Halloween Weekend

Halloween has turned into something of a big deal here in the United States, although Ine says it is no big deal at all in Belgium.  We took time several nights to drive around and see Halloween displays in certain yards where people really went to town decorating, which she thought was fun, and for Leah it was becoming bigger than Christmas.  I also got both the girls a Halloween bucket of goodies from me.  One of my favorite ways to 'torture' exchange students is to give them Pop Rocks candies, so I was very happy to have found some Pop Rocks while out shopping for Halloween swag.  The night before Halloween, I gave both girls a packet in their buckets and we ate them after dinner.  Hilarity ensued.


Every day Leah would ask "Is it Halloween yet?" or "is tonight the night?" and finally Friday arrived.  She was thrilled!!  I invited my liaison student, Kathy from Germany, to come spend the weekend with us, as I thought it might be nice for Ine to have another teenager around and we had plans for trick or treating Friday, a trip to DC on Saturday, and there was a Native American powwow on Sunday.  I thought it would be great for the girls to experience some Native American culture while they were here. 

Friday after school, I picked everyone up and we had dinner.  Then it was time to get my little Queen Elsa ready for trick or treating.  The girls took an active role in helping her get dressed, and she was very pleased to be pampered by teenagers--particularly since she is five going on 15.  I'm not sure which she was happier about--her gloves that played a few bars of "Let It Go", her glow stick Elsa crown, or the fact that I let her wear eyeshadow for the first time, but she was so pleased by everything.  The girls pampered her appropriately in her mind, and fawned all over her, so she felt very royal indeed!  We started off by meeting our neighbors down the street.  Their two little boys were dressed as Mario and Luigi.  Leah waits with them every day at the bus stop and we have been trick or treating with them almost every year since Leah started trick or treating.  There was a lot of excitement in the air and as porch lights started coming on, the kids were flying up the street.  They did a great job, but excitement overtook the festivities, and unfortunately Leah fell and skinned her knee.  That was the end of trick or treating.  She made it to maybe 6 more houses, and then announced she was too tired and cold to go and she wanted to go home.  So we went home.  After all the excitement, I was pretty surprised that she didn't want to do more, but she did enough, so I wasn't going to complain that I didn't have a half ton of candy sitting around the house!

The next morning, I was trying to decide what to do with the girls.  It was supposed to be cold and rainy and wet, so I was trying to think of indoor activities we could do.  Finally, I decided it would be fun to take them up to DC.  Even though my previous trip to DC was rained out before we could complete it, I was sure we could at least go to the Smithsonian or something if it was really rainy.  Ine and I had talked previously about the Hard Rock Cafe and she said she had never been, so I decided to take them up there for lunch, and then I took advantage of a "locals only" deal for Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum and got us cheap tickets to go in.  The drive up to DC was an absolute dream--little traffic and we were able to park close to the cafe.  Once inside, the host asked where we were from, so I told him the older girls were from Germany and Belgium and that it was all 3 girls' first time inside an HRC.  He took them all over to a 'stage' and handed them guitars and we took some pictures.  They weren't totally impressed with the place, not as I would have hoped, but we had a nice lunch, and now they can say they've been there.

After lunch, we walked just a couple of blocks and found ourselves at Madame Tussaud's.  I learned from a previous adventure there that it was best to just give Leah my iPhone and let her take all the pictures she wanted, so she went crazy posing everyone.  Eventually she calmed down a bit, and we took a few pictures of the girls with famous people.  I was excited to get them with George Washington, the father of our country, and we all posed for a picture with President and Mrs. Obama, which you now have to pay for. I think that's a gyp, back in the day, you could just walk up to them and it was like any other statue, but unfortunately now they are behind ropes and an MT photographer takes your picture.  So we don't have that one.  All the girls enjoyed the celebrity room and had fun with all the famous people there--Brangelina, Katy Perry, Tyra Banks, Beyonce, and more.  I was happy to see the new Stephen Colbert, which I didn't know existed, but where is Jon Stewart!?

Afterwards, since the weather was holding--at most a mild sprinkle here or there--I decided to try the National Mall again.  I drove over and parked at the WWII Memorial as usual and got the requisite picture of Kathy at the Virginia post.  We didn't spend too much time there, as Kathy and I had spoken about WWII a couple of times and her opinion that everyone thinks all Germans are Nazis.  In fact, AFS began its student exchange programs after WWII to help promote peace and understanding.  So it led to some interesting discussions, to say the least.  Anyway, I gave the girls the full National Mall tour on the lower end--we walked over to see Independence Island and I showed them all the signatures of the Declaration of Independence (they were more impressed by the geese), the Vietnam Veterans Memorial (aka The Wall) (they were more impressed by the squirrels), and finally the Lincoln Memorial, which Kathy knew as "that thing with the giant guy sitting inside".

