Today at the pool, I met a Dutch family. They moved here just a week ago and they have 3 kids, 1 girl at F's age, a boy at A's age and another boy a little older.
To keep the social life spirit up (and trying not to disappoint Bleeding Espresso - I had to mention her somewhere) I also arranged tickets for a play downtown: we will see Alice in Wonderland.
One last thing for this evening: today after the pool, we were by our car and A said (in Dutch): "This is our car". Her first whole correct sentence. Good job A!
Thursday, July 24, 2008
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
A taste of nature: Lincoln Zoo and Shedd Aquarium
Looks like that was it with the social life for the moment. Now I have some spare time to go back to the stuff I wanted to write for a while. Today, we go back to the zoo and to the aquarium.
With my in-laws, I wanted to do some real sight seeing. I think P was in Europe, earning some money. One day we decided to go to the zoo. It was one of the last days at school for the girls, so it must be the last week of June. The kids had school till noon. So when they came home and we had lunch and everything, it was already quite late. We decided to go to the Lincoln Zoo in Chicago. There is a bigger zoo in IL and they are both same distance, but I thought we can go to the city afterwards to eat something and the other zoo seemed too big, we would just get lost and end up seeing nothing. That was my idea at least. 10 minutes after we left, around 2.30pm, we ended up in a traffic jam. I felt kind of bad, but the mood in the car was good, it was still a fun drive. We arrived there 1 hour before the closing time, the indoor exhibitions were already closed. It was still fun and worth.
A little touristic information about the zoo: it is small, in the middle of the city close by the lake. It is surrounded with parks, you don't know where the park ends, where the zoo begins. It is for free but parking is obviously not - ouch. Still, she animals have pretty specious places. For the bear, you have to wait and hope that the animals walk by to see them. It is so weird to look at this very real looking piece of nature while you see apartment buildings in the background. The bear and the wolves were very nice to see. I don't remember what for other animals we saw, but we had a nice time.
We left the zoo around 6 pm. I decided to look for a restaurant in the neighborhood that I read about in my travel guide. We drove by the restaurant and didn't even stop, it didn't look inviting - maybe it wasn't even open. We looked around to see other places without success. It was quite crowded on the streets. We ended up in another traffic jam. Guess what, the local baseball team had a game and we were on the street leading to the stadium. We were stuck! Finally we could get on a side street. We ended up eating in a Japanese restaurant in Evanston, a perfect place to be with the kids. Unfortunately I don't remember what it was called. Sorry, no free advertisement this time.
Now the aquarium: The Shedd Aquarium. On the Internet it says 'Largest indoor aquarium in the world, with more than 8000 aquatic animals'. We went there after the summer school was out, so we had the whole day. We took the train to the city and when we arrived, there was a bus leaving for the aquarium. When we arrived, we had top walk along the shore to get to the aquarium. We watched the sail boats coming and going.
The aquarium is in a very beautiful building right on the lake shore. I have to put a picture of it.
With my in-laws, I wanted to do some real sight seeing. I think P was in Europe, earning some money. One day we decided to go to the zoo. It was one of the last days at school for the girls, so it must be the last week of June. The kids had school till noon. So when they came home and we had lunch and everything, it was already quite late. We decided to go to the Lincoln Zoo in Chicago. There is a bigger zoo in IL and they are both same distance, but I thought we can go to the city afterwards to eat something and the other zoo seemed too big, we would just get lost and end up seeing nothing. That was my idea at least. 10 minutes after we left, around 2.30pm, we ended up in a traffic jam. I felt kind of bad, but the mood in the car was good, it was still a fun drive. We arrived there 1 hour before the closing time, the indoor exhibitions were already closed. It was still fun and worth.
A little touristic information about the zoo: it is small, in the middle of the city close by the lake. It is surrounded with parks, you don't know where the park ends, where the zoo begins. It is for free but parking is obviously not - ouch. Still, she animals have pretty specious places. For the bear, you have to wait and hope that the animals walk by to see them. It is so weird to look at this very real looking piece of nature while you see apartment buildings in the background. The bear and the wolves were very nice to see. I don't remember what for other animals we saw, but we had a nice time.
