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.

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

Barcelona

I’m listening to this song as I write this post. Freddy Mercury and his impassioned and rather over the top number seems somehow fitting whilst writing about such a colourful and vibrant city. I heard this song so often during the television coverage of the 1992 summer Olympics and often wondered if I’d ever make it to “Barcelona!!” – imagine if you will Freddy belting out that last word. I certainly never dreamed I’d be visiting at the age of 40 with a husband and 2 children in tow – as the saying goes, life is full of surprises!

The Croad ladies hit the streets of Barcelona.

To say that we liked Barcelona is an understatement. We loved it – Olive declared it to be the best place we have visited and we are already toying with the idea of going back in the summer. Three days really wasn’t enough.

Before all the Barcelona love however, we had a wee bit of Croad love. I know that the girls have been missing Richard but I got a feel of just how much they miss him when I saw their reactions on spotting him at the airport.

Richard took this photo as the girls rushed towards him. Tissues anyone?!

After the dramatic reunion we headed into Barcelona. We were staying just outside of the city centre and once we’d dropped off our things and had a quick freshen up we jumped on the subway and headed into the city. Our first stop was the Arc de Triomf, a structure which was built for the Barcelona exposition in 1888.

So now we can all say we've seen two Arc de Triomfs 🙂

From here we wandered through the streets until we arrived at La Rambla, the tree lined pedestrian mall popular with tourists and locals. We grabbed a quick bite to eat then stopped at a souvenir shop to make the etremely important purchase of flamenco dancer outifts complete with polka dot clip clop shoes!

I think this picture sums up beautifully just how Olive and Edie feel when they don their flamenco outfits. And oh how they can get some noise out of the shoes!

As we excited the souvenir store we noticed that people seemed to be congregating on either side of the street and we quickly grabbed an empty spot. Being in a predominantly Catholic country on Good Friday, I had high hopes of seing something religious and our timing couldn’t have been more perfect.

When these two appeared we knew something interesting must be about to unfold...

...definitely interesting! Olive and Edie were completely unfazed.

Of course those guys were just the supporting act and JC soon took centre stage.

His Mum was there too and was a big hit with the girls - "Oooo look it's Mother Mary"!

Saturday began with the obgliatory search for a good cup of coffee and then we hopped on one of the tourist buses. We were heading for Parc Guell – the garden situated on the hill of El Carmel – and decided to take the tourist bus so we could see a bit more of the city along the way.

Olive really enjoyed the trip on the bus and listened very intently to all the commentary.

Edie mostly just practised posing!

We saw many eye-catching sculptures...

lots of interesting modern architecture...

a giant easter egg...

an old bull fighting ring...

and Gaudi's masterpiece the Sagrada Familia.

Maybe he was responsible for the giant Chupa Chups too!

We spent a good couple of hours in Parc Guell – there was so much to look at and listen to, as musicians were dotted throughout the gardens. The colours seemed so much richer and more vibrant than here in Antwerp or maybe that was just the beautiful weather!

Picnic lunch in Parc Guell.

Some of the gorgeous Barcelona colours.

We headed to the waterfront for dinner – close to what was the Olympic Village. We ate a great meal looking out at the sea and the girls had a blast running around on the sand.

Fish sculpture near Barceloneta beach.

The floral adornments, as you have probably guessed, are part of the flamenco outfits.

The beach at nightfall - beautiful.

We woke on Easter Sunday morning to more blue skies and headed straight back to Barceloneta beach. We’d promised the girls a longer play at the beach and a chance to wear “our togs”!!

No togs for me however - quite happy with a latte and a stunning view.

I know...I'm biased...but they are stunning!

And just a little bit crazy too!

Around lunchtime we walked into the old part of the city and stopped for some tapas. Then more wandering, a quick rest at home and then back to Sagrada Familia for a closer look.

It really is spectacular.

