Trick-or-Treat - It's Halloween!

This Halloween we found a "big" pumpkin that was perfect for carving. Grayson had a great time scooping out all the pulp and seeds.

Pretty spooky

Grayson picked out his Pooh costume from several I showed him on Ebay (U.S. Ebay). Pooh beat out Elmo, Thomas, Tigger, and several other of his favorite charachters.

We had two big Halloween parties this year. The first was a trick-or-treating party in our neighborhood that is hosted by some friends. Even the adults dress up, so Tony was the Scarecrow . . .

And I was the Wicked Witch

Grayson was a little bit scared by all the scary costumes, but once he figured out that he got treats at each house, he loved the trick-or-treating

Our house was one of the trick-or-treat houses, so we decorated our building's entryway with streamers, balloons, spooky music, and our jack-o-lantern.

About 60 kids trick-or-treated - - all at once!

So that was our first Halloween party. Our second one was the very next day at the American Women's Club and I was one of the organisers. We had about 60 kids there as well, but unfortunately I forgot my camera! If I get any photos from friends I'll post them later.

A Year Ago This Week . . .

. . . our plane landed and we embarked on this journey. And what a year it has been - full of highs and lows, as any new experience is.

October 13, 2006

Highs: meeting new friends, travelling all over Europe, eating incredible food, getting a car after eight months without one, speaking French pretty well, finding BAGELS in brussels (this just happened today!), having friends and family visit from the States.

Lows: being sick a lot, locking ourselves out of the apartment for the fourth time, swerving to miss all the dog poop on the sidewalks, speaking French really badly, when the cold gray drizzle lasts for two or even three weeks straight, feeling like a foreigner, being homesick.

Grayson is now 2 1/2 and both his English and his French vocabulary are growing every day. We have finally settled him into a little nursery school that is just two mornings a week. It's called Gallipette and he loves it (really!). Here are some of his latest words/sayings:

• He can count to ten in English, and to five in French.
• "Crinkle, crinkle wittle star" is one of his favorite songs - he sings it with us, along with the ABC's, Hush Little Baby, Jesus Loves Me, The Apple Song ("Oh, the Lord is good to me . . . "), and a few others.
• "I don't wike it" is one of his favorite phrases - always said with a grimace.

Watch him climb!

Engaged! Tony's best friend from childhood, Paul, proposed to his girlfriend, Andrea, here in Brussels during a visit a couple of weeks ago. First they took a trip up to Antwerp for the ring, then he proposed in the gardens of the Petite Sablon. How cool is that! We're looking forward to their January wedding in Houston.

Some Driving Humor

We definitely need it when it comes to driving in this town of NO stop signs. That's right - I have never seen one - ever. And it's an extremely busy town with tons of cars and people who speed and honk at you if you're not driving fast enough for them or if you so much as pause when you're driving to think about where you're going. I thought driving in Atlanta was bad - this is so much worse. Anyway - back to the humor. Because there are no stop signs, at every intersection you're supposed to yield to the right. The key word here being "supposed." Half the time when it's my turn to go I still get cut off. So I came across this epitaph in the letters to the editor in our weekly English news magazine and it made me laugh out loud for about 10 minutes:

Here lies the body of Farmer Day

Who died defending his right of way,

He was right, dead right, the whole way along,

But he's just as dead as if he was wrong.