"Happiness comes when we stop wailing about the troubles that we have and offer thanks for all of the troubles that we don't have."

I should remind myself of this more often.

These are stressful days, but being busy might be a sign of a good progress and hopefully we are on the right track.

Therefore after the last couple of wailing posts I should write something about the nice things of our Belgian life.

Besides the traffic, living in the downtown of an European city is pleasant. There actually are people in the streets, not only cars!
I wish there was also a little more color!






I probably still don't fully realize the nicest part of being back in Europe. The closeness of family and friends!

After one year of separation I could hug my sister and our cute little cousin Jonas again!

Maarten enjoys his new school, even though he seems to fall back into his gestural and mimical communication from a year ago.
Back in California it took a while before he dared to speak English to his schoolmates. Even he is fluent in Dutch he will probably need some time to use this language at school as well.

Luckily he seems to like his new school and fits in well. He even has got his first birthday party invitation!

Maarten's teacher is so kind to blog about their activities. Every week we get updates about what's going on in the classroom. You can follow it HERE. (in Dutch but it's mostly pictures)




There is some progress in making our home more inviting and livable.
Rob finally finished sanding the floor in one of the bedrooms. The formal residents 'accidentally' painted it grey.
I admit, the sanded floor does look stunning but ask Rob if it really was worth three days of heavy labor followed by really bad headache!