Brrr.....

For those living in warmer climates, I want to share the joy of the cold season here in Belgium.

For the last several weeks it has been very very cold. Temperatures are still around freezing when we leave in the morning for school and/or work.

In order to leave safely, we are now putting blanket like covers over the windshield, so we don't have to scrub off the ice (and freeze in the process).

The roads are slippery - very slippery.

The other day, I drove to work and suddenly I started slipping, turning left, moving forward sideways. Then turning right, moving sideways to the other side. I just saw myself totaling that car. When I saw a driveway that looked dry I tried to direct the car that way but it only brought me closer and closer to a telephone pole. I then crashed into a hedge, 15 cm away from the telephone pole. I had nothing, the car didn't have anything, but I was shaking on my legs.
When I got out of the car, I saw a path of destruction, broken off wooden poles, tire marks in the front lawn of an old lady. But luckily, it turned out to be from a previous 'not so lucky as I was' driver.

But on the positive side, it has it's charm.
It has snowed many times so far. One particular day it snowed so much, we all went out for a snowball fight in the street. It was so beautiful, all houses covered under a thick blanket of snow, the tree branches popping out as white arms against the black night sky.
Other times, it just lays a fine layer of snow dust over fields and gardens.

You guys are missing out on something nice here :-)

Picture of a soccergame (click on the image to see how thick the snow really was)

Mendel and her plaswekker

Since Mendel has issues holding her urine at night, the doctor recommended that we use a plaswekker to help her stay dry.

Plaswekker

A plaswekker is a device that will give a loud beeping sound (compare it to a car alarm) when the person wearing a special kind of underwear is wetting that underwear.
High tech all - the underwear has a transmitter that transmits a signal to the plaswekker -> all wireless!

Then - when she is wet and the alarm sounds, she has to get out of bed and turn off the device, go to the restroom, put on a new piece of special underwear, click the transmitter to the new underwear and turn on the device again.

The first few nights, the alarm would go off at around 10PM and again closer to the morning.

But now we get her up when we go to sleep so she can go to the bathroom, and now she sleeps till the morning and gets up when she needs to go to the bathroom. No more alarms go off.

Mendel wants us now to stop getting her up at 10PM so she can try it by herself. I am sure that the promise of a little gift when she is all dry by herself has something to do with it :-)

I hope Sinterklaas went back to Spain

Over the last 3 weeks we have seen Sinterklaas and his helpers at numerous locations:

- At the toystore: the kids got a little goody bag with toys and candy/chocolates
- At the company's Sinterklaas party: this was a good one, each kid got a very nice gift and a few smaller gifts. There were Kermis attractions for them and lots of candies and chocolates.
- At the school's Sinterklaas buffet (but here only his helpers showed up to give them chocolates)
- At school.
- At soccer practice.
- At the chiro

Not to mention at home - but this was at night and we didn't really get to see him or his helpers