Happy New Year, Bonne Année, Gelukkig Nieuwjaar!!

(or "Best Wishes" as Ray's colleagues say...)

The Shinozaki's are back in Belgium after spending a wonderful holiday visiting family and friends in California.

We had every intention of sending out our Christmas cards this year (from California), but forgot to bring our addresses with us! So instead, we are sending our heartfelt wishes (via blog) for a healthy, joyous and exciting 2009!!!

It's hard to believe that 2008 has already ended! For us, we have come to love our temporary home here in Belgium. This past year brought several adventures to our family -- traveling to 10 European countries (for us girls, while Ray visited 13). Our goal is to see as much of Europe as possible before our return back to the U.S.

DS is attending Kindergarten at the International School of Brussels (ISB). In addition to the regular curriculum, her school day consists of French language class, P.E., music and art classes. Currently, she wants to be an artist when she grows up. And as you would expect, she loves to draw and create pictures. In addition, she continues her love of reading. ISB has enrolled her in a special reading comprehension group to challenge her in this area. First and foremost however, she enjoys playing with her friends, little sister PS, and her Mommy and Daddy. We are thankful she has fully recuperated from the health scare she encountered in September (pneumonia).

PS attends 2 full days and 3 half days at the International Montssori School here in Tervuren. She loves her two teachers (one speaks only French, the other only English) and her friends in class. At least one day a week, PS brings home a loaf of bread, a muffin, or an apple turnover she bakes almost all by herself. Our little chatterbox loves to sing and keep up with her big sister. Although she can be quite stubborn, she continues to amuse us with her exuberant personality. She knows her alphabet and phonics, but can only read or spell short words like "cat", "bat", or "mat". Currently, she and her big sister are huge "Sound of Music" and "Mamma Mia" fans. They especially love the "sing-a-longa" Mamma Mia DVD we received from Uncle David at Christmas!

Mommy manages to stay quite busy with the household chores, updating the blog, pilates class, being room parent for DS' class, coffee or lunchdates with friends, arranging playdates for the girls and coordinating travel for our family get-aways.

And daddy is probably the busiest with his work at Toyota, helping me update the blog, and coming home to help out with the girls. He's the backbone of the family and we love him for it. Sadly, Ray lost his mother in March of last year...

Ray brought the family home to Los Angeles on a combination business/vacation trip in mid-December. We had many nice reunions with family and friends during the almost three weeks we were in town. We girls especially enjoyed our reunion with GM and GP.

The girls were also able to reunite with almost all of their friends we left behind.

Ray and I also got a trip in to Las Vegas, while the girls stayed behind with Grandpa and Grandma. While there, we caught up with friends, (Ron and Naoko) for dinner and some outlet mall shopping. After almost a year in Europe, the prices here in the US are just too good to pass up. Everything seemed like a bargain!

We also made sure we got a lot of gambling in, to tie us over until our next opportunity to come back. And although we did have some lucky streaks, overall we just broke even (which is actually like winning when visiting Vegas!!!)

Christmas was spent at home with the Kamada's. Our girls got a ton of gifts for Christmas -- it took a total of ten check-in bags to bring all of our stuff back to Belgium!

After a seafood dinner out with our family, Ray and I spent a quiet evening together at our hotel for New Years' Eve. It was actually quite nice to spend time together, have some drinks and delicious hors d'oeuvres and ring in the New Year... We actually even stayed out past midnight!!

New Years' Day was spent at Cousin Kathi's home, where the girls got to hang out with their favorite cousins, Bryce and Aaryn (incidentally, for those of you who came to our wedding 13yrs ago, these two were our ring bearer and flower girl...!!!).

Soon enough, it was time to say goodbye to our family and friends (and beautiful Southern California weather) and return to Brussels.

We left the LA sunshine and returned to a snowy and cold (10F) Belgian winter day. By the way, we are experiencing Belgium's coldest winter in 12 years (brrrrrrrrr.....)

And if that wasn't enough, the power to our home had gone out and so we returned to a bone-chilling 35F inside our home! We spent the first night bundled up in our winter clothes and huddled together in one bed, relying on body heat to keep us all warm. It took a couple of days for our radiator-style heaters to warm up our rather large house to comfortable levels...

But now, as we begin the second half of our Belgium Adventure, we are making plans to visit European destinations such as Italy, Greece, the French Riviera and Monaco, before our time here runs out. However, we do hold out some hope that Toyota will extend our contract just a little bit longer.

In the meantime, please start buying up all the new Toyota, Lexus and Scion cars that you can!

Amsterdamn, its cold here...!!!

Well, at least the first day was...

The girls and I are running out of time here in Europe. We are down to our last 12 months (I know, is the glass half empty or half full, right?) Anyways, from now on, every weekend has to count...
With our home visit to LA coming up in a few days and the year pretty much winding down, we decided we still needed to get out and knock a few more "must-see" cities off our list. So we decided to make short hop out to Amsterdam, to see what the city had in store for us!

A less than two-hour drive from Brussels lands you in the capital of the Netherlands. Amsterdam has some beautiful buildings with truly unique architecture. The city is built around a series of 5 canals that ring around the city center. Conveniently, most of the city's tourist attractions are near the canals and are easily accessed by several boat lines that allow you to navigate the canals and hop on or off as you please. With our two little ones, this was an ideal setup.

