October is almost over. Boo.

It's been a couple of weeks again since my last update, so I thought it was about time to update everyone on our latest doings and how things are going.  Things have been busy in our little household, and now that fall is here, we can enjoy all the fun things fall has to offer!  Unfortunately the weather has been all over the place--very sunny warm, cloudy and cold, rainy, typical Virginia weather.  It has messed with Ine's head a little bit.  But as the old saying goes, "If you don't like the weather now, just wait 5 minutes."  So true this fall!

Dodo thinks Ine is OK.  Cuckoo is unsure.

We were still kind of settling in as a family during my last update.  In the last week or so, I'm not sure what it is, but I feel like everyone has gotten used to the new routine, we've all settled in, and we feel more cohesive as a family.  It is a great feeling.  We are no longer 3 people sharing a building, but instead are 3 people who are creating a little multicultural family.  I am more at ease with Ine and I think she is more at ease with me.  As you can see from the picture, even Dodo is relaxing around Ine now!  We spend most evenings together, usually watching television or sharing stories.  I have introduced her to Twin Peaks and The X Files in honor of Halloween, and we watched House Hunters International when they went to Belgium.  She was able to use it to talk about some of the cultural differences in behavior between Americans and Belgians, and especially personality-wise, it helps to understand perhaps why Americans act the way they do and how radically different that is from Belgians.  I asked Ine if she thought there was a European culture that was very boisterous and free flowing with their emotions and we agreed on Italy.  But Belgians tend to be quite a bit more reserved, as a rule, so I felt we had a really good conversation about that. 

Ine swimming at the local pool

Our routine these days revolves around weekdays and weekends.  Usually I have to drop Ine off at school first, and then get home and take Leah to the bus stop.  In the afternoons, I pick Ine up and then go get Leah from the bus stop.  Tuesdays are our busiest night, so we have instituted "Take Out Tuesday", which is the one night a week we get food from a local restaurant.  Usually Leah has an appointment at 5:15 and I have choir practice at 7:00, so we are rushing to squeeze in dinner between those two appointments.  Very shortly, we will have to add in picking up Ine from swim practice, which will be another little wrinkle!  But for the time being, it's quite satisfactory.  We have enjoyed McDonald's and Chinese take out, and tonight I think we will do pizza.  Every other Thursday, Leah has to go get her hair done, which requires a whole lot of effort in driving to Stafford and listening to her scream her head off, so now I take Ine to the pool during that time so she can swim and I can escape the unhappiness.  On the weekends, I try to plan one super-fun thing to do.  We have done so many of those, which I have blogged about, and what with Ine's school activities and things I have planned, as well as Leah's swim lessons, and on Sundays we go to church, we are VERY busy on the weekends.  Belgian society tends to be quite secular, so going to church is a major change for Ine.  I let her off sometimes--the weekend of homecoming I let her sleep in, and this past weekend I had to be there early for choir and didn't make her go, but she has so far gone uncomplainingly and I'm glad, as it's another chance to meet people and make friends.  I always feel very proud of her for going.

One of the first signs of fall is apples.  Ine and Leah are both devoted apple eaters, and I get a huge bag every couple of weeks when I grocery shop.  They never last long.  So while I had a new bag, I decided to teach the girls to make pie.  On a recent shopping expedition with my mom, we found an apple peeler-corer device that I thought the girls would have fun using, and I set them to work peeling and coring apples as a joint activity.  Unfortunately, the suction on the stupid thing wasn't all that great, but the girls managed to peel and core a bunch of apples, plenty enough to make a pie.  We use a crustless pie recipe that my mother-in-law taught me years ago and is just delicious, so this didn't require a lot of effort on anyone's part--we could just have fun.  Since Ine doesn't have a great passion for cooking (despite our viewing countless episodes of Chopped together, which she says only makes her hungry but not inclined to cook anything!), I don't want to overwhelm her with cooking.  I think it was fun though.  Leah was willing to peel and core 50 pounds of apples if Ine had let her, but cooler heads prevailed, and we only got one pie's worth.  Ine gave me a CD of Belgian music as a gift, and we listened to that while we baked.  There was one song on there that Leah dubbed "the pirate song" because I guess it sounds like pirate music (?), and we had to play that one 3 or 4 times before Leah got enough of dancing around the kitchen.  It was quite fun!

