A week with James and Thomas!

Hi, everyone!

Last Sunday, after our week in Italy, Grandma and Grandpa and I flew from Milan Italy  to Brussels Belgium.  I got to see the Alps again from the airplane!  Uncle Steven picked us up and took us to Brunssum to stay with his family for the week.  When we got there, James and Thomas were both up a tree to greet us.  By the time we got out of the car, Thomas had slipped out of the tree!  He’s just learning how to climb trees and not fall down!  He needed some Mommy hugs before he felt better.  Then he and James showed us the new Lego sets they were building.

James and Thomas and their mommy and daddy were on a trip to Spain and Morocco while Grandma and Grandpa and I were in Italy.  Since we were all tired from traveling, we took a nap together.  Then we had a snack of fresh strawberries and did some more Lego building.  After dinner, we had a chocolate cake to celebrate Fathers Day.  The cake was yummy!

On Monday, Grandma  and I got to go to the school bus stop with James.  It was the next to last day of school for him!  Thomas only goes to school on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and he goes to a different school in the opposite direction from James’ bus stop!

While James was at school, Aunt Kara took Thomas and me and Grandma and Grandpa to Schutterspark.  Schutterspark has a petting zoo, but Thomas was more interested in the toy tractors and the playground.  It was a hot and sunny day, and keeping up with Thomas was hard for a little lion!

Grandpa pushed Thomas and me on the swings!  When it was time to go, Thomas wanted to walk along a log.  Then we found some toy animals to play with, and Thomas practiced milking a pretend goat!

In the afternoon, when James got off the school bus, Aunt Kara took us all to the playground on the way home!  There are lots of things there that Thomas has learned to play with since last year!  He can go down the long slide and make the merry-go-round revolve all by himself!  Aunt Kara brought James’ after school snack along for him to eat at the playground.  Then we all went on the round swing together!  Grandma helped James on the zipline, because he isn’t quite tall enough to reach the handle from the platform.  I needed a lot of help!

We were all pretty tired after the playground!  I spent some quiet time catching up with James’ lion.  After dinner we watched a movie.  In summer, it stays light in Brunssum for a long time in the evening.  It was almost 10 p.m. when the sun set — way after my bedtime!

Tuesday was James’ very last day of school!  Grandma and I took him to the bus stop while Aunt Kara took Thomas to Pinocchio school.  Thomas only goes to school for a half day, so I got to go along to pick him up!  Thomas walks or rides in the stroller to get to and from his school.  Most of the way home is a path through the park.  We stopped to play on the playground there!  Then Thomas gave me a ride in his backpack.  Then he got tired and Aunt Kara had to give us both a ride!

It was very hot and dry all the time we were in the Netherlands!  On James’ last day of school, the temperature was over 90 degrees F.!  Aunt Kara had a surprise for James and Thomas — a new wading pool!  Lions don’t like getting wet, so I stayed out of the way while they played.  They had lots of fun splashing and the dry grass got some water!

Sometime between Tuesday and Wednesday, the sun was directly overhead on the most northern spot it reaches during the year.  That is called the summer solstice and marks both the first day of summer and the longest period of daylight for the northern hemisphere.  The farther north  you are, the longer the day!  In Brunssum, there was another very pretty and very late sunset on Tuesday!

Wednesday was the first day of school vacation for James and his friends AND the longest day of the year!  We had an all day adventure with James’ friend Anna and her family.   We all got together at Brunssummerheide, the big nature park.  While we were waiting for Anna’s family, James and Thomas and I climbed up on a big section of downed tree!  Then we went to the playground and had lunch at the park restaurant.  I had a waffle and more fresh strawberries!

After lunch, we went to another park.  It was the barefoot park — no shoes allowed!  There were all sorts of surfaces on the paths to feel with your feet or paws.  Some of them were very prickly!  In a lot of places, there were stepping stones made out of logs or rocks.  Thomas and I don’t have long enough legs to step from one to the next, so Thomas climbed on and off every one!