We left the zoo around 6 pm. I decided to look for a restaurant in the neighborhood that I read about in my travel guide. We drove by the restaurant and didn't even stop, it didn't look inviting - maybe it wasn't even open. We looked around to see other places without success. It was quite crowded on the streets. We ended up in another traffic jam. Guess what, the local baseball team had a game and we were on the street leading to the stadium. We were stuck! Finally we could get on a side street. We ended up eating in a Japanese restaurant in Evanston, a perfect place to be with the kids. Unfortunately I don't remember what it was called. Sorry, no free advertisement this time.
Now the aquarium: The Shedd Aquarium. On the Internet it says 'Largest indoor aquarium in the world, with more than 8000 aquatic animals'. We went there after the summer school was out, so we had the whole day. We took the train to the city and when we arrived, there was a bus leaving for the aquarium. When we arrived, we had top walk along the shore to get to the aquarium. We watched the sail boats coming and going.
The aquarium is in a very beautiful building right on the lake shore. I have to put a picture of it.
(source: http://www.dam.brown.edu/people/glin/Chicago_Postcards/shedd-aquarium.jpg). The whole shore side is glass and you get the feeling that the aquarium and the lake are one.
We started with the dolphins. I have to say that the show was not so much fun for the kids. It was a lot of talking - of course about the climate change, how do we save our planet kind of stuff - and not too much action. It was very 'animal friendly', the dolphins were showing their daily routine to stay fit. Then we went to the wild reef. That was amazing: sharks, stingrays, all kinds of fish swimming around in the huge water tanks. Nemo's and Dori's were very exciting for the kids. A was very interested in the stingrays. You could actually walk on the tank full of stingrays, it had a see-through floor. A insisted that a stingray bit her nose. I had to drag her to the clown fish, otherwise she would still be there looking for her nose.
The Caribbean reef was another amazing exhibit. There was a real diver swimming around and showing what kind of interesting things the fish can do. There was a fish collecting stones. The guy brought the stones away and signed us to wait for 3 minutes. And yes, 3 minutes later, the stones were back to their places.
Besides the fish, there were some more animals, I think from the Amazon area. There was a real anaconda, giant ants and roaches from the rain forest. Well, I am glad I didn't become a biologist going to the Amazon for some kind of research and I have all the respect for the people doing that! We saw more and I cannot write it all down, it is impossible. We spent hours and we didn't get to see it all. It was the best aquarium I saw. Chapeau for the Americans.
We left the aquarium way later than planned and decided to walk to the station. On our way, I saw the Italian restaurant our neighbors mentioned when they heard we were going to the city: The Italian Village. It is OK with the kids and the food was good, only we were quite tired to enjoy it fully. The Italian Village gets its free ad from me.
Bye for now.
The Caribbean reef was another amazing exhibit. There was a real diver swimming around and showing what kind of interesting things the fish can do. There was a fish collecting stones. The guy brought the stones away and signed us to wait for 3 minutes. And yes, 3 minutes later, the stones were back to their places.
Besides the fish, there were some more animals, I think from the Amazon area. There was a real anaconda, giant ants and roaches from the rain forest. Well, I am glad I didn't become a biologist going to the Amazon for some kind of research and I have all the respect for the people doing that! We saw more and I cannot write it all down, it is impossible. We spent hours and we didn't get to see it all. It was the best aquarium I saw. Chapeau for the Americans.
We left the aquarium way later than planned and decided to walk to the station. On our way, I saw the Italian restaurant our neighbors mentioned when they heard we were going to the city: The Italian Village. It is OK with the kids and the food was good, only we were quite tired to enjoy it fully. The Italian Village gets its free ad from me.
Bye for now.
Saturday, July 19, 2008
Oh! we are social!!
The summer is really starting here. It is very humid and it doesn't cool off in the night. In the winter all the Americans were sitting home because it was too cold, now they are sitting at home with their airco on. Well, the local pool is quite crowded too. We managed to hardly use the airco, I don't want us to get too used to it.
Last Sunday the 13th, we were invited for a b-day party on the beach. A classmate of A, Peri turned two. It was quite nice to be there, to meet people. The beach was great - it's not our regular beach and of course it was much better than our beach. The kids played, we had a real American breakfast. It was very nice for F. She was starting to get a little bored being with me and A all the time. Well, my patience to play princess games was at its lowest lately, too. After the party we stayed a little longer to enjoy the beach. F was really trying to communicate and play with other kids. She was a little more outgoing and she was even answering questions as 'how old are you?' - mostly coming from grown-ups.