We headed back to La Rambla for dinner and a glass of sangria - yum 🙂

Richard disappeared back to the States very early on Monday morning and the girls and I spent our morning exploring the aquarium. I’d located the whereabouts of a Camper store and was planning on doing some serious credit card damage after all that fish watching. However Easter Monday in Barcelona meant most stores were closed so no new shoes for me – probably just as well! We did manage to find a Desigual store that was open which kept the girls very happy. They love the riot of colour and pattern that hits you when you walk into a Desigual shop and there was much oohing and aahing and a teeny bit of purchasing!

So all in all it was a fantastic trip – just a little on the short side! There are oodles more photos if you click on the Flikr link – my camera tells me I took over 500! Rest assured I did whittle it down befroe uploading!

It’s a big day in our house tomorrow – Olive is turning six. Will try and write something quick tomorrow evening. Until then, crank up the Freddy Mercury – Barcelona!!!

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

Nijntje – Miffy

WARNING – if you are planning on making a visit to the Dick Bruna exhibition in Mechelen and want to be surprised by what you see there, I suggest you stop reading now! The exhibition is wonderful and I highly recommend it, but I’d hate to spoil it 🙂

Sunday was a beautiful spring day. Richard had just arrived back from a trip to the US so we didn’t have any major plans, but wanted to make the most of the good weather. Unfortunately it was one of those days when every suggestion we made to the girls was met with “I don’t want to do that” and each had very set and very different ideas as to how they’d like to spend the day – just a tad frustrating! We finally settled on a trip to Mini Europe in Brussels, only to discover that it was closed until mid-March – insert exasperated sigh here!

The next agreeable option was a trip to Lier to visit the De Kleine Wereld museum – a very sweet looking dolls and dollhouse museum. We packed everything we needed and as we dashed out the door I grabbed my DK Belgium guide assuming the address would be in there – twas not until we’d been on the road for a good 15 minutes that I discovered my assumption was wrong – this day was really not going well 😦

As Lier is a small place we figured that finding the museum wouldn’t be too difficult – again another bad assumption. When we finally found what we thought was the right building, it looked nothing like a doll house museum. I grabbed a passing policeman who told me that the museum had closed down – despite the fact it still has a very live website promoting all the beautiful things you can see there –  insert choice of swear word here!

After a quick pow wow we hit the road again, this time heading for Mechelen. Our destination was the Dick Bruna exhibition at the Cultuur Centrum. Dick Bruna is the creator of Miffy or Nijntje as she is known in Belgium and The Netherlands.

I’m a big fan of Miffy, and despite a few mumblings from Olive about Miffy being “babyish” we were all pretty happy with the decision to go.

Me, on our arrival in Mechelen, desperately hoping that the day would get better!

Once again we were without a specific address but Nijntje gave us lots of clues as to where the exhibition was...

keep going...you're getting warmer...

and warmer...

over here! Nijntje in the Mechelen Grote Markt...

in a bunch of balloons...

she was even doing a spot of gardening!

Made it!

The exhibition was fantastic. Lots to look at and plenty of hands on activities for the children – it was incredibly difficult to drag the girls away.

Nijntje.

Olive and Edie designing outfits for Nijntje.

There was even a circus.

Olive telling the story of De Koning or The King.

Edie playing with the puppet theatre.

Not really that babyish after all!

We grabbed a late lunch at a nearby cafe then headed across the Grote Markt, back to where we’d parked the car. As we walked we noticed lots of people congregating on the square, many of the children dressed in costumes.

Something was definitely about to happen...

We asked someone what everyone was waiting for and were told that it was Mechelen Carnaval day and the parade was about to start. Perfect timing! And with the Miffy ears that they’d made at the exhibition, Olive and Edie even had their own costumes.

Twee kleine Nijntjes.

Not long after three o’clock the drums sounded and a town crier appeared, welcoming everyone at the top of his voice. The parade was a very odd mix of floats, displays and music – nowhere near the standard of what we experienced in Binche last year – but still lots of fun. Sweets were flung into the crowd from every float and Olive and Edie had a great time scurrying here and there to collect the fallen snoepjes.

