A Few Days in Brunssum!

Hi, everyone!

Grandma and Grandpa and I flew back to Belgium with Uncle Steven’s family to spend a few days after our Norway trip.  The flight from Oslo to Charleroi isn’t very long, but getting to the airport in Oslo on the bus, checking in for the flight and driving from Charleroi back into the Netherlands to Brunssum took all of Tuesday!  We had to stop for pizza at Happy Italy restaurant because we couldn’t get home in time for dinner.  There was another soccer championship game scheduled, so the restaurant was very busy!  On Wednesday, it was very hot so everybody stayed inside all day.  It was a good day to eat frozen juice treats!  Since they were small, Aunt Kara let James and Thomas eat two apiece!  Of course, we had party mix, too!

On Thursday, Thomas went to Pinocchio preschool.  Grandma and I went with Uncle Steven to pick him up.  It was still hot!  Thomas thought he needed sunglasses to ride his bike in the kitchen.  James played Nintendo games and needed his daddy’s help to do some of the big jumps and spins.  He didn’t need much help to build with Legos!  Thomas likes to play with Legos, too, especially whatever pieces James is using at the moment.  Sometimes sharing is hard!  While I was watching Lego building in James’ bedroom, I got a chance to visit with James’ lion.

There was a big thunderstorm on Thursday night, so Friday it was cooler. We were all going to go on an adventure with James’ friend Anna and her family to Strawberry Land, in Horst.  When we were getting ready to go, Uncle Steven discovered that water got into the garage during the storm!  He and Grandpa stayed behind to dry out the garage and figure out how to keep that from happening again.  So Aunt Kara and Grandma took James and Thomas and me, and Anna’s mommy and sister and brother went with her.

Strawberry Land is all about strawberries, but there are lots of fun things to do!  When we first got there, we posed for photos in their sign.  Then we went into the reception area.  There were all kinds of ripe strawberries on display, and even a big bowl of strawberries to snack on!  The nice lady at reception told us to hunt for pictures and signs during our visit because there was a reward for finding them!

The part of Strawberry Land that we visited next was like a fairy tale village, with strawberries and strawberry fairies added to all the fairy tales! Because of the rain, there were also mud puddles!  We had a good time exploring, but almost everybody got a little muddy!

When we got hungry, we went to the café to have fresh strawberry desserts for lunch.  They were all yummy!  Then it was time to go to the strawberry fields to pick strawberries to take home!  We had to taste some, just to make sure they were ripe!

When we were done picking, we went to the playground.  We almost forgot about the rewards for finding the pictures and signs!  Anna’s big sister was really good at finding them all, so we all won rewards.  Look what they were!  More strawberries and marshmallows!  The mommies won strawberry plants, too!  Then it was time to go back to Brunssum.  Thomas and James fell asleep in the car!

Friday night we had pancakes with strawberries for dinner.  Dutch people serve pancakes for meals other than breakfast, and I think that’s a good idea!  After James and Thomas went to bed, Grandma and Grandpa and Aunt Kara and Uncle Steven played Settlers of Catan.  Uncle Steven likes to play that game whenever there are enough people around to do so!

On Saturday, it was rainy again!  Uncle Steven copied Grandma and Grandpa’s Norway photos so he had them on his computer, too.  Grandpa checked us in for our flight back to the United States.  Grandma made sticky buns and Thomas helped her roll out the dough. Aunt Kara made frozen smoothies with mangos and coconut milk and Thomas couldn’t wait for them to freeze before he tried them.  It was a good afternoon for Aunt Kara to use her iPad on the balcony!  For dinner, Aunt Kara made pizzas.  The pizza pans are too big for the oven in the kitchen, so Uncle Steven baked them on the grill.  They were yummy!

After dinner, the sun finally came out!  James and Thomas and I went for a walk with Grandma and Aunt Kara.  Guess what?  The sheep herd was back on the hillside next to the house!  Grandma says they’re the municipal lawn mowing crew, because they graze the tall grass down, then move on to another area.  Aunt Kara figured out what weeds the sheep really like to eat, and everybody took turns feeding them.

We had a very pretty sunset on Saturday.  On Sunday morning, we had to get up very early to go to the Brussels airport for our flight back to the United States.  I’m glad there were fresh-baked sticky buns for breakfast first!  Then Anna’s family gave us a ride to the airport, because they were going on the same plane we were!  It was a little scary going into the airport, because there were soldiers with machine guns at the entrance.  We got to our plane with plenty of time and had a good flight back to Washington DC.  We even had ginger ice cream for lunch!

Now we’re back in Rochester.  Grandma woke up very early this morning because her body still thinks she is in Europe!  It’s hot here, too, but tomorrow is supposed to be cooler.  Maybe Grandpa and I will work on the deck railing after he mows the lawn at Sodus!  We have lots of getting ready to do, because James and Thomas and Aunt Kara are coming here next week.  And after that, Uncle David and Bill-kun and Karin-chan are coming, too!

Love,

Lion-san