Hi everyone! Below are some more pages of the girls...I wanted to get these done before I catch up on the travel/holiday pages (no estimates on when that will be!). Other than that, not a ton going on around here...just the usual! The weather was unusually beautiful this weekend, we went and fed the ducks (and mostly the greedy swans...all the other ducks stayed "neck length" away from them, and that is quite a distance!). Nancy's birthday and party are coming up and a lunch bunch (English speaking ladies get together). Hope all is well with all of you! Hope you enjoy the update!

Nancy is enjoying her new home! To the right, she is blowing bubbles outside our apartment in our "yard" (a tiny little common grass area, but it works for us!). In the center, she is putting in her very first screw! Her little table and chair set came with special IKEA tools and she wanted to screw it together herself, and she did! To the left, dancing with Daddy in the kitchen, she even found a way aroundthe heigth barrier! Up and to the left Nancy is copying Mommy blowing a kiss, leg lift and all!

Nancy is loving Belgian food, especially the baguettes! She has learned to dig her whole hand in and pull out the soft center. She was a milk addict before we left and we thought the lack of fresh milk would cure her...however she took one sip of the irradiated milk and instead of the grimace we were expecting she just asked for more! Below, in round three of Belgium versus the toddler, we'll have to call a tie. They have very little carpet here and our wood floors have caused more than one socked-feet slip up and ensuing tears. However I think Nancy learned to make the best of the situation as the below picture shows. She also was getting into the literature, to the right she is reading "What a Circus!" Though she enjoyed it, we have backed off of checking out books from the library after we tried several times to return this one. The library we got it from is where we used to live, now a good distance away, and we found out only open a few very select hours 3 days a week. In addition, there is no dropbox and they wouldn't accept the book at nearby branches of the same library. The above eye roll demonstrated by Nancy shows how I felt.

Play time! Victoria and Nancy enjoyed an "international tea party" with their Aunt Tina, Aunt Noel and Nate via Skype. They also enjoy reading books together (though Tori prefers to eat them) and playing with Mommy and scarves. Below, Tori is quiet anxious to do everything her big sister does, especially eat!! She saw Mommy and Nancy eating a gauffe one day (belgian waffles) and tried so hard to get it into her own mouth that Mommy gave in and started her on solid foods much earlier than planned (though she was still dissapointed it wasn't the gauffe :) Her favorite "foods?" Tori REALLY loves to eat paper and diapers...if either items are on the floor she will move very quickly to get them and demolish them, as is evidenced by the sticker picture below.

I'm so behind on my pages! Below I have a couple pages of 4x6 pictures I'm going to put directly into the girls' scrapbook and one page of Tori. I have several more in the works but haven't quiet finished them up, and since we have two trips worth of pictures to post since then I figured I'd just get out what I've got. Enjoy and Merry Christmas to all! Miss everyone terribly, we will be thinking of all of you this holiday season!

Victoria is a little mover! She will be content for a few days whenever she learns a new motor skill that increases her mobility, and then she will cry and cry until she masters the next thing. Above, she used to be happy in the bean bag (both circle pictures) and then was very frustrated until she learned to roll...one way. We laid out a set of toys the direction she could roll and when she hit the end she would have to be "reset." The bouncer is now in storage as she has started rolling out of it. Now her favorites are Daddy helping her "walk" with him, jumping up the contraption below, and yes...finally....she CRAWLS!!!

Click on the images to enlarge! Sorry so long in posting, but hope you enjoy the pages!

Afton et al.

Beautiful Dinant! To the left you can see the citadel, built for protection, atop a rocky cliff, Below in the valley (WAY below) is a quaint town that stretches along the river. Near the cathedral there is fair amount of town (below), but there are places along the river where the cliff comes so close to the river edge that the town becomes only a couple of houses deep. In the citadel was a very interesting tour, a highlight of which was a room where a WWI bomb rocked the foundation, it was like walking through a fun house. It made me dizzy and a little ill, very sobering to think of the history of this area and what people lived through.

We enjoyed a ferry ride along the river. We particularly enjoyed the pizza we brought along (the generous, elderly boat driver said it was okay. At least we think so...we weren't really sure if he was speaking French or Dutch ;) But we think little Victoria enjoyed it most of all.The zip line at the playground near the citadel would never have flown in the U.S., but it certainly "flew" here! Even Grandma gave it a whirl...which isn't surprising if you know "Grandma" at all, the one who taught my friends the "proper" way to roll down hills! I can't even describe the contraption I twirled around on!

Our little family, all bundled up though actually the cave was MUCH warmer than outside. Tori did very well strapped to Daniel's chest, though the couple of times she did cry the echo did NOT help.