The town crier hard at work.

There were some very funny sights.

Even a little bit of Carnaval Rio.

Olive and Edie's favourite float.

So the day that had started off pretty dismally turned out rather well. And Nijntje inspired me to dig out something I started making when I was pregnant with Edie…

must finish before leaving Belgium!

There are many more photos of the exhibition and the carnaval if you click on the Flikr link.

Hope everyone is well and a special Happy Birthday to James! xxx

Buiten

A couple of weeks ago Antwerp was hit by a cold snap – a very cold snap. Temperatures were well below zero, in fact they were the coldest they’d been in fifteen years. Some days it was -9 degrees and overnight it got down to -13. What started one Friday afternoon as a gentle snowfall, quickly became a blizzard which paralyzed the roads around the city for hours.

A snowy Saturday morning on the Meir.

Because of the extreme cold we spent a great deal of time indoors or binnen. Last week the weather settled and as the thermometer was hovering around 4 degrees, pretty tropical when compared with -9, we decided to take advantage and spend some time buiten or outside.

We began our buiten day at the beautiful Antwerp park, Rivierenhof. Rivierenhof has a great space for children to ride their fietsen or bikes, and the girls  had a great time whizzing around the miniature streets. We even got Edie to take the training wheels off – albeit very briefly.

I think the last time I posted pics of Olive on this track, she was just learning to ride without her trainer wheels. What a difference a few months makes.

Edie Kinevil roaring down the home straight!

Zusters op de fiets.

From Rivierenhof we headed to the Kalmthout Arboretum. I wrote about our visit there last autumn when it was full of all the glorious herfst colours.

This is the same tree that I used as the first image for my previous post about Kalmthout - looks a little bit naked now!

Despite the fact that we were visiting in winter, Kalmthout was still beautiful. Certainly different than when we had visited in autumn, but no less interesting or inspiring.

Edie playing peekaboo.

It even hailed briefly!

Olive's summer house photo.

The lake was still somewhat frozen.

It's a very beautiful garden. The girls love exploring all the nooks and crannies.

Warming up with the help of a little fire.

Very pleased to find this book, in English, in the Arboretum shop. Richard was stoked to find a book all about the couple who started Kalmthout Arboretum - ook in het Engels.

Being in Kalmthout made me want to rush back to New Zealand and find a house with a big garden! As that wasn’t a terribly practical solution for a Sunday afternoon we decided to create our own mini garden on our little terrace in the heart of the city. We already had some flower seeds which we’d picked up on our last visit to Kalmthout, so we bought some carrot seeds to go with them. On the way home we stopped by Walter Van Gastel – a garden, florist, homewares kind of store. It’s huge – there’s actually nothing in New Zealand I can really compare it to. It’s kind of like an enormous, incredibly chic Palmers Gardenworld, complete with great cafe and playground which keeps the girls happy whilst we browse the aisles. We first visited Walter Van Gastel in the weeks before Christmas, when we’d just arrived in Belgium. The displays were astounding.

So today we were only meant to be popping in to grab some potting mix and a tray to plant our seeds into  – famous last words! I was instantly won over by all the beautiful Easter displays and couldn’t help but come home with a few pretty extras!

The highlight of our trip to Walter Van Gastel was what we discovered languishing at the back of the store, perilously close to the heavily discounted odds and ends they were trying to get rid of…

what the....insert another F word here...??!!

I’m not aware of any gardening craze sweeping Belgium which involves the use of distressed looking planter pots emblazoned with “New Zealand”. Obviously noone else is either – hence the large stash of them. I resisted the urge to buy one – much to my husband’s relief!

Back home Richard and the girls got busy in the “garden”. They loved every step of the process – particularly the all important use of the watering can.

Getting ready to plant the carrot seeds.

Very carefully placing the seeds.

Adding the water.

Olive giving the green thumbs up to her planted flower trays.

More water.

Final soil top up.

So now we will wait with baited breath to see what emerges from our inner city garden  – hopefully lots of juicy carrots for the paashaas or Easter bunny.

