We left Virginia and it was 96 degrees. When we landed it was about 65 degrees and foggy in Belgium.Our plane departed Norfolk on Labor Day. Due to a few delays we were lucky enough to get upgraded to first class on the first leg of our trip. We flew overnight from New Jersey and landed in Brussels, Belgium the next morning.  The kids slept well but Mike and I barely slept at all.  Of course Sienna had to go to the bathroom at the worse times, like right after you take off and right before you land. We seriously thought we were going to have a clean up on aisle 5A but thankfully we avoided that.  After getting a new stamp in their passport we were off in a taxi and on to finding our apartment in Brussels.  The lady that is renting her home to us greeted us and lead us up to the apartment. It is a beautiful place with high ceilings, close to everything, and even has a balcony. The down side-it is 4 floors up and  our very loud kids like to jump and run and scream and I am pretty sure we will be evicted soon if it doesn’t stop. We unloaded and went out to grab some lunch. The kids were so tired and delirious. We grabbed some lunch at a nearby sandwich shop and I must say OUR FRENCH SUCKS! We totally need to work on it….seriously.  We stumbled back in to the apartment and crashed. We didn’t get up until around 4:30pm. Mike decided to go to the store alone to ( our hero ) to get some groceries. When he returned he had 3 big bags and a backpack full of food….and beer. I think he got carried away with the beer ( and how inexpensive it is; Six pack of Chimay: $6 and so on ) that he had 3 different kinds AND a bottle of wine.  We had a healthy dinner of pizza and beer that night and crashed and slept for 10 hours. So much for getting up early and exploring.

We got up this morning and figured out how to make coffee with an ancient coffee maker. You have to heat it on the stove-totally manual. We fumbled about and finally got out of the house around 1pm.  We went to Duden Park and Forrest Park with the kids. Our goal was to tire them out by having them walk everywhere, run everywhere, climb everything, and play.  Just to let you know it didn’t work. Mylan was like a circus bear doing flips over and over at 9pm on his bed and Sienna was jumping and running around.  I am sure the neighbors LOVED that. They also couldn’t understand why people were speaking a different language. We were trying to teach them the 3-4 words we knew but they opted to speak Spanish and say HOLA! A few bonjours were thrown out here and there. Anyways, we came back from the park, took a rest at the apartment and then set out to find the Metro. We WERE going to go to the city center but it was getting late and the kids witching hour was upon us. It was best to head back at that point. We made dinner and proceeded to have dinner with the doors to the balcony open to get some fresh air. Our children quickly started yelling to the people across from us who were also having dinner on their balcony ( no children ) and yelling “HI MAN” “Hiiiiiiii!!!”. Tomorrow, we will head to the city center and will figure out the Metro. Lord help us!

By the way, we are traveling with two back packs ( thanks Mike and Angie! ) and a one rolling piece of luggage. Thank GOD for NOOKS! The picture in the photo is one that Sienna drew of the park. Her Gammy gave her a book to draw pictures in after her adventures. The last few pics are from our apartment and dinner this evening. I felt that I had to explain the randoms in there.