Last Thursday, we arranged a play date with one of her classmates, Rowan. F was talking about Rowan since the first day of school. She was so excited that Rowan was actually coming to play at our house. Wednesday night, F couldn't fall asleep because of excitement. It was already after 10p.m when she called P and asked "how do you say 'do you want to play hide and seek in English?'". P had to go upstairs later to tell it to her again. Thursday morning, we went to do some shopping. I thought F would go crazy if we stayed home. When Rowan arrived around 3p.m., F got a little shy but It didn't take too long. We played all 4 of us hide and seek and afterwards, I left them alone. They played together for almost 2 hours. P, who arrived home early (because he was going to sixflags with his colleagues) said that F was talking English with Rowan. She was saying: "this is the prince, this is the princess...". Could this be my retirement of playing princess?
Yesterday, we had the colleague of P and his family for dinner. It is Tim and Amanda, we visited them couple weeks ago. They have two boys, 2 and almost 4 year old. Last time the children played so nicely and Amanda is very nice, I thought she can come with the boys early, we can go to the beach and meet the working man later at home - and let them cook the meat. Unfortunately, the plan didn't work. Amanda had to wait for someone who had a doctors appointment till late in the afternoon. She was babysitting this person's child. They arrived almost at 6p.m. I have to say I was not very pleased. I had said the girls that we would go to the beach after they arrived. It was very hot and F kept on asking me to go to swim. Around 5, I left for the beach and left a note on the front door for Amanda. They came (all 4 of them) to the beach and the kids played a while, not with each other though. By the way, F was swimming alone with her inflated arm bands. She is so excited about it, I think she might learn swimming as she learned biking. Anyway, we went home around 6.30p.m and the rest of the evening was very nice. The kids got on the trampoline, played in the yard, they had their own table for dinner, they just enjoyed it all. We did too, it was a lovely evening. We said we should meet again soon.
Last Sunday the 13th, we were invited for a b-day party on the beach. A classmate of A, Peri turned two. It was quite nice to be there, to meet people. The beach was great - it's not our regular beach and of course it was much better than our beach. The kids played, we had a real American breakfast. It was very nice for F. She was starting to get a little bored being with me and A all the time. Well, my patience to play princess games was at its lowest lately, too. After the party we stayed a little longer to enjoy the beach. F was really trying to communicate and play with other kids. She was a little more outgoing and she was even answering questions as 'how old are you?' - mostly coming from grown-ups.
Last Thursday, we arranged a play date with one of her classmates, Rowan. F was talking about Rowan since the first day of school. She was so excited that Rowan was actually coming to play at our house. Wednesday night, F couldn't fall asleep because of excitement. It was already after 10p.m when she called P and asked "how do you say 'do you want to play hide and seek in English?'". P had to go upstairs later to tell it to her again. Thursday morning, we went to do some shopping. I thought F would go crazy if we stayed home. When Rowan arrived around 3p.m., F got a little shy but It didn't take too long. We played all 4 of us hide and seek and afterwards, I left them alone. They played together for almost 2 hours. P, who arrived home early (because he was going to sixflags with his colleagues) said that F was talking English with Rowan. She was saying: "this is the prince, this is the princess...". Could this be my retirement of playing princess?
Yesterday, we had the colleague of P and his family for dinner. It is Tim and Amanda, we visited them couple weeks ago. They have two boys, 2 and almost 4 year old. Last time the children played so nicely and Amanda is very nice, I thought she can come with the boys early, we can go to the beach and meet the working man later at home - and let them cook the meat. Unfortunately, the plan didn't work. Amanda had to wait for someone who had a doctors appointment till late in the afternoon. She was babysitting this person's child. They arrived almost at 6p.m. I have to say I was not very pleased. I had said the girls that we would go to the beach after they arrived. It was very hot and F kept on asking me to go to swim. Around 5, I left for the beach and left a note on the front door for Amanda. They came (all 4 of them) to the beach and the kids played a while, not with each other though. By the way, F was swimming alone with her inflated arm bands. She is so excited about it, I think she might learn swimming as she learned biking. Anyway, we went home around 6.30p.m and the rest of the evening was very nice. The kids got on the trampoline, played in the yard, they had their own table for dinner, they just enjoyed it all. We did too, it was a lovely evening. We said we should meet again soon.