It’s crocus vakantie this week so the girls are off school. We’re planning a visit to the toy museum, will make a trip to the movies to see The Muppets, have tickets booked for a circus style puppet show and hopefully squeeze in a couple of playdates. Oh…and of course…will water plants regularly!!

Lots of love everyone xxx

The big F – or forty, fit, feestjes, friends and food

It seems that my life is revolving around the letter F at the moment – and because of this I have been very busy. Being busy is a great thing although my blog has suffered and I do miss having time to write. It doesn’t help that Richard is having a spate of prolific blog writing at the moment -however I can’t see myself sitting writing at 4am which is when he’s usually tapping away!

Turning forty was my first big f. Not content with one party, I threw a second one here in Antwerp. As my birthday fell on a Saturday evening it was a perfect excuse for a bit of a do.

The official 40 portrait. Saturday 4th of February, 2012.

I had a great night surrounded by new friends from all over the world – the complete opposite of my birthday last year. It was a good time to look back and reflect how far I’d come since that gloomy Friday last year when I sat, very glum in front of the telly, scoffing the birthday tart the girls had picked out for me at the local bakery.

I made my own cake this year - Nigella's pomegranate jewel cake - lekker!

The wine flowed, the conversation flowed, Richard made a beautiful speech, I gave a pretty good rebuttal (!) and I managed to kick on till nearly 2am. (Those of you who know me very well will recognise what a feat this is. I am, after all, the woman who suggested an end time of 9:30pm for my hen’s night!)

Doing a bit of speech making.

Birthday parties or feestjes have been an almost weekly occurrence since we got back to Antwerp. This does mean that I am practically on first name terms with the staff at In den Olifant (gorgeous Antwerp toy store), but mostly it demonstrates just how many great friendships that we, as a family, are making.

The Mega Mindy twins with birthday girl Milla.

Mask making at Charles' birthday.

Even Mum and Dad got in on the act.

Making friends with Natacha, Charles' precious baby sister.

The big 4 year old.

In addition to all our new friendships we were lucky last week to have time with an old friend who lives on this side of the world. I’ve known Davina since my early teaching days – nearly 20 years ago eek –  and she’s now based in London with her partner and baby. Davina and Jenson came and spent a few days with us and we had lots of fun taking them to our favourite places. It was really nice also to watch Olive and Edie with a young baby. Olive in particular was so interested and helpful – quite the mother hen.

Having fun at Aquatopia.

We also made sure Jenson's visit was very educational. Here O and E are instructing him in the all important art of iPad usage. J is for Jenson!

Olive in Mummy mode 🙂

So now to fit and food…and really what they are all about is yet another f word – focus. Our life in Belgium affords me a very great gift – time – and this year my goal is to put that time to good use. Two goals I want to achieve are getting fit and working towards improving our family diet. I’m running and getting back into weight training with the aim of doing the 5k race that is part of the Antwerp 10 mile event in April. With a friend I’ve made here, I’m doing an online course focussed on whole food. You might remember my earlier post where I revealed my vegetable deficient past! I’m hoping this course will be a good way to get some more plant based food onto our table – it’ll be just like the picture below!!

I suspect members of my family are engaging in some serious laughter and choking on their respective hot beverages right about now!

And f….inally – the other thing I’ve done is join the PTA – I’ve actually wound up as co-chair in fact. I was struggling with an f association for this – best I can come up with is there are f…ive of us on the committee!

Take care everyone. xxx

Back

So we are back in Antwerp after a wonderful four weeks  in New Zealand. Yes the weather wasn’t great, but seeing family and friends more than made up for it. I was planning on blogging whilst I was away, but we were so busy and selfishly I didn’t want to give up any of my precious time to sit on a computer.

