Laatste dag

Today was the last day of school for the year, and for Olive and Edie their last day at Da Vinci International School.

Olive and Edie on their first day of School last September.

And here they are this morning on the last day. Olive is channeling Madonna circa 1984!

Like we did for the Jufs last year, I got the girls to draw pictures of their teachers which I embroidered over and turned into a bookmark. We added some great kiwi tea towels and special cards made by the girls. Both teachers were very touched.

A bookmark for Mrs Olga…

and one for Miss Sarah.

Special gifts for two very special teachers.

The girls have had such a wonderful year – both thriving under the care and guidance of two excellent teachers. We will miss you Mrs Olga and Miss Sarah, but you will not be forgotten.

Tomorrow sees the first steps in our new American adventure. We’re off to Winchester, VA to have a look around and hopefully find a house and schooling – wish us luck!

Sprookjesbos

About an hour’s drive from Antwerp you will find Efteling, a beautiful theme park based around the fairytales or sprookjes of the Brothers Grimm, Hans Christian Andersen and Charles Perrault. Opened in 1952, Efteling is one of the oldest theme parks in the world. We’d been told that we couldn’t leave Belgium without making a visit, so on Saturday we spent a wonderful day exploring the world of fairytales.

The sprookjesboom or fairytale tree. He is a wise old oak who tells stories about the other inhabitants of the fairytale forest.

Efteling began it’s life as a fairytale forest where ten fairytales had been brought to life. Over time it has grown into a full sized theme park with a range of rides and attractions, but it is the sprookjesbos which is the most beautiful and unique part of the park.

The witch ascending to the top of the tower via Rapunzel’s hair.

Edie posing in the sprookjesbos.

The rather well-endowed Little Mermaid.

Gingerbread house from Hansel and Gretel.

Tom Thumb attempting to steal the giant’s boots. He is known here as Klein Duimpje.

This castle is home to Snow White’s evil stepmother – complete with talking magic mirror!

The flying Fakir on his magic carpet.

As well as exploring the Sprookjesbos, we went on lots of rides. Our favourite was the Droomvlucht or Dreamflight ride, where we flew through a dream world of forests, fairies, castles and trolls.

Singing fairies in the Droomvlucht.

They were singing and swinging.

A dreamlike fairy world – so beautiful.

If you’d like to see many more Efteling pics, click on the link to my Flickr photos. We thoroughly enjoyed our day – we’ve been to a few theme parks now but have never stayed right until closing time as we did at Efteling. We can all highly recommend it.

Us girls at the end of a very long but very enjoyable day 🙂

Tomorrow it is Olive and Edie’s last day of school and then on Wednesday morning we fly to Virginia to have a look round. It’s going to be a big week, full of many emotions. I’m going to try and write a post from Virginia just to let you catch a small glimpse of our new stomping ground.

Take care everyone. Lots of love xxx

Showtime!

The end of the school year is rapidly approaching. I still find it hard to get my head around the school year ending in the middle of the calendar year – I don’t think it will ever feel right to me! Moving to the States is going to give me many more opportunities to get used to it 🙂

Every year the kindergarten children put on a summer show and today was the big performance. Their show was based on this story about a leopard missing his mummy who has gone to look for food. The other animals try to help by giving him cuddles but none of them feel right. It’s only when he is reunited with his mother that he gets the special cuddle he is so desperately seeking.

The school gym had been transformed into a jungle.

Both girls had been very secretive about the performance. If Edie tried to sing any of the songs at home she was swiftly silenced by her older sister. All I knew is that Edie was a bear, Olive was the Mummy leopard and, fortunately for me, I didn’t have to make  any costumes!

Here come the bears…

Mummy leopard and her babies – she’d had a few more since the book was published!

The babies get ready to go and find Mummy.

The snakes were too slimy to give good cuddles.

Look! There’s Mummy over behind the crocodiles. Their cuddles were too snappy.

Olive’s classmates made great monkeys but alas, their cuddles didn’t cut the mustard either.

Reunited at last – and then all the children ran to their mums and cuddled them! Serious need for tissues 🙂

One fierce mother!

It was lovely. When I asked the girls later what their favourite part had been, Edie answered “all of it!” and Olive declared that she had loved being in front of such a big audience.

My favourite bits xxx

I have to admit to feeling sadness whilst I watched. It was the same sadness I felt at the Garden Party over the weekend. The realisation that we are leaving such a lovely school community, such wonderful teachers and friends, has really hit me. It’s good to be sad though. It means that we are leaving behind something of great value. And it’s also what goes hand in hand with change. So I’m okay with some sadness – here’s to the many happy moments awaiting us.

