A week tomorrow we are going home to T.O for the first time in over a year. It has been too long but with so many visitors from home, we have been able to handle it relatively well. There is lots to do to get ready including mundance things like laundry and fun activities like Christmas shopping. I am also looking at the eight hour flight with excitement and some trepidation. If anyone has some really fun activity ideas that I could do with Frunty, please let me know. So far I have:



portable dvd player/earphones with two hour battery and Barney/Teletubbies dvds

modelling clay and press-outs

crayons and colouring book/scrap book

lots of stickers

baby scissors and glue (to cut/paste duty free magazine items for our scrapbook)

story books

Gummi bears for ears

some French childrens' magazines with activities/colouring pages etc.



Any other ideas? Would love to hear them! Thanks.



In the meantime, we are going to Stuttgart for a long weekend to enjoy the Christmas market and we will visit family and friends nearby. Daddy has to work there as well so we have decided to tag along. We kicked off Christmas last weekend with the making of crafts, the drinking of Gluhwein and the listening of carols. We also put our new snowman deckle on the front window. Even though we all have terrible colds (boo hoo!) we are going to have fun anyway.



Hope you're all having fun too as the Christmas season gets underway! Happy 1st Advent too!

Frunty and I got caught in a flash snowstorm today when we went for a little walk. Of course, before and after the walk it was sunny with blue skies! Isn't that often the way! We enjoyed yet another Japanese garage sale nonetheless. I wonder what the weather will be like in Toronto over the holidays. Maybe we'll have a white Christmas. We did last year here in Brussels.



Meanwhile it is cold and rainy for the nonni in New Zealand but they are still having fun and are glad there aren't so many tourists around right now.

The man who removes a mountain begins by carrying away small stones.- William Faulkner

Gramma and Grampa left on Monday after a wonderful two week visit. We took it easy, did a bit of sightseeing and watched some fun movies on our new "big-screen-blast-it-on-the-wall" system. Dad and I had 5 fantastic runs. When we run, we notice that all of a sudden an hour has gone by. When I am alone, 15 minutes feels like forever. We now have a four day weekend and will get ready today to leave tomorrow to go to a resort here in Belgium. Counting the days til Canada!

Today is Rememberance Day and thanks to all those who fought to make Belgian free, especially the Canadians and to our dear great uncle who lost his life here when he was just a boy.

"Fast running burns more calories than slow running, but slow running burns more calories than just about any other activity. In short, nothing will help you lose weight and keep it off the way running does. Besides, it's inexpensive, it's accessible, and, if necessary, it can be done while pushing a stroller."-Traci Conrad-Nicholas, RW marketing designer Runner's World Magazine

We got home last night from a wonderful weekend of fall colours surrounding little villages in the Belgian Ardennes. We even celebrated Halloween with Frunty dressing up as a stripey cat and going trick-or-treating! Can you believe it? The little village of Grupont where we stayed in a 15th century mill, started the tradition of trick-or-treating just three years ago. We didn't expect homes to have carved pumpkins in front and ghost-shaped lights strung up outside their windows but that is just what we found. Thanks to Gramma's lipstick, some crazy striped stockings and a funny, acorn-shaped hat, Frunty had an absolute ball knocking on doors and shouting, "Bon Hallowe'en" and saying, "Merci, au revoir" after receiving candies. We met other trick-or-treaters, namely ghoulish-looking kids and witches. I will put photos soon. Celebrating Halloween was really the highlight and once we got home, we enjoyed a pumpkin-shaped dessert! Some trick-or-treaters even came to the door of our "gite"!



We also visited the caves of Hans-sur-Lesse which are well worth a visit and the town of Bastogne to see a flea market. On the way home yesterday we enjoyed walking around the village of Redu where we ate a nice lunch and visited some bookshop. It almost looked like the Cotswolds. We are very happy that Gramma and Grampa chose a long weekend in the Ardennes because now we have wonderful memories of our time spent there. Hope you all had a happy Hallowe'en too!