It´s getting serieus (buying/registering/...)

It´s Saturday and there is a street party in my parent´s street.
It means that the neighbors get together and they have a jumping house for the kids.
You can buy ice cream and pie for 1 Euro each and they have a tap with beer and probably some sodas too.
They promise nice weather for the afternoon, let´see if it´s true - we can surely use some nice weather...


But what else did I do all week?


Tuesday
I bought a bedroom set for both Elias and Mendel.
Mendel has a pretty white bedroom, which comes with a bed, bed drawer for extra mattres, night stand, bench with two pink drawers, book case with 3 pink drawers, closet with 3 doors and a little desk. It´s totally adorable and totally Mendel!Elias has about the same setup, but instead of the bench, he has a toy chest. His bookcase is smaller so he also has an extra cabinet with 3 drawers.
And I also bought sofa´s: off-white leather natuzzi sofa´s, very pretty but we should be glad if we get them beginning of November!!

Wednesday
We finalized on the kitchen design and went to IKEA to check out furniture since our new furniture will take months to deliver.
I also checke dout the store where they make teak furniture and found a bed I liked (besides the kitchen table and cabinet I already liked). I am going to wait till Wim gets back and then we can decide together what to order exactly. This is their website: http://www.patoantiques.be/


Thursday
I applied for registration in the town of Balen. Now we need to wait till a cop comes by and verifies that we actually live here. Only then, will the application be progressed and will I be registered. It took a while before I convinced the employees that my children are indeed Belgians, and not just Americans. Guess they don´t see a lot of immigrants from the U.S.A.

Then I went to the mutuality for health insurance, but they couldn´t do much untill I am registered in Balen.


Friday
I registered myself as being unemployed. Not exactly correct since I haven´t resigned yet in the States, but this way I can get in the system and do I learn what all I need to get from previous employers. It feels weird to be "unemployed" - my first time ever since I worked for 11 years. I already feel like a bum ;-)

Shrek the Third

Another rainy day in Belgium, so I checked out the local theater and they are playing "Shrek The Third". They played both the original English version and the dubbed Dutch version. We chose the English version.

The kids loved the movie.

Something about the movie theater in Lommel (http://www.utopolis.be/top.aspx?cid=60):
- In the middle of the movie there is a 10 minute break (perfect for potty time with kids)
- It was pitch dark when they were playing the previews (we got in late), so it was pretty tough to maneuver in between seats with popcorn, drinks and two small ones (one of which was afraid of the dark)

A Belgian Birthday Party

Elias was invited for a birthday party of one of his new friends from school: Robbe.

The invitation said from 14:00 till 17:00.

He really wanted to go so I called the mom to RSVP and to ask her about how it goes. Yep, my suspicion was right. Parents don´t stay at the party - they drop the kids off and then pick them back up at when the party´s over.

Heartbeat went up a little - I don´t know the parents at all.
Elias´s eyes also went bigger when I told him, "mama - I don´t want you to leave"...

At 14:00, I drive to the house and see already a bunch of kids playing outside and jumping on a trampoline (a toy every single household seems to have).
I talk for a while to the mom and at the same time Elias even forgets I am around. I can leave without any issues but on my way to the car I realize they don´t have any contact information of me. How will they reach me if something happens to Elias?

So I walk to the dad and ask him about leaving my phone number but he replies " It´s not going to be necessary, but if you really want to....". I don´t want to be the paranoid American mom so I reply back "I´m sure you have common sense in case something happens".

He must think I´m weird though...

When I pick Elias up at 17:00 he doesn´t want to leave yet, so he sure had lots of fun. They had ice cream and made their own pizza, he apparently ate very well.

I think Elias is going to adjust quicker then I am ;-)