Ine's and Leah's first pie: Isn't it a beauty!?

(Left to Right) Ine, Jana, Leah, and Andy at the Demolition Derby

Right after my last blog post, we took Ine and Jana to the Virginia State Fair.  Leah and I had never been, and my friend Andy decided to tag along as well.  It was a gorgeous day, and as the girls had phones with them, we let them go off and have fun on their own for a while before agreeing to meet up at the demolition derby.  The demolition derby is one of those things that I think is uniquely American, and I knew the girls would see a much different crowd than maybe at some of the other events we had been to.  The derby did not disappoint, there was a lot of crashing and smoke and smashing and craziness and both girls admitted they had never seen anything like it.  Frankly, neither had I, it was my first demolition derby as well!  We were cheering hard for the hot pink cars, but ultimately, they came in second and third place.

Jana and Ine watching cars smash into each other in a giant mud pit

After the derby, we turned the girls loose again for a little while and then met up around 8:00 when it was quite cold and we were all ready to go home.  I think Leah was asleep before we left the parking lot.  The girls seemed to enjoy their time there, and seem to have spent a good deal of time eating fair food, all of which was deep fried.  I'm glad they enjoyed it so much!

Ine attended homecoming with Jana and some friends from school.  I'm not entirely sure what she thought of it, she said it was 'interesting' and very different than dances in Belgium.  She showed me a video of the senior class at her high school dancing a group dance, and it was akin to the YMCA or the Macarena, It was set to the aforementioned "Pirate Song" and  looked like fun.  She should teach it to the kids at Fredericksburg Academy in my opinion.  They could do a flash mob for charity or something!

Kathy, me, and Ine

This past weekend, we went to Belvedere Plantation, a local farm which hosts a huge harvest festival each fall.  We took Kathy, my liaison student and a fellow AFSer, with us, so that Ine would have a friend to spend time with.  The harvest festival is a gorgeous time of year and we rented a firepit so we could hav ea picnic and enjoy ourselves.  Some other friends came out and our whole crew was able to run through the corn maze (somehow Kathy and Ine went in Entrance 2 and came out Exit 3, but they had fun doing it!), enjoy running around the farm, playing in hay, riding slides, and of course picking pumpkins.  At the end of the day, I let Ine and Leah each get a pumpkin so we can carve them for Halloween next week.  Leah was on a mission to find the biggest pumpkin ever, and eventually decided on a nice 33 pounder.  Ine selected a slightly smaller 21 pound model.  They are both quite huge for pumpkins.  So I expect we will have quite a mess when we go to carve them, but that is half the fun.  I got the girls a book of pumpkin stencils in case they want to make a fancy design, or they can just carve faces in them if they want.  Happily, Andy came along to the farm and performed a feat of strength--the pumpkins were all you could carry for $30, so he lifted those two pumpkins AND my niece's 37 pound pumpkin and we got them all for half price.  I wish I had gotten a picture, it was quite impressive!

Last night, Ine and I went out to a local burger restaurant, Red Robin, for dinner with the UU Women's Group.  Our church has a wonderful sense of community and newcomers are always warmly welcomed.  I started going to the women's group last spring and had to stop when I had my surgery, but I'd been wanting to go back for a while.  Bringing Ine was a good excuse.  Everyone had many, many questions for her, and she did an admirable job trying to keep up with them all and answering them.

Ine and the UU Women's Group

So that's all we've been doing for now.  Somehow the days are just flying by.  I'm grateful for the fun things we are doing together, and for the quiet times we spend together--it is nice when Ine shows me pictures, talks about her family, teaches me about Belgium, or I can do the same with her.  I am enjoying board game nights at the dinner table, as is Leah, who is suddenly taking  more of an interest in her 'big sister'.  She hugs Ine regularly now and has even called her by name 2 or 3 times, which is pretty good considering for a while poor Ine was "that girl who lives upstairs".  We also take walks every night after dinner, which lets us stretch, get out of the house, and work off our food.  These walks are generally filled with lots of giggling--Leah gives us LOTS of directions about how fast to go, where to turn, what to look for, and Ine gamely plays along and laughs when I try to run or slow down or give Leah crazy directions.  I treasure our evening walks and dread when the weather turns cold and we are stuck inside.  Ine is a good eater--she has not complained about anything I've cooked so far, although when I suggested we might order pizza for dinner tonight she did kind of laugh and roll her eyes a bit--I think maybe we pizza'ed her too much in the beginning!! 