The whole gang! Above is what the cave behind us looked like...HUGE and sapciuos (cobwebs added for Halloween:) By the way, Grandma was the only one in the tour to know that the above "almost" column never met due to wind.

Belgian bit : When looking for a baking soda, I was directed to the pharmacy (little shops on the street with green crosses hanging out front). Apparently, it is good to take for your stomach! Also, At church when the teenagers are waiting for their parents, they play with the basketballs. But they kick them around like a soccer ball, ignoring the hoops unless they try to "score a goal" by kicking them in.

Hi Everyone!

I am starting to post my scrapbook pages as my blogs...two birds with one stone :) Just click on it to enlarge!

Also, if you are interested in getting these pages directly in your e-mail inbox just e-mail me and let me know!

Miss you all! Afton

All in a weekend...

So, I was just so excited I had to post a picture of my garage sale find! Yes, a garage sale…a true rarity in these parts, but every now again you can find one posted on expatica.com (expat=American living in Europe) where people like us are coming and going and leaving lots of stuff. This one was actually thrown by an English couple who raised their kids here and are ready to go back home. I got this entire tea set (service for 12 minus one teacup) with two plates per cup, a sugar bowl, creamer and cake plate for 30 euros! (about $35) Not something you see around America too often!

So now it is time for hidden pictures! Look closely at the picture…can you find evidence of Belgium versus the toddler round 2? (Round one went to Nancy, she bested the tiny, twisty stairs that might fit better in a doll house…or one of those funny houses with the mirrors that make you look skinny…and didn’t fall once despite many different apartment searches) Unfortunately, she lost this round when we learned her sandals (and energy level) and cobblestones DON’T mix. She has matching battle wounds on her knees. OUCH! Don’t worry though, when I was done with them the cobblestones got the worst of it…

Next, can you find the potato chips? I let Nancy hold them so I could offer a bar of Belgian chocolate to whoever can guess the flavor. I’ll post the answer at the end of the blog…and if you guessed it (we’ll do on your honor) I’ll bring you home a bar.



So, another funny thing about the photo. The location of the garage sale was in Waterloo. Daniel and I were half way there when we were like, “huh, could this be THE waterloo?” On entering we saw a sign with a picture of Napoleon and a cannon, so this was it! We checked out a location commemorating the epic battle that ended Napoleon’s legacy. There is a hill with a lion on it. Information (compliments of Wikipedia):

The hill is surmounted by a statue of a lion mounted upon a stone-block pedestal. The model lion was sculpted by Jean-François Van Geel (1756-1830). The lion is the heraldic beast on the personal coat of arms of the monarch of The Netherlands, and symbolizes courage; its right front paw is upon a sphere, signifying global victory. It is a symbol of the allied victory, rather than as pertaining to a single individual.

I think Daniel said it was where one of the relatives of the Netherland royalty was shot in the shoulder where they decided to build the mound, but I can’t find where he got that, so don’t quote me. Six euros a piece to get to climb to the top, so you get a faraway picture cause I thought they should pay me that to be willing to hike it with two little kids.


More fun Waterloo pictures...The eagle statue was just another one there...Nancy is being an eagle and Tori and I are hiding :)



The mushrooms were actually pictures taken at the church...we haven't seen a lot of bugs (thank goodness!) but I've never seen so many kinds of mushrooms!

Sorry, I can't figure how to format pictures well, so these are just thrown in there. Below is a fun pictures of Tori. One more picture: the box I made for my primary lesson on tithing. I was subbing and it was only my second time at church, so I didn’t have any of my stuff yet because it doesn’t get here until later this week. So I was rather proud of myself for pulling this together…the tape was a last minute addition to luggage by Daniel to help organize cords in the apartment and the scissors on the box are what I used to make the whole thing. FYI, most of the class spoke English, so the class was considerably easier than I thought it would be.

So, that’s it! We’re loving it here, we really feel like we are at the cross-roads of the world. I’ve met people from England, Germany, Czecholslovokia (nice grandpa in the park, shared sand toys with Nancy), Italy, Albania, Nigeria (and several other countries in Africa I can’t pronounce), Albania (that one scared me, she was cleaning our apartment and talking on the phone and I was like, “I don’t understand a word!!!! I’m never going to speak French!!” but it was Albanian, go figure ), El Salvador, Venezuela, and all over the United States. And I’ve only been here two weeks! What an adventure!
Ps. So the chips are Lays chips, flavor Thai Sweet Chilli. The other bag were Mexican peppers and cream. They were gifts. I’m sure they them in the states, but I’ve never seen them!
Pps. I have been corrected…Kiss & Ride signs are all over the east coast! And I had to come here to learn that!