Grand Place Ice Skating

The local city of Mons holds a Christmas market during December. They turn the center of the Grand Place into an ice skating rink. After attending a local Winter Festival and seeing Santa and Mrs Claus. During the festival there were folks dressed up like tree nymphs and they were dancing to music. It was a lot of fun. We got to go ice skating the next evening. We had a great time showing off our skating moves. The kids did a great job and the lights on the buildings and trees were a nice backdrop to the occasion.

Saint Nicholas Day

One of the joys of living in new places is adopting local customs and holidays. Belgium (along with most of Europe) celebrates Saint Nicholas Day on the evening of December 5th. The tradition is that children leave their shoes by the fireplace or doorway in the hopes that Saint Nicholas will fill their shoes with candy and toys. Good thing for Buffy and her big feet and all. Saint Nicholas was originally from Turkey and delivered good things to children. In Belgium he travels around the countryside with his helper and a mule. Apparently if you are a bad child the helper whips you for your bad deeds. This gives you a few weeks before Christmas to straighten out your act so that maybe Santa Claus will bring you something. This year both Emilie and Tori were good and Saint Nicholas came to our house and left some treats and toys for them. It was a great experience for our first month in Belgium and the girls were very excited about his visit.

Maison Zukowski

We found a house in a neighboring town to the base. It's a hundred plus year old farm house in front of a sausage factory. The landlords own the business and are great folks. Here is the inside of the house before we move our stuff in.

Armistice Day Ypres Belgium

The Eleventh Hour of the Eleventh Day of the Eleventh Month (89 years later) Yesterday we did our first driving trip while here. We drove over to Ypres (Leper in Flemish) in West Flanders. In Ypres there is a monument to the British soldiers who went through this town on their way to the front during World War One. The monument was built and completed ten years after the war and has held a "Last Post" ceremony every day since. The "Last Post" is the British "Taps" that is played when a soldier gets buried. To date this ceremony has proceeded non-stop for 27,200 times. The local Ypres fire department provides the buglers. The monument has the names of 58,000+ people who's bodies were never found. The town held a parade and ceremony at the Menin Gate which commenced at 11am. There were a few speaches and prayers said for the fallen and then at the conclusion of the ceremony they dropped poppy flowers into the monument. We stood in the off and on rain for the ceremony and at the completion of it the sun broke through the clouds and the day became a beautiful fall day. We then went and had a nice lunch at a cafe in the Grande Plaza of Ypres. After that we took a walk to a WWI cemetery. Tori was asking about the Belgian chocolates and kept bugging us for some so we hit a local chocolate shop and she proceeded to pick out gummy candy for her treat. The chocolate was wonderful. We then headed home with another quick stop along the way. We drove into France for a drive by of my Grandmother's home town. She was born in Halluin France which borders Menen Belgium (when I say borders you literally are at on the street and at the street light there is a sign that says Halluin on it. So the town is divided by two countries and the line is right down the middle. I plan on taking a trip back to Halluin when we don't have the kids and I can go cemetary searching for long forgotten releatives. Overall it was a great first adventure and to make it all the better Buffy had a great reaction to the whole trip. First she wasn't all that excited to go to Ypres (thinking it was one of my WWI battlesites that she would be bored at) so as we drove into West Vlaaderland (West Flanders in English) she tried to read the sign. When I said that we were in Flanders she almost hit me. Well in Canada there is a famous poem called "In Flanders Field" writen by a Doctor during the Great War. She has it memorized and was almost in tears that we were going there. Then we crossed into France, well she had used her passport as collateral for the GPS unit we were using to navigate with. We don't need a passport here in Belgium but in France we are required to carry it. Thankfully the old border gates are empty and we didn't get pulled over by the police. So I definitely had fun with that one. I had heard that the old gates were vacant but didn't let on to Buffy. So in the end it was a great trip. Now on to finding a house.

Bienvenue a Belgium

We arrived in Belgium yesterday morning to complete our final leg of our move. The flight left Newark the evening of the 4th and arrived 7.5 hours later in Bruxelles (Brussels). Our sponsor met us at the airport and we rode down to SHAPE to begin our adventure. It was nice to see a big smile on Buff's face when the driver spoke French to her. She bumbled a bit but was able to recall her 13 years of French schooling and communicate back. I only picked up that Canada gets a lot of snow and that Belgium gets a little. It was nice to see her working her memory to be able to communicate. The area is beautiful and reminds me a lot of Ontario Canada with its flat terrain, farm fields and fall colors. All we basically did yesterday was to check in to our hotel room and start the base check in procedures. We were able to get the girls registered at school and they will begin Wednesday morning. Thanks to Buff's work while in Japan the registration went very smoothly. The only snag was that we arrived after 1300 and that delayed the first day for the girls by one day. So we'll go to school orientation the Wednesday morning and then the girls get to be introduced to their classes. Very exciting. I got to drive our new car yesterday. It arrived before we got here and we got all of our paperwork in order so that we can temporarily drive it. Today we will continue checking in and start our house hunting experience. Friends of ours who just arrived two weeks ago were able to find a house and are moving in later this week or early next week. They had positive things to say about the prospects. Now it's just a matter of putting in the miles and seeing what's out there. Wish us luck. I'll keep you posted on our progress and let you know how life is in Belgium. Thanks to all of the family and friends for your support in our move.

Sayonara Japan

While at the Lodge on our last morning a group of our friends from our neighborhood arrived to send us off. Wow, amazing. It really was great to see them there all sending us off. It was the best way to start a journey of such great lengths. After almost missing the bus (I love you Buffy but we had a bus to catch) due to goodbyes we made the 1 1/2 hour drive to the airport. After checking in and getting a quick lunch we arrived back at the terminal at check-in time, 1300 for a 1530 departure. So we all got to sit in a large room with nothing to do for 2 1/2 hours. Since there was a lot of shopping and eating places at the airport it wasn't too bad. NOT, we were locked in a room waiting for our departure. Good times. We did get airborne on time and were going to arrive in Seattle a bit early which is always nice to hear. The flight wasn't too bad except the no running water, no audio on the movie or music and electrical problems all flight. So the 7 1/2 hour flight landed early with no major issues. Then about a half hour into waiting for our bags we get the call that the airplane can't open it's cargo doors and can't get our bags out. Well 2 1/2 hours click by (so much for the 3 1/2 hour lay over time) before the first bags arrive. Of course there were two people unloading bags onto the conveyor. And as if the process wasn't painful enough the conveyor stopped and we still didn't have any of our bags. As well as about a third of the flight. So when we finally got our bags (a little more pissed than when I started the process) we had 40 minutes until the next take off to get through customs, security, inter-airport shuttle and to our gate. Not looking so good for the jet-lagged clan. So after a nice OJ Simpson sprint through the airport we made it to our gate with a minute to spare. Now the big question was if our bags did the same sprint. Not really counting on that one. The next flight was a Delta flight and was normal air transportation. We made our connecting flight in Cincinnati and arrived at our final destination a little early. My sister greeted the weary travelers with a nice "Griswald's" sign and then we drove home to her house. So after 27 1/2 hours of traveling we made it safe and sound. Oh our bags somehow made the flights and they got here too. It's good to have that part of the trip over with. Thanks again Navy travel and all of the joy that we got to experience in our journey. I guess everyone needs something to bitch at and if it isn't your travel plans than what would it be?