Belgian holiday

To take advantage of Susanna's week off from school (since we still have about 7 more weeks until the summer holiday), we decided to take a quick trip to Belgium.  

I've always heard that if you go to Belgium, the best city to visit is Bruges (or Brugge), so that is where we went.  We stayed there for 4 nights, and ended up not going anywhere else.   We took the Eurostar train to Brussels from London - only two hours from city to city!  Of course, we had to take the train from our town, then another train to Bruges, so the whole trip was 6 or 7 hours, but still not bad.

We decided to rent a house instead of finding a hotel.  The house we found was great.  It was decorated in a simple, practical style, so I didn't have to stress about the kids messing things up.  We had a small kitchen, a nice sitting area, and three bedrooms.  The stairs were very steep, but that didn't deter the kids from going up and down to the three different levels.  It was very comfortable, and definitely the way to travel!

We spent most of our time just wandering around the city.  Even so, we probably didn't see very much of it!  There was a nice park near the house - complete with a duck pond and a playground.  Needless to say, we stopped by there at least twice a day.  We also took two horse-and-carriage rides through the city, and a boat tour of the canals.  We went to one museum - called Choco Story - I'm sure it was very interesting, but the kids weren't too cooperative there so I didn't get to really look at things.  We did manage to get the chocolate sample at the end.

The food was very good.  We didn't really eat in restaurants since they seemed a bit touristy and expensive (according to the boat tour guy, Bruges has 20,000 residents, but has about 50,000 tourists a day during the summer).  We ate lots of waffles and pancakes, and found a deli for meat and cheese, a baker for bread, and a grocer for fruits.  And of course we visited a few chocolate shops along the way.

In summary, Susanna's favorite part of Belgium was the ducks.  Ben's favorite part of Belgium, was, of course, also the ducks.

The house where we stayed.

The living room.
Lots of buildings in Bruges had this kind of roof.
Our ride.
Our favorite duck family.

Half-term

Today is Susanna's first day of half-term break.  She gets all next week off as well.  It seems like they just had a two week holiday...  This is it until the end of the year, which seems a long way off.

I only had a few questions (so far...) - I will do my best to answer!

The kids don't have an accent, at least not yet.  I suppose that Ben is a better candidate for picking it up at this point.  Maybe once he starts nursery and is around it all the time.  I haven't noticed anything with Susanna, but maybe with English people teaching her to read she'll pick some up as well.  

The other moms I've met are nice.  The school has class reps for each class, and these ladies plan social things for all the mums in the class throughout the year.  I am slowly figuring out who more and more people are - trying to put together the mums and kids in the class - I have class list which helps a bit.  I asked one lady if she was familiar with Bunko - she'd heard of it but didn't know much about it - I guess that craze hasn't hit here yet!

Even though we don't have school today, we still have Ben's cooking class, so unfortunately I still have to get moving this morning.  Hope everyone has a good weekend!

Any questions?

Now that we are getting settled into a more regular routine, I'm starting to feel like I have less to write about in my blog.  Everyday is pretty much the same - get up, get ready, take Susanna to school, hang out with Ben all day, get Susanna, play, dinner, bath, and bed.  

So now I think its time to ask for questions.  Is there anything you want to know about our lives here or life in England in general?  Any topic I started but never got back to?  Please feel free to leave questions in the comments section here!

Day at the farm

Today we went to a local farm park.  Places like this seem to be quite common in England.  There were plenty of farm animals, of course, and also playgrounds, mini golf, various-sized ride-on tractors, hay bales to climb on, and a maze.  We spent half the day there and took our time with everything (despite the slightly chilly weather.)

Here are a few photos: 

Ben driving.

Feeding the sheep.
Not so sure about letting them eat from her hand.
Sheep shot.
Hanging out in the rabbit pens.

 

Big cook, little cook

There is a television program here by that name, and Ben really likes to watch it.  Because of that, and his love of playing kitchen, and of course his great love of eating (all the time), I decided to sign him up for cooking classes.  

So far he's gone twice, once with me, and yesterday with Brad.  He likes it but doesn't seem to love it (yet!).  The class alternates between sweets one week and savouries the next, and so far he's made Lemon Meringue Mess and Italian Goat Cheese Bread.  I liked them both!  Both kids tried the lemon dessert and didn't like it (I think because of the lemon zest), and Susanna tried the bread and didn't like it.  At least she tried!  I'm not sure if Ben did.

After they cook, there is a tasting session.  Each week focuses on a different letter of the alphabet.  The first week was avocado and guacamole.  Ben impressed everyone by eating the bowl of guac after everyone had a taste.  The second week was beans, which Ben didn't want to try, but liked once he did.  

Hopefully he will get more into cooking as the class goes on.  I'm surprised that he doesn't totally love it.  I'm kind of hoping the love develops so he can start cooking my dinner (ha ha).

Ben also goes to football class (soccer) which he really likes.  Its so cute to see all the boys (and occasional girl) in their matching outfits, running around like crazy.  The coach is really good with them and they all have a good time.  Susanna is also interested in playing football.  I'm hoping to find a group with a lot of girls.  Maybe in September - right now, all day at school seems to be enough for her.

Hope everyone has a good weekend!

Advertising

My kids have been very happy with all the shows that are on TV here.  We got Sky TV, which is the only alternative to the standard 5 channels that everybody gets.  Sky has about two dozen or so kids channels, so usually there is a show they like.  They are currently very into Scooby Doo.

There is, however, no channel like Noggin in the States - a channel for kids that has no advertising.  Every time they watch a show they see the same commericals over and over for all kinds of fun things.  When we went shoe shopping for new trainers (sneakers), Susanna quickly spotted the ones with the toy inside.  After we bought them, a little friend noticed them as well and asked if she had a dolly in her shoe.  Kids pick this up very quickly!  We constantly see a commercial for another brand of shoes, and if you buy them you get a make-up cell phone.  The advertisement shows details of this make-up cell phone and its case and doesn't say much about the shoes you have to buy to get the prize.  Brad didn't even realize it was a shoe commerical!

Ben also sees many things he would like to get, especially a car racer for younger children.  I tell him he is too old but of course he doesn't care.  Not like we need any more toys in this house anyway!

So I'm missing my commercial-free childrens programming.  At least we have lots of DVDs!

Learning English

Susanna is having a lot of fun learning all the new English words.  We talked about some of them before we moved, but now Susanna is the one always setting me straight when I use an "American" word.  Even Ben is getting in on the learning, especially with words for his favorite food, like chips instead of fries, and crisps instead of chips.

Susanna doesn't call me Mum yet, but she always gets me when I say "diaper" instead of "nappy" or "pants" instead of "trousers".  She also likes to say "push chair" instead of "stroller", and a particular favorite is "tea", which is what they call the early evening meal (dinner), not just the drink or the afternoon snack.

Another interesting thing that I learned during a preschool tour is that rather than teaching letter names, they first teach the letter sounds.  They don't work on letter names until the kids are around 6.  They also start with lower case letters, and introduce capital letters (apart from first letters of names) until later.  So, for example, they would show the letter "c" and teach the sound it makes.  Then when its time to work on reading, the kids can easily sound out each word.  I learned this at one preschool, but I'm assuming its done like this everywhere.  It will be neat to see Ben go through this system.