Brussels, Belgium - Week 3

Hello Family and Friends,

Atlas started summer camp this week!

Atlas waiting at the bus station for his first day of summer camp.

And as for potty training, he did pretty good thanks to a little bribing. I told him that if he goes pee-pee on the potty and doesn't have any accidents in his clothes, he can watch Paw Patrol (his very favorite show right now). He only had one accident all week! So maybe we're getting there with this whole potty training thing.

You would think that with Atlas at summer camp, Brett and I would get so much done this week. We did have a nice adult lunch one day for my birthday. Meaning there was nothing kid friendly on the menu, each dish was a maximum of three bites and all the food was very pretty.

Out to lunch with my favorite guy.

Some kind of fru-fru food with things Iwould never order individually, but somehow they work really well together.

However, it doesn't feel like we have maximized our "Atlas free" time. We did successfully buy two bikes and have been commuting around town on our bikes.

Some of the dedicated bike paths (aka bike highways) riding around town.

We haven't explored any neighborhoods for living and also haven't done any touristy tours. We did meet some expats who moved from D.C. to Belgium about 6 months ago. We met Zsuszi and her two boys at Atlas summer camp. They were so sweet to invite us over to their place and gave us some valuable insight into their experience transferring and living in Belgium with a family. Within six months, the whole family has really come to enjoy it here. Their oldest son who is eight years old, still hopes to return to the states in a few years because he misses his friends. However, their youngest son, who is 4 years old, is adjusting wonderfully.

We did have a little unplanned expense: we "had" to buy new clothes. Having to buy new clothes is probably the worst unplanned expense I can think of...not. In fact, most of the time I go into stores and the entire time I'm telling myself, "Danielle, you don't need that" or "Danielle, you don't have space for that". However, now I go into the store and I say, "Danielle, how many things do we feel like trying on today!"

Oh yea, you guys probably want to know why I need to by clothes; ours burned up in a fire at the local laundry.

The after effects of the laundromat that caught fire.

When we are traveling we try to send our clothes off to be washed. Mostly because I'm spoiled and throw a complete hissy fit about wasting my time washing clothes when I could be exploring. Therefore, we try to find a location where we drop off and then magically the next day my clothes return to me washed, dried and folded. This time, we found a company that would pick up from our hotel. I didn't even have to do the work of dropping off the clothes. They came to get our clothes on Saturday and they were to be returned on Monday morning. By Tuesday, I was like did someone really steal our dirty clothes. I was ready to drive to the laundromat and pick up my clothes. On Tuesday night the owner called us and told us that the laundromat had burned down. Brett even found a news article about the fire. It happened at 3 am on a Sunday and 30 people had to be evacuated. There was no loss of life and the fire was contained to the laundromat. Absolutely crazy! But I get to "need" to go shopping!

All in all, we have had a very chill week. Besides the fire, it was just a normal week of life in Brussels.