Oh, and I almost forgot, I took Ine to her first movie experience here in the US, we saw Gone Girl.  I had read the book and was totally infuriated by it, so since my friend Amber dragged me to see The Fault In Our Stars which made me cry for 2 solid hours, I told her we were going to see Gone Girl.  Ine was collateral damage on that one!  I don't know really what she thought of it, but I suspect she is more looking forward to the new Hunger Games movie, which is coming out in just a few weeks.  I am excited for it too.

Ine's midterm grades came out and I was pleased to see the comments from her teachers.  Some of my favorites were:

"Ina [sic] is a wonderful addition to our French class. In oral work, Ina has a beautiful accent...She appears to enjoy the class...[and] has fit into this level well" --French IV

"Although Ine has not been in class for long she seems to have adapted well"  --Spanish III

"Ine takes my direction very well and is willing to take risks and step outside the box, which will benefit her greatly on the stage. I look forward to seeing her perform once we’ve established our final performance date." --Acting Ensemble

She has dropped chemistry, saying it was too easy, and has picked up statistics.

We also met with her liaison and there were no reports from my side that we needed to change anything, and I didn't hear from the liaison that Ine is unhappy in any way, so thus far, I think things are going along swimmingly.

This weekend she will be off at a drama convention with her class and we have a potluck luncheon at church on Sunday.  The following week, we will be hosting an organizational meeting of AFS Fredericksburg, which I am trying to get started.  I am so excited by the number of volunteers I have heard from and people interested in getting involved, which is just amazing.  We will be participating in the Fredericksburg Zombie Walk, and our travel plans to New York City have been firmed up.  And let's not forget Ine's first major holidays are upcoming: Halloween and Thanksgiving.  So life is looking great.  See you all in a couple of weeks!

A Quick Post About Belgium Vs. Virginia

Ine and I were sitting around the other night and we were talking about how a friend of mine didn't know where Belgium was, so we had looked at a map to find it and she remarked about how small it was.  I asked Ine if she knew the actual geographic size of Belgium, and she said she didn't.  So we decided to look it up.  Then we looked up Virginia's actual size.  Then we discussed the population of each one.  Here's what we discovered:

Belgium: 11,787 square miles
Virginia: 42,774 square miles

Belgium: 11.2 million people
Virginia: 8.2 million people

So Belgium has crammed 3 million more people into one quarter the geographic space we have in Virginia!

We talked about an exchange student from Germany my family hosted in the 90's and how we drove to my grandparents' house, which took about 9 hours and how that girl said she could have been in 4 different countries in that amount of time, and Ine laughed and agreed that was true.  On that drive, we only crossed into one other state!

Before Ine arrived, I read that Belgium has the worst traffic in Europe.  You can read the article here.  Here in the greater Washington DC area, we have the worst congestion in the US.  You can read the article here. 

Yesterday was a big day in Belgium as a new government coalition was formed.  You can read about it here.  It took them 4 months to form a government.  I remarked to Ine, "Oh, that seems like it took quite a long time!" and she told me that it isn't that long for Belgian politics.  And indeed, according to the article, it took a year and a half to form the previous government!  So I guess 4 months isn't that bad.  By contrast, our only recent example, Bush vs. Gore in 2000, took only about a month to be resolved.

More Excitement

It's been almost 2 more weeks since I last posted.  We have been so busy.  Things with Ine have been getting better each and every day, as she becomes more at home here and at school.  It has been gratifying to watch as a host parent and to know that she is growing into her experience despite typical adjustment issues in the beginning.

