Week 20

Week 20 included some fun little day trips...

The Chocolate Museum, Brussels, Belgium

After church on Sunday, we went downtown to eat lunch in Grand Place and then we toured the chocolate museum.  It was small, but tasty and we snuck in a geography lesson as we looked at the maps of cocoa producing countries, a history lesson as we read about the explorers who discovered chocolate and brought it to Europe (Thank you, Cortez!), and a language lesson because the demonstration was trilingual.  

The Technopolis in Mechelen, Belgium

Our first block of classes for co-op ended with a fun, all day field trip to this hands-on science museum.  The kids loved it, of course!

Ghent, Belgium

L-O-V-E-D it!  It was a super fun, Dutch-feeling town with bicycles all over, water canals and cobblestone streets.  Though it drizzled cold rain all day, we bought Ghent noses to eat, toured an Abbey, saw Belgium's most famous piece of art...stolen, then recovered from Hitler...toured a Castle, and simply enjoyed a family half-day outing.  The delightfulness in this trip was that Ghent is so close to Brussels that we can go over and over again...and we will!

Though the lighting is horrible, you can kind of see the candlesticks and cross in the shadow on the altar...a gift from Napoleon. 

Since we were all cold and wet, the Hubs spotted a Starbucks...he's been converted to the dark side.   That is NOT a hot chocolate in his hand.

Since they were cold and wet, too, even the Dandelions were treated to their first Starbucks...those ARE hot chocolates in their hands. 

Storming the castle.

The weapons room was enjoyed most of all by the boys in the family...all 3 of them.  

We even took Flat Stanley along.  He's visiting from a friend in the midwest, so we're giving him a tour of Belgium before sending him home.

Spangdahlem, Germany

Daddy kept the Dandelions allllll day on Saturday so I could go with a friend to a Christmas Bizarre at a base a couple hours away.  Our first stop was to see old friends of hers who live near there, which was fun for me cause they are an OCF family.  I love connecting with other OCFers.  Then it was on to the Bizarre which was an event with two hangars full of different European items...mostly we just enjoyed tasting the wines and cheeses.  We didn't buy much, but it was a fun day with a new friend and I was very grateful for it; an excellent ending to a full week of go-go-go!