I found coming back harder than I’d anticipated. Richard went back to work, the girls went back to school and I felt thoroughly depressed! Fortunately I came home with season 1 and 2 of Downton Abbey on DVD, and used that as  medication to get me through 🙂

I’ve decided not to blog about our trip – what I’ve done is put a heap of photos on Flickr and written captions for all of them. If you’re interested click on the link and you’ll get a small taste of our trip home. If you click on the set entitled New Zealand the pictures will come up in roughly the right order.

At the end of our first week back in Belgium, we celebrated Edie’s fourth birthday. We threw together a party and Richard managed to do a great replica of the Minnie Mouse cake Edie saw on YouTube – for some reason my girls love watching cake decorating clips!

The master at work.

Stage two complete...

and now for the tricky bit!

The finished product - Edie proclaimed it "perfect!"

Edie modelling her birthday present.

Making the fruit kebabs.

Our house all dressed up for the party.

Pin the tail on the donkey was very popular.

Richard is travelling back to New Zealand on Sunday but is under strict instructions to be back in time for my official 40th in just over two weeks.

Wonder if he’ll make me a Minnie Mouse cake too?!

NYC Part 2

The day before the marathon was again crisp and clear.We didn’t want to do too much so as not to tire out our race competitor so we planned a visit to the legendary toy store FAO Schwarz. Firstly though, Richard had to complete his marathon registration, pick up that all important goodie bag and the transponder that would record his time. After riding in from Brooklyn on the subway we walked in the direction of the convention centre where the big marathon expo was being held. As we got closer we noticed ahead of us a group of people who all looked like they were marathon contenders – some type of team all wearing matching jackets. On closer inspection it turned out to be a running club from Belgium!

Inside the convention centre, Richard went off to register and the girls and I started to look around the myriad of stalls – all in some way related to running. The girls were handed giveaways wherever we went but unfortunately there were no giveaways at my favourite stall – Tiffany’s. If, like I was, you’re thinking “how on earth is Tiffany’s related to running?” the answer is this. You could get sterling silver Tiffany dog tags engraved with your name and your time – “we have an engraver on site on race day” I was told. If I ever run the New York marathon I have promised myself a pair of Tiffany dog tags – Richard happily agreed. He knows there’s way more chance of hell freezing over.

Checking out the stalls at the marathon expo.

As we were leaving the expo I noticed a stand set up by the New York City fire department. I bought some tshirts for my nephews and had a bit of a chat with the lovely former fire fighter behind the stall. I told him that both of my grandfathers had been fire fighters in Scotland, at which he scurried off to a bag he had under a table. Upon his return he handed me an NYC Fire Department 9/11 memorial pin and told me to give it to my grandfather. I explained that both my grandfathers had passed away and I would take it back to New Zealand and give it to my parents. It was a very emotional moment and I felt very privileged to have been given such a gift. He wished Richard luck and said he’d be at the finishing line tomorrow looking out for him!

We hopped in a cab and headed for the General Motors building on 5th Avenue – the home to FAO Schwarz. This iconic toy store is the oldest operating toy retailer in North America, and was one of the pioneers of ‘entertainment retail” – that is a store should be an experience for it’s customers. And what an experience it is. I think the girls found it a bit overwhelming. We’d told them they could each choose a toy. Fortunately Edie was still fixated on that dinosaur we never bought at the Natural History Museum so she was easy to please. Olive however spent a great deal of time in the Barbie section debating just which Barbie she needed to join the box of Barbies she already has back home!!

Meeting the muppets at FAO Schwarz.

Ma na ma na - doo doo do do do.

FAO Schweetz - candy as far as the eye could see.

Our next stop was Times Square where we met up with an Australian couple who were also running the marathon. We had lunch at an Italian restaurant – carbo loading anyone? – which was aptly named the Olive Garden. Olive got fussed over when the waiting staff found out her name and they gave her a stack of Olive Garden cups to take home with her. As we headed back to the Times Square subway stop the girls were very excited to spot the billboard for the Liong King – and I was just the tiniest bit excited too!

"Oh i just can't wait to see the Lion king tomorrow!"