Then we walked down the other side to the Korean War Veterans Memorial and back to the WWII Memorial where we hopped in the car and drove down to the FDR and MLK Memorials.  This is a lovely walk because it is on the Tidal Basin, so there are lots of water views.  The FDR Memorial is my favorite because there are tons of different fountains and everything is amazing.  There are some great statues as well, so I got the girls to pose with the breadline statue that symbolizes the Great Depression, and then we got back in the car and returned home for pizza and sleeping.

Sunday morning, we all went to church and then tried to go to the powwow, but unfortunately it had been canceled due to the weather!  So I took Kathy home and we spent the rest of the day relaxing.  It was a remembrance day in Belgium, so Ine was a little blue, missing her family and whatnot.

On Monday evening was the main event I had been waiting for, my just reward for dealing with Halloween:  going to see Richard Marx in concert!!  Richard Marx was one of my favorite singers when I was a teenager, and about a week after Ine got here, we found out he was coming to do a concert in Virginia.  I asked her if she would like to go and her response was "I don't know", which I took to mean "yes".  Monday after school, a babysitter arrived to take care of Leah and we headed up to Birchmere in Alexandria.  I had never been to Birchmere before, so it was a new experience, and not really one I'd be all that keen to repeat--it's not a great concert venue.We met up with my friend Andy and split a plate of nachos, which were AWFUL, and expensive bottles of water.  But the show was absolutely amazing.I was transported to my teenage years again as Richard sang lots of his old stuff and some of the new stuff.  It was just great.  I asked Ine afterwards if she liked it and she replied "yes, a lot" which is the most enthusiasm I'd heard from her about anything, so I figure it must have been pretty good! :-)

Ine and I are waiting impatiently for nachos and Richard!

It's fun to share this stuff with an older child--Leah will go to concerts because she likes to dance, but generally as it gets late, she gets bored and she doesn't like the noise.  It was fun to go with Ine and sing and have fun.  In December, we'll all be going up to Baltimore to see The Fresh Beat Band live in concert.  The Fresh Beat Band is a kids' rock band and they have been extremely kind to Leah and me since my husband died, so we will go backstage to see them.  This will allow Ine the chance to go backstage at a concert, which I don't know if she has ever done before.  But she'll get the backstage pass to wear and the whole nine yards.  So I think that will be fun--VIP swagger!

So that was our busy Halloween weekend.  The next day was Election Day here, so I took Ine with me to see how the polls are run in Virginia--I can't say in the US because it seems like they are different all over the country.  She remarked that they are very different here than in Belgium.  At least according to movies she has seen, there are big booths with curtains in Belgium, whereas here, we had a table that had partitions around 3 sides, we just stood there, I filled in the bubbles for the candidates I wanted to vote for, and we put the ballot in the machine.

It is fun to share the highlights of our exchange with everyone, but of course, there is always the day-to-day grind of school and housework and homework and quiet nights.  Ine recently revealed that she likes to do jigsaw puzzles, so we completed the below puzzle last week.  it was 1000 pieces and when she first saw it, she said, "I meant I like to do easy puzzles" and laughed, but honestly, she did about 85 percent of that puzzle on her own.  She's like an Olympian of puzzling. It was fun for me because generally I don't do these on my own and my mom and sister and I never have the time at the same time without piles of small children running around getting into things.  A lady at church gave us another puzzle to work on and I gave Ine one for Halloween, although after this, a 300 piece and a 550 piece puzzle should be a snap!

So it is a peaceful and quiet house, which is how I like it, and I've been able to relax and Ine has been blossoming and enjoying her time here.  This week she starts on the swim team, which means lots of late practices and yelling in the stands and my family plans to get together for her first swim meet in a couple of weeks.  My sister has dubbed her The Belgian Bullet and we intend to fly flags and make signs and get the younger children to yell and cheer for Ine.  She'll probably be so embarrassed she won't leave the pool.  But isn't that the perk of parenting teens?  Embarrassing them? :-)  Next weekend she will go see a Wizards game in DC with her school, and then we have a weekend off before Thanksgiving and all the fun and games of a uniquely American holiday.  I am looking forward to having my family together, cooking and baking, Black Friday shopping, and Ine will get to meet my dad!

My next update will detail our trip to NYC, but honestly I still need a couple of days to recover from that one--I'm still exhausted... Still, Ine wanted to see NY and I made darned sure she saw it.  We had a great time.  Stay tuned!