I have an overwhelming sense of homesickness today. Getting ready to leave our home in Antwerp has led to me thinking of New Zealand a great deal. But that’s okay too…

how could you not be a bit homesick for this 🙂

Lots of love to you all from the leopard, the bear and the kiwi xxx

Trouwen

Last Friday we were very lucky to be present at the wedding of Edie’s teacher, Miss Sarah. To say that Edie likes Miss Sarah is something of an understatement. Miss Sarah is to Edie what Miss Honey is to Matilda and what Miss Binney is to Ramona. Quite simply, Edie adores her and so we were thrilled to be present at her marriage to Pieter.

Polka dots are one of Miss Sarah’s favourite things so there was really only one outfit option for the girls…

all polka dotted out in honour of Miss Sarah.

The wedding was held at the district house in Borgerhout which is directly opposite Miss Sarah and Pieter’s house. Shortly after 10am the bride and groom emerged.

A very grand building to be married in. Love the bunting.

The bride and groom emerge – compulsory grab for the tissues!

As every bride should, Miss Sarah looked radiant and Pieter scrubbed up pretty well too. I’m not ashamed to say I had tears in my eyes when I saw her and even more when she was greeted by her students.

The beautiful bride and her groom.

Rushing to greet a very fancy Miss Sarah.

As I said – adores her!

After many fond greetings and much ooohing and aaahing over the bridal couple we moved into the district house for the ceremony.

Heading into the Trouwzaal or wedding hall.

Best seats in the house for this little gang.

It was a lovely mix of the formal and informal – there were serious moments but also lots of laughter and of course a great big kiss!

Getting down to the serious business of trouwen or getting married.

Lots of smiling and laughter throughout the ceremony.

And a little bit of love too!

The rings were entrusted to the beautiful flower girl – big responsibility!

After the formalities were over the children were invited to write or draw on the marriage certificate, and then it was outside for more congratulations and some bubble blowing!

Pondering what to write – I love big sis whispering advice!

More big hugs. As we left the wedding Edie said she would love Miss Sarah forever!!

Edie even had polka dots on her sandals – such is her devotion to her beloved teacher!

Olive preparing to unleash some bubbles.

We toasted the happy couple with grown up bubbles at the cafe across the road. The children played and the grownups chatted and basked in that lovely feeling of seeing a couple so happy together embarking on the next stage of their lives as husband and wife. It’s going to be a very special Belgian memory for us and we must say a very big thank you to Sarah and Pieter for sharing their big day. As we would say in New Zealand – Arohanui!

I’ve reserved the final picture for Miss Sarah’s bouquet. It’s made of felt, as was Pieter’s buttonhole flower. So beautiful and will last forever.
Congratulations Miss Sarah and Pieter!!

PS Lots more wedding pics if you click on the link to my Flickr photos.

Moeder’s Dag

My Mummy by Edie

It’s Mother’s Day here in Belgium on Sunday. Before he left last Monday, Richard orchestrated an early Mother’s Day for me and today I went to a mother’s day celebration at school.

There was singing and rhymes and a few tears in many Mummy’s eyes!

The kindergarten children getting ready to serenade their mothers.

Edie’s class was up first and she performed her song and rhyme with great gusto!

In true Edie style she manoeuvred herself right to the front of the performers!

Then it was Olive’s class.

More enthusiastic singing. My favourite line : My mum’s ever so clever, she may not have a degree, but she can help with my homework and that’s what matters to me!! After hearing the lines about cleaning and shopping and making tea I figured the song must have been written in the fifties – not so – it’s only ten years old!

All the children had made gifts which were presented to us – it was very sweet.

A jewellery box complete with pendant…

and an everlasting bouquet.

It was a lovely afternoon. I’ve come a long way as a Mum and it was very special to see and hear my girls celebrating me!

Back where it all began. Olive, 21 months old. Edie, about 3 hours old.

And to my own wonderful Mum – thank you for being such a strong, wise and inspiring woman. Even though I’m a big grown up lady of 40, I still need you and I miss you very much.

Happy Mother’s Day to a truly wonderful mother and grandmother. We love you lots xxx

Experiences

It’s been a busy few weeks for us – weeks that have been full of, for want of a better word, experiences. Living in Europe has allowed us to do so many wonderful things and it seems like the past few weeks have been particularly “experience” focused.

