early flight that every US traveler takes.  It has become a tradition for us to serve a big breakfast to our weary friends.  It also gives me a chance to use my lovely Polish Pottery.  Picture eggs, bacon and hash browns filling some of those bowls and platters



Call us crazy, but on this particular afternoon, we took the twins with us to the Delirium Cafe. Yes it is a bar and they made me promise to keep this picture off of Facebook.  They were so embarrassed.  Delirium is more of a tourist destination than a bar so we figured there wasn't much to worry about.  In Belgium you can drink when you are 16.  In case you were wondering, Jenn and Leah had a Sprite.  The rest of us "over 16 year olds" had a nice cold Belgian beer.

Moving Mania

I have lots of things to blog about right now but I just can't sit down long enough to get anything posted.  I still need to put on pictures from our golf trip to Scotland.  I also need to add info from my trip with Bob to Portugal and the Twins' trip to Normandy.  We have been traveling!

Most importantly, we are getting ready to move.  There is so much to do.  Go back and read some of posts from 2008 when I first started this blog and you will see exactly what I am spending my time on only in reverse...  legal junk, car transfer to US, organize pack, banking, school registration, doctor visits, arranging of flights, canceling all household stuff, selling off European appliances, plan a few more trips, etc.
I am trying to clean out drawers and closets which has made me ask 4 simple questions...  How do people (14 year olds) accumulate so much little junk?  Why do grown men (Bob) like tools and gadgets so much?  Do we have to save stuff  (shoes and purses) that a grown child (Maria) hasn't seen or touched in 2 years? And finally, knowing how much people (me) hate cleaning up other people's junk, why do I accumulate so much stuff too?!?

We aren't spending all of our time laboring over the move.  We are traveling a lot and enjoying our friends as much as we can.  The pictures below are of our bike ride this weekend in the Belgian forest near the girls' school.

Leah and Jenn at the end of the trail.

Bob and Jenn with Leah far ahead in the distance.  The trees are even bigger than the picture show.

This is the little lake we bike around.  You can just see the swans on the left.

Another Field Trip

I just dropped off the girls for their 8th grade field trip to Normandy.  They will be gone for a week!  Imagine studying the World Wars in school and then as a culmination of your work, you travel to Normandy and all regions surrounding it to tour actual locations where the history took place. They are so lucky.  Here are the other places they went for their field trips over the past 4 years:

5th Grade - Trier, Germany - They studied the Roman ruins from 300AD and the reign of Constantine the Great and his influence on Christianity.

6th Grade - Florence, Italy - They studied the Renaissance era of art.  Each student was assigned a great work of art, an artist or historical location.  When the kids toured those spots, the student who had researched that artwork or monument gave their report in front of the actual item.  Leah gave her speech in front of the doors of the famous Duomo and Jenn reported in front of "The Birth of Venus" painted by Botticelli.  They also learned to juggle and performed in the street for coins!

7th Grade - Alsace Lorraine Region, France - According to the twins, this trip was kind of dull. (Hey they went to Italy the year before!)  It included lots hiking in and out of Germany, a day at the Space Museum and team building.  From what I gather, it was a lot of little excursions and not one big one.

8th Grade - Normandy

While the girls are away, I will join Bob on a business trip to Lisbon, Portugal. 

I give thanks daily for our blessings!