Sunday, July 13, 2008
F on the bike and A on the potty
Yesterday(Saturday), F got on her new little bike without training wheels. Actually, we got the bike from our neighbors, their daughter is too big for it. I put a new wheel on it on Friday. It was too late to try it then, so we decided to wait till Saturday. Anyway, she got on it. P was walking and holding her arm and the were going side by side. At the end of our street, she said to P, "let me go" and he did and she biked. She started biking just like that! We both couldn't believe it. Today, we let her practice as much as possible. Very soon, she can bike next to us I think. We are two proud parents, we cannot stop telling the story.
Yesterday, we walked a little further so that F could bike a little more. One street further, we met a nice family. They have a 3 year old daughter and a baby of 8 months. They seemed very nice. Their daughter kept on calling F 'Emma' - nobody knows why - and they biked together for a while. F was so happy, she was biking, a girl was playing with her. She even responded to her new name!
Well, the story is not only about F, A had her triumph as well, and on the same day. We are busy with her potty training. She started a short while ago. At the last week at the school, they started training her as well. She is very interested and doing quite good... with the small one. When she has a stinky in her diaper, she remembers she has to go to the restroom and takes her diaper off and as you can guess, it is a big mess. Our bathroom floors are probably the cleanest of the country as I have to clean them sometimes more than once a day! Saturday morning, I heard A calling me from the bathroom upstairs. Finally, she had managed to sit on the potty on time. Good job girl! She is so funny, she sits maybe 20 minutes, reads all kinds of books and she is so excited to see the results. She might be out of diapers before school starts again.
Yesterday, we walked a little further so that F could bike a little more. One street further, we met a nice family. They have a 3 year old daughter and a baby of 8 months. They seemed very nice. Their daughter kept on calling F 'Emma' - nobody knows why - and they biked together for a while. F was so happy, she was biking, a girl was playing with her. She even responded to her new name!
Well, the story is not only about F, A had her triumph as well, and on the same day. We are busy with her potty training. She started a short while ago. At the last week at the school, they started training her as well. She is very interested and doing quite good... with the small one. When she has a stinky in her diaper, she remembers she has to go to the restroom and takes her diaper off and as you can guess, it is a big mess. Our bathroom floors are probably the cleanest of the country as I have to clean them sometimes more than once a day! Saturday morning, I heard A calling me from the bathroom upstairs. Finally, she had managed to sit on the potty on time. Good job girl! She is so funny, she sits maybe 20 minutes, reads all kinds of books and she is so excited to see the results. She might be out of diapers before school starts again.
Thursday, July 10, 2008
Back to blog
It is so long ago that I posted on the blog... you know it means that I have been busy, which is good. I will try to give an overview of all that happened since the flood. I should better keep it short, otherwise it take couple of days to give all the details.
The kids' summer school ended at he end of June. I think they enjoyed it a lot, me too as I got 2,5 hours of my time per day. A cried each time I brought her to school, except the last week. Somehow she decided that it it was actually OK to be there and mommy came to pick her up everyday. I also changed the order I dropped the kids off. I was bringing F to class so that A could see that it was OK, but the last week we did it the other way around. It was much better. A gave be a half hug and a kiss, gave a big big hug to her sister and she walked in the class, without even looking back! I was amazed. We also had help from another child's' parents, Peri. Peri's father walked to the building, Peri walking next to him. A was standing in the middle of the path refusing to walk - the kids are supposed to walk to their classes, some Montessori thing. Peri's father saw us standing and came back with her daughter. Peri took A from the hand and helped her to walk. It was very cute. Peri helped us couple of other times too. Later on A was doing well all by herself as I mentioned before.
I met quite some parents - mostly mothers - at school. We will make some play dates and we are invited to Peri's b-day, next week-end on the beach!
I went to the farmers market on Friday mornings after dropping the kids off at school. Our house is now very often full with flowers. They don't last 3 weeks as in Holland, but they are not less beautiful.
