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!