The day after my last post ended, I decided to take Leah and Ine to Westmoreland State Park.  We had the most beautiful weather in September, and Westmoreland's beach is something I have heard a great deal about from many local friends. I was trying to get Ine out of the house and away from her phone a little bit, so this seemed like a good choice of activity.  Leah is a water-baby, and could happily live at the beach (as could I) so it was settled.  We went to church that morning, then packed a picnic, and headed out.  It was the perfect day for it--blue skies, great temperatures, a good bit of sun.  We set up our little area on the sand and Leah had fun in the water while Ine and I relaxed in our chairs (I may have dozed off several times).  Not being used to Virginia's sun, Ine got quite sunburned, but she recovered nicely.  We took a leisurely walk as far as the park would allow us, and Leah picked up lots of feathers on the way, which she happily stowed in her feather jar when we got home.  We didn't find any sharks teeth, however, which is apparently what Westmoreland is famous for, so I was kind of disappointed about that!  It was a lovely, relaxing afternoon, however.

When last I blogged, we were looking forward to going to see Frozen on Ice.  We drove down to Richmond after an early dinner at home and had no problem finding the Coliseum or procuring parking.  Ine knew we were going, but I kept it a secret from Leah, so when we arrived, she was so powerfully excited.  We had nice seats from which to view the show, the bottom tier back row dead center along the side where we could see the entire performance just fine.  It started out with a Disney on Ice welcome--lots of princesses skating around including Leah's favorite Cinderella and my favorite, Rapunzel.  Then the show kicked off and we got to see most of the movie performed by ice skaters.  It was a wonderful show--Disney doesn't mess around!  They used the soundtrack and dialogue from the movie, so the skaters were lip synching the entire time, but it was wonderful.  The wolves were scary, as was the snow monster, but Olaf was as fun as he always is, Anna and Elsa and Kristoff were great, Prince Hans dastardly, the Duke of Weaseltown had his hair flipping around.  All the fun of the movie was brought to life.  It was a great deal of fun and I was glad to get to take the girls, who were entranced and enjoyed the whole thing.  And of course, "Let It Go" was a real showstopper.

The princesses enjoying the show

It was a quiet week thereafter--filled with school activities, I had choir practice, and such.  The following weekend, Ine had AFS's post-arrival orientation.  We tried to work out ridesharing with the two other families in Fredericksburg, which worked out OK.  One other family was going out of town, so I took on their student for the weekend.  We enjoyed having Jana from Germany with us for a couple of days.  And the other family was the family of the student I am the liaison to--Kathy from Germany--and they did the driving up on Friday, while I drove the girls home on Saturday. 

Because I had concerns over how Ine was responding to our family and not really seeming to be very happy, AFS spoke with her during the orientation period, which seemed to help.  She started coming out of her room and out of her shell a bit more, which I noticed almost as soon as I picked her up on Saturday.  This made me quite relieved, as I knew she was shy, but she had been SO quiet, really too quiet.  Having other teenagers around helped too. 

After the orientation, there was a birthday party for one of the AFSers so I picked the girls up there and drove them back to Fredericksburg.  It was fun to see the kids in action as a group, I really think they have a wonderful group of kids this year.  In past years when I would pick up my student, they were huddled together by country, sharing their language and not really intermingling at all.  This group was all speaking English, all talking together, hanging out together, and having a grand time.  They are in contact a lot, coming up with plans for weekends, and I think they will have a great year, despite being spread across Virginia.  They will get together again in December for an international students Christmas dinner, and they have a mid-stay orientation in February, I think.  And they are trying to work out a time to go to Kings Dominion for the Halloween fright festival.  So we'll see if that happens.

Ine and Jana at the Natural Bridge formation

Sunday, we still had Jana with us, but Leah was staying at my sister's, so I decided to take the girls up into the Blue Ridge Mountains, out to Luray to see the Luray Caverns.  This is one of my favorite day trips, and as long as I host exchange students, I expect I will go once a year to Luray.  I have also taken my niece and nephews out there and they have loved it, and it's a surefire hit of a trip. We left around 9:30, skipping church which I was OK with, and made it out to Luray around 11.  It was a fun trip driving up and down the mountain and showing the girls rural Virginia. Jana had heard of the Blue Ridge Mountains via John Denver. So that was fun.  The last couple of times I'd been to the caverns, they did away with the guided tours and just had interpreters stationed at various spots along the path, but this goround, the guides were back.  We were in a rowdy group with a lot of international tourists who I don't think spoke much English--Russians, Indians, and some others--so our guide didn't get a whole lot of respect.  He did his best, but people were really not listening.    But I enjoyed the tour anyway, as did the girls.