The weekend before last we visited Rotterdam. One of the great things about our time in Belgium is meeting people who have already done a great deal of travelling and are full of great recommendations. One of our friends  suggested we go to Rotterdam and stay in a particular place – the New York Hotel. This very cool place is situated right on Wilhelmina pier and used to be the offices of the Holland America Line, which carried many emigrants from Europe to the United States. It’s been kept in it’s original style and is full of nautical memorabilia. I did take lots of pics but our camera had a meltdown when we got back home and we lost most of them 😦 Here’s a few that we did manage to salvage.

Hotel New York

Travelling from the hotel to the city is simply a matter of hopping on a water taxi – big hit with the girls!

Okay…and a big hit with me too 🙂

As you can see the weather was rubbish so we spent some time in the Maritime Museum – pretty appropriate since shipping and water is such a feature of Rotterdam. Every exhibit was fascinating – the girls particularly liked the pirates!

“Left! No right! I’m the Captain! No! I’m the Captain!”

“Attention!”

My own big experiences of late have come from my work with the PTA. I’d always envisioned getting involved with my children’s schools and I know firsthand what a valuable and important contribution parents make to a school community – I just never would have predicted that the school I’d be helping would be an international one in the heart of Europe.

Da Vinci hasn’t had an active PTA for the past few years so it’s been a new but very positive experience for everyone. Our first big project was supporting the Grade 7 students with the awareness week that is going to be an annual part of their curriculum. We dubbed this week of awareness REACH and helped the students and staff advertise and execute a range of fundraising activities. We held a clothing and bedding collection for a local mothers charity and collected toys for an organisation that helps refugees and asylum seekers.

The big goal of REACH was to raise 6000 Euros for a school in Myanmar, the former Burma. Our headmistress knows a Belgian family who have started a charity to help with education, sanitation and medical projects in Myanmar. They had started to build a school but did not have enough funds to complete the second storey of the building. So during the REACH week there was a book and bake sale, a sponsored walk and a family feast. 6000 Euros seemed a pretty impossible target but at the end of the week we had raised over 10,000 – enough to finish the school building and build an additional toilet block.

Today, the Ambassador from Myanmar came to school to hear about the work of the students and along with Yve, receive the big cheque. Unbeknownst to me Olive was asked to present flowers to the Ambassador and she even made a wee speech!

Olive with the Ambassador for Myanmar and Yve who started the charity.

New and wonderful experiences for everyone!

Afterwards I got to have a coffee and chat with the Ambassador and now have a standing invitation to drop in at the Embassy in Brussels if I’m ever passing (!) and Yve wants all the PTA to come to Myanmar and see the school for ourselves.

If you click here you can see many photos from the REACH week.

On Saturday we had another memorable experience. We joined in celebrating the christening of our friends son. A christening is always a memorable occasion and Koen’s was beautiful but what made it even more special is that it was held in a chapel designed by Rubens – arguably Antwerp’s most famous son.

Inside the chapel – pretty gorgeous!

Koen – the star of the show.

The priest was great and got all the children involved. Koen, bless him, didn’t utter a sound 🙂

All these events just serve to remind me how lucky we are to have embarked on this journey. And there are many new and exciting experiences looming on our horizon. Yes there’s some big change ahead for our little family – that’s all I’m going to say at the moment but you can count on me to keep you posted 🙂

Richard headed back to the States this morning so with two sleeping daughters I’m off now to enjoy my time alone – cup of tea, piece of cake and something rubbishy on the telly! xxx

Zes jaar oud!

So we now have a very big six year old in our house. For Olive it was a very long time coming. For at least the last three months there was much discussion in our house around the topic of the 6th birthday. How many more days until my birthday? I’d like this cake / that cake and it’s going to be this theme / that theme for my party – I think you get the picture.

I love the theme that Olive finally settled on – children of the world. It just sums up perfectly for me one of the big rewards of this expat life. Both Olive and Edie are so interested in different cultures and languages, and are now so much more aware of the incredibly diverse world that we live in. Attending an international school just highlights this further.

I gave Olive the option of getting a professionally designed invitation – so easy to do and not that expensive if you use a site like Etsy – but she insisted that the design be hers. I was really proud of the effort she put into her invitation and we were all thrilled with the result.

First she drew the globe, then the children. She cut everything out herself then we scanned it into the computer. Voila! An original Olive design.

