Visit to Belgium (Wallonia region)

We went on a week long trip to the Wallonia region of Belgium. We stayed in a fully furnished vacation cottage - a little house with bedrooms, living room and kitchen. The in-laws stayed in another vacation house. We were with the extended family - Rob, myself, Leah (age 5), Finn age 4, dutch grandparents (Oma and Opa), and sister/brother in law with 2 kids (Quinten age 7 and Stine age 4). The vacation house site (with over 100 houses) had a play ground, swimming pool and mini-golf course. We visited the picturesque villages of the region. We ate delicious bread and local cuisine, farmer's markets, and saw ruins and castles galore. One highlight was a visit to lime stone caves which ended in a boat ride underground. The cave was so low we all had to duck down to clear the chamber. The kids all had a great time playing together and swimming. It was very relaxaing and enjoyable to see the countryside and local sites.

I'm dreaming of a white Hannukah

 
menorah's lit on the table at our synagogue Hanukkah celebration

We had a beautiful 8 days of Hanukkah here.  We had snow 2 days, so we had a "white Hanukkah".  We light the menorah each night, and Leah sang along with the prayer.

 
congregation member playing for us on the piano as the "candles were burning low" from the menorahs.

On the last night of Hanukkah (saturday), we celebrated at our new synagogue congregation in Amsterdam.  They had a potluck, with a crafts afternoon for kids.  Leah painted her own wooden menorah, which we lit at the end of the evening. We then light all the manora's, with the Rabbi leading in the prayers. Followed was a pot-luck.  I will have more blogs on the temple later, but we had a wonderful time!


Leah making her own manorah at the kids' hanukkah party before the pot-luck
 
We also had the extended family over to celebrate the first day of Hanukkah.  I told a simplified version of "why we celebrate Hanukkah" in dutch for the kids.  I also made latkes from scratch with big thanks to Jan and Nettie for peeling a lot of potatoes!


Making Latkes from scratch (yes, on a step-ladder)

Leah is slowly understanding a little more about Judaism.  When asked what her Christmas tree looked like, she answered "I don't have a Christmas tree, I am Jewish".

celebrating first night Hanukkah with the extended family

SinterKlaas 2012

  This sunday we celebrated Sinterklaas with the extended family at Jan and Nettie's house. The 3 older kids (Quinten age 7 and Leah + Stine age 4 sang seasonal songs while Finn ran around examining everything. Then there was a knock on the door, and when the kids ran outside there was a huge box full of gifts.



Leah was very happy with her dress-up costume, music box and arts/crafts toys amongs others. Finn got an etch-a-sketch and a tractor amongst the to presents. All the adults also enjoyed gifts and traditional drinks of hot-chocolate. We also ate gingerbread-like cookies called "pepper nuts".







Next week, we will be celbrating Hanukkah here at our house, with the extended family coming to join in.

 

For those interested,a brief explanation on the dutch Sinterklaas traditions. Sinterkaas is celebrated on Decembr 4th. Sinterklaas lives in Spain for most of the year (much smarter to me than the cold North Pole). The official holiday is on December 5th. At the end of November, Sinterklaas comesby steam boat to the Netherlands with his white horse and his "black pete" helpers (same role as Santa's elves). The Black Petes are mischievous helpers with black faces and colourful Moorish dresses. Kids leave shoes out to revieve presents in, and also leave a carrot for the horse. Today, the people paint their faces black and dress in colorful page-boy like costumes with a lace color and feathered cap.

Finn's swimming lessons

Finn and I do Mommy and Me swimming lessons once a week.  At first he was treppidatious, but now he loves the water.  Here he is going down the kids' slide at free - swimming after
lesssons and splashing into the water




 

For the 1/2 hour lessons he does not use water-wings, so he gets used to being in water without floatation devices.  We sing songs, pretend to be different animals going from one end of the pool to the other like frogs or dolphins.  He also climbs out of the pool and jumps in, and sometimes swims under a hoop (with help from the teacher)



After the lesson is free swim in the recreation pool, with a baby slide, big slide and jacuzzi as well as a little stream area.  We go to lessons with my friend Begonia from Argentenia and her son Max (also 2 years old).