This week, we have worked hard on bonding more as a family.  I was concerned a bit that Leah and Ine weren't bonding better--obviously they are not going to be best friends given that there is 13 years between them, but neither one was very interested in the other.  I never really thought about Leah's adjustment during this process, I just sort of assumed that given she likes everyone, she would be ok with a new person in the house.  But now that she is older, it is definitely harder on her not to be the star of the show all the time.  I gained some encouragement from Ine's mom as well, so I tried to think of some ways that we could do things as a family and have some fun.  Ultimately, for some reason, I hit on board games at dinner, but I wanted something non-competitive that wouldn't make it so Leah felt the need to cheat and rig the game to her advantage like she normally does--the kid HATES to lose.  For some reason, Jenga game to mind and I picked up a set while shopping.

I haven't played Jenga in forever and as far as I know, Leah has never played.  Ine has played it before and enjoyed it, so I let her and Leah set up the game while I made dinner and then Ine and I taught Leah how to play.  We played twice--Leah knocked over the tower the first time, but not before we got it pretty high, and I knocked it over the second time, which crowned Ine the Jenga champion of the day.    It was  lot of fun and we had a lot of laughs while we played, so I think it was a good idea.  We won't do it all the time, but it was fun nonetheless.  I'm looking forward to another family game night the next time we all sit together for dinner!

After dinner, Ine brought out some presents for Leah--she had gotten her an apron, chefs hat, and backpack at a fairy tale park in the Netherlands that is akin to DisneyWorld.  They all have the same princess on them.  Leah fell hard and fast in love with the goodies, and really that was all she needed to turn it around.  Ine is now her best friend again. haha  After that we went for a walk around the neighborhood and Leah wore the hat on our excursion.  She was quite a sight to see, rolling down the hill on her pink scooter with her pink hat!!!  She also traded in her old Disney Princess backpack for the new bag Ine gave her and is using that for school.  She is extremely disappointed that no one has noticed her new bag, however.  So when I took her into school on Friday, she made darned sure that her teacher admired it!!!  Which cracked me up.

Thursday night there was a party for the international students at Fredericksburg Academy.  It was hosted at one of the host family's houses here in town, and the international students and their host families all came to enjoy each other's company and get to know each other better.  The house was lovely and they had a barbeque for everyone to enjoy.  They had a bocci ball set, so Leah decided that Ine and Jana and I would play and she would be the referee.  There were other young children there, so it didn't go that well, as the balls kept getting swiped and disappearing, but we managed to play for a while before Ine and Jana took off to play basketball with Jana's host father.

We had a lovely dinner and I sat and visited with Jana's hostmom, Karen, who is taking the girls dress shopping for Homecoming today.  We were able to compare hosting notes and discuss how everything is going and enjoy a meal together. I really like their family, and it is a great resource for families--we get an orientation before the kids arrive, and then we are left to our own devices to figure it out after that.  Of course we have AFS and our liaison we can contact at any time, but it's nice to sit with the other families and connect and talk. 

Mastering the paper cutter

When we got home, we had to put together a "Tricky Tray" for Leah's school's fall festival.  Each class contributed materials for the trays, and as PTA representative for Leah's class, I got to work with her teacher to put the materials together.  We had the girls bring in Frozen goodies and the boys bring in action figure goodies, and with that, we put the boxes together.  Mrs. Allen had the Frozen box assembled and gave me the action figure stuff, so I put Ine to work and we put together a really nice box.  She got to use a paper cutter and a glue stick, and I got to give directions.  We agreed when we saw all the baskets that ours stood out from the rest. 

Ine had yesterday off school, and spent much of the day working on homework, while I was out and about meeting friends for my morning walk, going to the dump, and following up with my surgeon.  When I got home, I put Ine in the car and we went to see about getting her a cell phone that she can use to call or text me or her local friends.  I agreed to spring for the phone and the first month's service, and after that it is up to her, and we didn't want to spend a whole lot of money doing it.  Ultimately, we went through several different plans until we came up with an AT&T plan that will allow her to do unlimited texting plus 250 minutes of calling for $25 per month.  She didn't want a separate phone from her iPhone, so we decided to buy a Sim Card and I'm proud to say we got it working and I was able to text her and she was able to text me back, so I have to believe it is working.  We put her sim card from Belgium away someplace safe so that it doesn't get lost and now she has her phone connected to WiFi for data, but connected to AT&T for texting and calls, so she's in good shape.  It is a relief given that she is starting to go out on her own more and I would like to have a basic way to get ahold of her and know when she's coming home, so this works out well for everyone.