The other thing that Olive was determined to do was have her party at home. With 24 children on the guest list this was going to be something of a challenge but the teacher in me rose to the occasion and planning it all was lots of fun. The party itself was lots of fun too but I very much needed several glasses of wine come Saturday evening and I think it’s safe to say that’s the last big birthday party we host at home!

Here are some photos from the day Olive turned six and the big children of the world party.

Zes jaar oud vandaag! Hip hip hoera!

One of the great things about birthdays now is the parcels that come from New Zealand - especially when there are chocolate fish in them! Thanks Granny 🙂

A birthday hug for big sis.

Olive loved the fact that this year she could read all her birthday cards herself.

This is all she asked for -a kids cook book.

Berry pancakes for breakfast are a birthday tradition in our house.

The day of Olive's birthday was spent trying out a recipe from her new cook book. Just like her Mum, she went straight for a sweet one.

With Richard still in the States, cake making duties fell to me. My husband sets the bar pretty high when it comes to birthday cake making so I was feeling the pressure!

With a theme of children of the world the cake could really only be one thing - the world! Gulp!

All I can say is thank god for ready to roll icing and the internet.

Not looking too shabby.

The finished cake. The flags represent all the different countries in attendance at the party.

There was a wee bit of cupcake baking too.

Ready for the party to start. Fingers crossed!

Edie and Olive - children of the world.

They've even got the whole world in their hands - sorry, couldn't resist!

Neither of the girls wanted to wear their Maori costumes so I was left to fly the flag for Aotearoa.

Olive asked her friends to wear something from their culture. Here's Milla in her Aussie Rules t-shirt - brilliant!

We had a cowboy...

and a statue of liberty! She even had the torch.

Captain America came too.

Crowd control.

Working on the birthday flag that we got the children to decorate for Olive.

Kinderen van de wereld.

We are so happy to have Richard home for a couple of weeks and are planning a little trip away this weekend. Hope you are all well and we’re sending lots of love xxx

Paasvakantie

It’s paasvakantie or Easter holidays in Belgium at the moment. Olive and Edie have two weeks off school and Richard is into his second week in the United States. We’re missing him lots but are really looking forward to seeing him in Barcelona on Friday – yipee!

Thought I’d share with you a few of the things we’ve been doing to keep ourselves busy.

Olive went mountain biking. Technically this happened before the Easter holiday but I couldn't resist including this picture - so cute with her helmet and camelbak - just like her Dad 🙂

Olive and Edie went to a girls only birthday tea party. Naturally this called for the hair straighteners!

They are posing in front of the tree which will become our paasboom or Easter tree.

Edie with her great friend Chloe, who was hosting the tea party.

Olive got all dressed up for the Easter egg hunt at school. Her friend Harry told his Mum that "Olive looked so beautiful today". When I told her what he said there was a lot of blushing!

The girls blinged up the paasboom...

and did a spot of egg dyeing.

No matter how hard I try, I can never get ours to look like Martha Stewart's!!

Found these nifty egg holders in the supermarket.

Made adding some paint so much easier.

I even attempted making some hot cross buns. I really miss these.

I find any recipe that includes the words "yeast" and "kneading" somewhat terrifying. Fortunately our mixer has a hook attachment that does the kneading for you. Despite this I was still convinced that the dough wouldn't rise.

To my utter surprise it did and the girls proclaimed the buns delicious. I think they were a little on the tough side - a bit over kneaded I suspect - but not bad at all for a first attempt. Thanks Nigella!

We took a ride on this amazing wheel set up outside the central railway station.

Looking pretty happy with the Easter holidays so far.

Near the big wheel there were a few amusement park rides.

How could we resist a Popeye and Olive Oyl carousel?

We also checked out this movie from the makers of Wallace and Gromit. Very funny, great soundtrack and a dodo!

On Friday we have a very early start in order to be at Brussels Airport in time for our flight to Barcelona. Everyone we have spoken to about this city has had nothing but good things to say about it. Edie and Olive have Spanish friends, a brother and sister who come from Barcelona, and their Mum very kindly took me out for coffee and gave me a whole list of places to go. We are very excited.

Hope you all have a great Easter. Safe travels and I’ll be back early next week with the Barcelona update!

The Atomium and Mini Europe

In 1958 Brussels played host to the World Expo or World’s Fair. Nearly 15,000 workers spent three years developing a site on the Heysel Plateau, seven kilometres northwest of central Brussels. The crown jewel of this expo was the construction of a giant model of a unit cell of an iron crystal, magnified 165 billion times. The model was named the Atomium and decades later it remains one of Brussels’ best known landmarks.