My in-laws came back from their trip around the lake Michigan. They stayed another 2,5 weeks here. P was gone to Europe for 10 days, so it was very nice having them here. They did a lot of nice things with the kids and I didn't have to iron a thing for a while. Just before P left, we were gone shopping - the two of us - to buy some presents for our friends who had a big party for their 10th wedding anniversary. Anyway, we were walking in a shop when we heard some people talking Dutch to us, they heard us talking. It was a couple on their last vacation day. We talked a while. They told us they rented a camper etc. At a certain moment they said, half joking that they had two bikes for sale. I jumped on the opportunity. We wanted to bike with P's parents but we couldn't find the neighbor home to lend bikes. We ended up driving to the Dutch couple's camp ground and buying their bikes. We enjoyed the bikes many times in the last weeks. Thanks guys!
OK, I will post this now as the kids will not let me write longer for the moment. I will be back with the trip to aquarium, the zoo, out to the Sex and the city movie, the meeting in Paris, picking up P and bringing in-laws to the airport, out for dinner w/P, beach visits, picnics, one evening to the neighbors, kids story contest and Internations. This is like little reminder for me so I don't forget to write it all. I will be back....
The kids' summer school ended at he end of June. I think they enjoyed it a lot, me too as I got 2,5 hours of my time per day. A cried each time I brought her to school, except the last week. Somehow she decided that it it was actually OK to be there and mommy came to pick her up everyday. I also changed the order I dropped the kids off. I was bringing F to class so that A could see that it was OK, but the last week we did it the other way around. It was much better. A gave be a half hug and a kiss, gave a big big hug to her sister and she walked in the class, without even looking back! I was amazed. We also had help from another child's' parents, Peri. Peri's father walked to the building, Peri walking next to him. A was standing in the middle of the path refusing to walk - the kids are supposed to walk to their classes, some Montessori thing. Peri's father saw us standing and came back with her daughter. Peri took A from the hand and helped her to walk. It was very cute. Peri helped us couple of other times too. Later on A was doing well all by herself as I mentioned before.
I met quite some parents - mostly mothers - at school. We will make some play dates and we are invited to Peri's b-day, next week-end on the beach!
I went to the farmers market on Friday mornings after dropping the kids off at school. Our house is now very often full with flowers. They don't last 3 weeks as in Holland, but they are not less beautiful.
My in-laws came back from their trip around the lake Michigan. They stayed another 2,5 weeks here. P was gone to Europe for 10 days, so it was very nice having them here. They did a lot of nice things with the kids and I didn't have to iron a thing for a while. Just before P left, we were gone shopping - the two of us - to buy some presents for our friends who had a big party for their 10th wedding anniversary. Anyway, we were walking in a shop when we heard some people talking Dutch to us, they heard us talking. It was a couple on their last vacation day. We talked a while. They told us they rented a camper etc. At a certain moment they said, half joking that they had two bikes for sale. I jumped on the opportunity. We wanted to bike with P's parents but we couldn't find the neighbor home to lend bikes. We ended up driving to the Dutch couple's camp ground and buying their bikes. We enjoyed the bikes many times in the last weeks. Thanks guys!
OK, I will post this now as the kids will not let me write longer for the moment. I will be back with the trip to aquarium, the zoo, out to the Sex and the city movie, the meeting in Paris, picking up P and bringing in-laws to the airport, out for dinner w/P, beach visits, picnics, one evening to the neighbors, kids story contest and Internations. This is like little reminder for me so I don't forget to write it all. I will be back....
Tuesday, July 1, 2008
Yes! Yesterday I saw the Sex and the City movie
and it was goooood! Very nice humor, nice dresses, glamour, everything I expected. We went with Ale, while my in-laws were babysitting. It was a real girls' night out, no husbands... After the movie, we went to eat some sushi in Glenview; that's where Ale lives. We were not at the top of our glamour: Ale is 7 months pregnant and she is pregnant-beautiful as opposed to the high heal/small dress - beautiful 'Sex and the City stars; and I am a poor housewife, mother of two, lacking quite some beauty sleep and a trip to the hairdresser. But I had such a good time. It was like we've been friends with Ale for a long time. So bad she is leaving USA in a couple of weeks. I will miss her for sure.
When I arrived home, I woke up from the nice dream. A had been crying for a long time, my in-laws' evening was not that nice, I could tell it from the look in their eyes. I'm back to real life.
When I arrived home, I woke up from the nice dream. A had been crying for a long time, my in-laws' evening was not that nice, I could tell it from the look in their eyes. I'm back to real life.
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