Last night, we had Leah's school fall festival.  We headed over at 5:00 and it was a gorgeous night, just warm but not too hot, breezy, sunny, and lovely.  Leah had a great time seeing her friends, playing games, winning prizes, and doing little art projects.  Afterwards we went into the cafeteria and had dinner--they had either hot dogs or nachos and then I decided to have a little fun with Ine.  When I was in London last month, my friend and I bought a bunch of different kinds of junk food and had a taste test.  The PTA at this festival had bought a bunch of bizarre flavors of potato chips, so I got one bag of each and we had our own little taste test.  We tried ketchup, creamy dill pickle, onion, buffalo and blue cheese, and red hots. 

Ine trying a buffalo and blue cheese curl

I was hard pressed to choose a flavor that I thought was good, but Ine was more complimentary about the flavors.  We had some good laughs.  She said she could probably eat one of the cheese curls every 10 minutes.  I didn't like the ketchup at all.  The red hots were ok.  But Ine and Leah seemed to like all the flavors well enough.  We saved a bunch for the car ride...

...because I figured after spending 2 hours at the elementary school, Ine needed a happy adventure as well.  So I decided to take her on my infamous night time tour of DC.  We drove up around 7pm and arrived in DC at 8, smooth sailing.  I started out at the US Capitol building, the dome of which is unfortunately being refurbished so is under scaffolding.

As you can see, Leah has now decided that she likes Ine and she is going to be in every picture and hold her hand.  Which makes my heart very happy. 

After we left the Capitol, we went to the World War II Memorial.  It is just a gorgeous memorial and a quick walk to the Lincoln Memorial along the reflecting pool, which lies between.  My plan was for us to do the typical stroll through the park between the two, climb the Lincoln, and then head back to the car, go to the FDR and MLK memorials and head home.

Unfortunately, as soon as we got to the WWII Memorial, it started POURING rain.  It held off long enough that I could get a halfway decent picture of Ine in front of the Virginia column, so she is now an official Virginian, but you can see, her coat is already zipped up, and we were expecting the worst.  That morning, I had been out walking with friends and it had started to sprinkle, and we kept walking, so if it was just a sprinkle, I'd have said, "Oh well, we won't die", but this was a really good, heavy rain.  Leah was whining about it, so we got back in the car and drove to the Lincoln Memorial, which is something of an affront to my tourism sensibilities, but a mom's gotta do what a mom's gotta do.  I asked Leah and Ine where they had seen the Lincoln Memorial before, but neither one could tell me it was on the back of the Penny.  Then I asked them if they knew what Abraham Lincoln was famous for, but neither one could tell me that either.  So I gave them a brief history lesson and then we decided to part ways--Ine wanted to take the stairs up but Leah was afraid it would be too slippery and opted for the elevator.  We met inside the statuary chamber for another picture.

After that, I decided we would just come back another night for the other memorials.  Right near the Lincoln Memorial are the Korean War Veterans Memorial, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, Independence Island, and the WWI Memorial, but we really couldn't get to any of them in the rain--the stone is very slick and slippery, so I didn't want to chance it.  I wanted to also go to the FDR and MLK, as I mentioned, but they are both outside, and I didn't think it would be good timing given the rain.  So we drove home.  Leah was sound asleep within about 2 minutes.  And frankly my butt was dragging--the last 15 miles of that drive were WORK.  I was tired, it was a busy day to say the least. 

So that brings everyone up to speed on where we are today... Things are getting smoother and smoother here, I'm proud of Ine's accomplishments, proud of the fact she is making plans to go out with friends and participate at school, happy she is doing more with Leah and me, and we are enjoying her.  She is a lovely girl.

In the coming weeks, we will venture to NYC, go to the Virginia State Fair, Ine will go to a theater festival, we will enjoy a fall festival at a local farm, and more.  I'm so glad fall is here, it is my favorite time of the year!  I will enjoy sharing it with both girls.