The Atomium.

On Saturday we drove to Brussels to visit the Atomium and the nearby attraction, Mini Europe. It was a beautiful spring day – we even had to break out the sunscreen!

We spent around an hour exploring the innards of the giant steel structure. Olive and Edie loved all the stairs and escalators, whilst I enjoyed the retro colours and furniture found inside the giant spheres. Despite its age, the Atomium doesn’t look dated, and must have been quite a spectacle back in the 1950’s.

View from the top sphere.

Climbing one of the staircases. I really liked the blue and orange colour scheme.

I also really liked this seating area - made me think of wine gums!

Many other visitors were attempting to create the "I'm holding the Atomium in my hands" picture. Ours wasn't that successful!

From the Atomium we headed over to Mini Europe – a miniature park which has reproductions of the most attractive monuments in the European Union on show. Roughly 80 cities and 350 buildings are represented. The park is renowned for the quality of its models, some of which cost as much as €350,000.

The Grand Place in Brussels - otherwise known as the €350,000 model!

Mini Europe was one of the first attractions we heard about when we came to Belgium, but we decided to delay our visit until we had actually done some European trips. This decision really paid off. Olive and Edie were extremely engaged with all of the exhibits and it was amazing to see and hear their ever increasing knowledge of Europe. Olive even went so far as to say it was better than Plopsaland – as you are probably aware from my earlier posts about Plopsaland, this is extremely high praise!

Amsterdam.

Sacre Coeur.

Pisa.

The Berlin Wall.

If you click on the link to my Flikr photos, you can see many more images from our visit to the Atomium and Mini Europe. It was a great day out, made even better by such stunning weather – here’s hoping that keeps up!

Richard left today for a four week trip to the United States. It is going to be hard to be apart for such a long time, so we’ve decided to reward ourselves with a rendezvous in Barcelona. Easter conveniently falls in the middle of those four weeks so we are going to spend four days together exploring this wonderful Spanish city. Richard will fly in from the US and the girls and I will fly from Brussels to meet him.

We are all very excited. Edie has already invented a game called “going to Barcelona” which involves going through all the summer clothes, working out different outfits and then packing them into various pink handbags! Both girls are determined to come home from Spain with flamenco dancer outfits which must include red and white polka dot dancing shoes – ole!

Lots of love to you all xxx

Stoofvlees

We spent Sunday afternoon with our old neighbours – Joeri, Isabelle and Nina. They were keen for us to experience some traditional Flemish cuisine, so invited us over for a dinner of stoofvlees – a beef stew which is often referred to as the national dish.

The secret to cooking great stoofvlees is time – Isabelle began marinating the meat on Saturday evening – and when we arrived at their house on Sunday afternoon the stew was slowly cooking on the stove top.

I took a sneaky look - it's clearly not the most attractive of dishes but the smell was enticing.

With at least a couple more hours of cooking required we headed out to the Mikerf Kinderboerderij in Braaschaat. Literally translated, kinderboerderij means children’s farm. In English we’d call it a petting zoo.

The setting was beautiful and the girls had a wonderful time getting up close and personal with a range of farm animals.

Meeting a very friendly mouse.

It was very exciting for Nina.

Olive, Nina and Isabelle brushing one of the goats.

Edie also had a turn.

"Is your name Baaaaarbie?"

Gently does it.

Like every good children’s attraction in Belgium there was a speeltuin or playground with cafe close by. We sat and watched the girls play and then it was time to head home for dinner.

"It's just like Granny and Granda's!"

Back home, Isabelle made the final touches to the stoofvlees whilst Edie and Joeri made a quick trip to the frituur to pick up some friejtes – stoofvlees is always served on top of hot chips! Edie was very happy to report that the woman who runs the frituur remembered her from our trips to get fish and chips when we lived in Marcel Auburtinlaan.

We gathered around the table, loaded up our plates with frietjes and witloof and Isabelle served up the stoofvlees.

Lekker!

It was delicious – so good in fact that I had two helpings. After cooking slowly for such a long time the meat was incredibly tender and the beer gave the sauce the most amazing sweetness. Owing to the amount of time needed to create such a flavoursome dish, stoofvlees is not eaten as often as it would have been in Isabelle’s father’s day. He gave her his stoofvlees recipe and I’m hoping I can get my hands on it too!

I see they have a Flemish beef stew on the menu at Leuven in Featherston Street –  just the thing for those fast approaching winter’s nights in Wellington!

Take care everyone – sending lots of love xxx