Back to Halloween House we went where Richard cooked us a yummy dinner – pasta! – and we all got an early night. Three of us were dreaming of Mufasa, Simba and Scar whilst one of us was preparing to get up at the crack of dawn, ride a subway to the bottom of Manhattan, catch the Staten Island Ferry, stand around for over two hours in the cold and then finally run for 42.2km. You would be right in guessing that person wasn’t me!

As I write this I am still in the process of coaxing Richard to write a guest blog about the marathon – watch this space 🙂

Herfst

De kleuren van de herfst.

Autumn or herfst, has well and truly arrived in Antwerp. Whilst this does mean the temperature is starting to drop, it also means a beautiful and dramatic change in the landscape. Because so many of the trees in New Zealand are evergreen, we have never experienced the transformation that is currently unfolding before us. The colours are intense and stunning – so many shades of red, orange, yellow and green. Watching leaves swirl and dance as they fall; hearing the crunch as my bike rides through a big pile of these bladeren; seeing city workers busy with leaf blowers so these autumn cast offs don’t become a nuisance to the cyclists and pedestrians – the arrival of autumn has given us lots of new experiences.

Olive and Edie attempting to catch the dancing leaves.

When we arrived in Antwerp last November I was shocked by the sight of the trees – completely denuded, bereft and almost sinister in their appearance. I found it hard to imagine such withered looking objects could ever produce leaves again and it made everything here seem so harsh and ugly. How differently I will look at these same trees this winter, knowing how gorgeous they have looked and will look again.

Burnt orange against the crisp blue autumn sky is a colour combination I am loving at the moment.

I get the sense that the arrival of autumn is almost celebrated here. At the market yesterday it was winter vegetables as far as the eye could see – piles of pumpkins proudly displaying their colour and size. At the flower stalls there were all manner of non flowers available to take home – branches, baby peppers in pots and wreaths full of leaves and berries. Even our local supermarket has a colourful herfst display as you walk in the front entrance.

Our autumn wreath.

Another symbol of the arrival of autumn is Halloween, and this year we have celebrated on a much bigger scale than we ever would have in New Zealand. Olive had a  Halloween themed dance class, the parenting group we belong to held a Halloween party, the girls had a Halloween dress up day at school and also went to a  Halloween party thrown by one of Olive’s classmates – we even made Jack o Lanterns!

We used tissue paper to make papier mache jack o lanterns. At night we drop a small light inside them and they cast great shadows.

Olive doing the mummy dance at kleuterdans.

All dressed up for the APC Halloween party - we won the prize for best dressed family!

Ready for Halloween day at school. Richard was in the States last week and thanks to Walmart was able to get these great costumes.

Yesterday we drove north of Antwerp. Our destination was the Kalmthout Arboretum. We’d been told it was a beautiful place to visit and it seemed like the perfect destination to experience autumn in all her glory. Kalmthout did not disappoint. The gardens were beautiful, the colours so vibrant and being amongst so much nature made us feel close to New Zealand.

Olive and Edie christened this "the fire tree".

Beautiful echinacea.

So much colour.

Surprisingly we had the garden almost to ourselves.

It was a great afternoon – a wonderful way to really experience autumn and for the girls to learn more about the cycle of the seasons. If you’re in Antwerp and you haven’t visited Kalmthout, now would be a great time to go. The Kalmthout railway station is directly opposite the entrance to the garden and it’s only a 20 minute ride from Antwerp central – another easy trip the girls and I can do on our own. We bought an annual pass as we’ll definitely go back.

The girls are now on holiday from school and on Wednesday we are off to New York City. We are all very excited and one of us will be very glad when that big run is over and done with! I’m sure I’ll need my next few posts to share with you all our adventures and experiences in the Big Apple. Apparently it is snowing there this weekend – yet more seasonal change to experience!!

If you would like to see more beautiful autumn images click on the link to my Flikr photos – I got a bit trigger happy at Kalmthout yesterday. I’ll leave you with a picture of our own little Herfst display. Lots of love to you all – 7 weeks and counting!!!

Herfst in ons huis 🙂