There’s even a pond at the barefoot park with stepping stones across it.  It’s been so dry in the Netherlands that the pond was partly dried up.  That was a good thing, because Grandma and Aunt Kara could walk next to the stepping stones over the pond and help Anna, Thomas and me step across the biggest gaps.  Everybody made it without falling into the water!

After the pond, we found some places to sit and more sets of stepping stones.  I made some fairy and carved log friends.  Then there was a choice between a mud path and a dry path.  Grandma said I needed to take the dry path!  Near the end, there were steps made from buckets of water.  Then we all had to scrub our feet!  We spent two hours walking in the barefoot park.  James and Thomas were so tired they fell asleep on the way home!

It was still hot on Thursday, so Uncle Steven suggested an indoor activity.  He and James assembled a very big Lego set, working on two sub-assemblies at the same time.  There were 607 assembly steps and it took all day!  The bucket excavator can swivel, move back and forth, and scoop up objects and convey them to a dump truck.  The set even has some spare Legos for the buckets to scoop up!

On Friday, Uncle Steven took Grandma and Grandpa and me for an adventure in two other countries!  We went to the highest point in the Netherlands, which is just across the street from the place where Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands meet.  I crossed two national borders just by posing on three sides of the boundary marker!  While we were there, the flags of all three countries were posted.  There’s a playground, too, so I took a ride down the slide before we left.

Then Uncle Steven drove us to see an abbey in Belgium.  Val-Dieu Abbey was first built in the 13th century.  Now the monks run a brewery and make very good beer!

The gardens at Val-Dieu abbey are very pretty!  They have features designed to remind visitors about Bible stories, like the cavern where the prophet Elijah hid when he was very discouraged.  After we walked in the gardens, we had lunch at the abbey cafe.  Uncle Steven and Grandpa tried the beer, and I got to have Belgian frites!

When we got back to Brunssum, we had a walking adventure!  James had earned a trip to the ice cream store by doing his chores all week, so we all walked there.  Uncle Steven’s family live on a hill, so going home after ice cream meant climbing a big set of steps! I was glad we could have a rest on the hammock when we got home!

For dinner, Uncle Steven and Grandma and Aunt Karen made fresh pasta and turned it into ravioli.  Then they made a lemon cream sauce to serve with it!  It was yummy!  We had more strawberries for dessert.  After dinner, James played Super Mario Brothers, but he needed Uncle Steven’s help for the hard part.

On Saturday, it was time to go home with Grandma and Grandpa.  I made sure to give James and Thomas goodbye hugs.  Uncle Steven drove us back to the airport in Brussels and we flew back to the United States.  I had a very nice nap for most of the flight!

Once we arrived at Dulles airport in Washington DC, we expected to be back in Rochester in time for a late dinner.  Then we heard that the pilot who was supposed to fly the plane to Rochester was stuck at another airport because the plane he was flying broke.  The gate agent said another pilot would be available in two hours and offered us snacks.  Two hours later, that pilot called in sick!  It took another two hours to find a replacement!  We finally got to Rochester four and a half hours after our scheduled arrival!

Grandma says when you fly from east to west, you get jet-advanced, rather than jet-lagged.  Even though we didn’t get to bed until after midnight this morning, we woke up bright and early!  That meant Grandma was up in time to go to church for the first outdoor service of the summer.  I went, too, because there was a blessing for animals as part of the service!  Most of the animals that came to be blessed were dogs, but I saw two deer grazing near the outdoor sanctuary.  I think they wanted to be blessed, too!  Guess what?  Roxanne-san played her saxophone for the service, and that was the guest from France for Peacemakers last summer!  I was happy to receive my blessing after the service.  And I saw Papa Dick-san and gave him a message about high lake levels for my friend Monster Rock!

After church, we came out to Sodus so Grandpa could mow the lawn.  The water level is a little lower, but it still covers our deck.  While we were gone, there was hot weather in Rochester, too!  The basil plants were bolting, so I helped Grandma cut off the straggly parts.

Jet-advance works for getting up early, but it also means I’m sleepy before my usual bedtime!  Goodnight, everybody!

Love,

Lion-san