We arrived on Saturday afternoon and found the ambient temperature hovering around 0 degrees celsius, or 32 F. Once the wind started to blow, you knew that it was going to be a long day outside! Right across from our hotel was a casino and the Hard Rock Cafe, where we decided to stop for lunch.

After a short walk down the block, we stopped to buy some oliebollens, or "Oil Balls" as the loose translation came out to. Jo had read about these in her ever-present guide book and wanted to try them out. Although they were ok, they were not what we were expecting. In fact, the Okinawa Dango's at the JCI or Faith Methodist carnivals in California would have put these to shame!! Part of the problem was they had been sitting out for awhile and were stone cold.

We went back to the hotel to warm up in the lounge and recharge. In the evening, we walked down to the Leidseplein which was a lovely pedestrian friendly area with several restaurants. The girls and I found a charming little pizza place, where we had a simple dinner of pizza and chicken. Still a bit cold for us, the last thing we wanted was for the girls to catch a cold before flying home to LA, so we decided to call it a night.

The next day started out clear and sunny with the temps climbing up to an "almost balmy" 5 degrees C (40F). However, during this time of year, there is less than 8 hours of daylight so we decided to get out and start enjoying it.

We boarded our canal boat and made our first stop to the Anne Frank House. This is a very moving exhibit located at the same office building where she and her family spent 2 years hiding from the Nazis to avoid persecution during World War II. Unfortunately, her family was discovered and sent to a concentration camp. As we all know, her diary was left behind and as such, brought worldwide attention to her story and her account of what happened during the holocaust. It's a very sobering exhibit and something that shouldn't be missed on any visit here.

We spent the rest of the day touring the rest of the city via canal boat and had lunch at an Irish pub right alongside the canal. One thing we noticed about Amsterdam is the great variety of different cuisines available here. Indonesian food is also really big here, most likely due to the influence from the colonial days of the Dutch East Indies. Many have said the best Indonesian food comes from the Dutch. Here we all enjoyed our lunch of fish-and-chips, cottage pie and chicken satays.

Before we went home, we stopped and had some pofferties, a small crepe-like donut, served hot off the special pan and smothered in powdered sugar. If you know my girls, you would know that almost anything served warm with powdered sugar would be met with squeals of delight and some power munching. Just stand back and watch your fingers...

After a full day of walking and touring the city, it didn't take long for the girls to fall asleep in the car, on the way back home. Even after we got home, they went upstairs, brushed their teeth and fell back into a deep sleep. No doubt dreaming of warm pofferties.

Christmas at the Grand Place

The Grand Place is one of our favorite spots in all of Belgium. Although the traffic is horrendous and the parking can be annoying, we still enjoy visiting this famous tourist attraction. Especially during the Christmas holiday season, when all the lights are lit up at night, it is truly magical.



So, last night, Ray and I took the girls to show them how the Grand Place does Christmas. After a wonderful dinner at Chez Leon (one of the girls' favorites), we walked to the central square and we were dazzled!! We hung out just enjoying the beautiful music and watched the light show illuminate the guild houses, the town hall and the huge Christmas tree.





So, afterwards, we walked over to Place Saint Catherine's to see the Christmas Market. After three rides on what are probably the most unique carousels anywhere (check out the pics!), as well as snacking on Master Waffle Maker Philip's yummy waffles, it turned out to be a wonderful evening out.

Philip and DS trade hats


Some "wild" carousel rides...










But, unfortunately due to the late hour and since the next day was a school/work day, we had to head on home. But we were 'oh-so-happy' to see the Grand Place during Christmas time...

And, the smiles on the girls' faces as they went to bed that evening was, well... priceless.

Christmas Markets in Germany

Probably one of the most common words of travel advice we have received since moving to Europe is "you just HAVE to visit the Christmas Markets in Germany!" And although Jo and I had a chance to see a couple of the Belgian Christmas Markets last winter, we have been politely told that no one does them as well as the Germans...

So we were quite excited to spend an extended weekend in nearby Cologne, Germany to check out the festivities. There are literally hundreds of Christmas Markets held all over Deutschland, with many of the larger cities having more than one. In fact, Cologne has six this year, including a floating Christmas Market, held on a river boat!

Christmas Markets are basically very large outdoor winter parties that attract huge crowds. People show up in snow, rain or shine to gather with family and friends and kick off the holiday season.

We found that the crowds can be especially large during the prime weekend hours, but luckily our girls are early-risers, so we usually beat the crowd in the morning. However, by midday, it becomes very difficult to make our way through, with the girls and our stroller in tow.

Food and warm alcoholic drinks are a big part of the Christmas Market experience. Hundreds of vendors set up booths to sell such delectables as candies, baked goods, pretzels, candied nuts, barbequed meats and strudels. Our favorites were the wonderful roasted bratwursts, spiced (and spiked!) hot cider served in colorful festive mugs and baked apples stuffed with nuts and cranberries, served warm from the oven, drizzled with a sweet vanilla sauce.

The Cologne cathedral served as a dramatic backdrop to one of the Christmas markets held in Cologne.

Nothing like a candy apple break to keep the girls occupied...



The girls were able to enjoy the many rides at the Christmas market.

All in all, we had a very nice weekend in Cologne getting into the festive Holiday spirit. As an added bonus, St. Nicolas eve fell on this weekend. On this special night celebrated all over Europe, children who were good all year were visited by St. Nicolas and received a nice gift. The kids that were bad during the year received something, shall we say, not so nice.

Our girls woke up to find that St. Nicolas was able to come by the 3rd floor of the Cologne Marriott and left two nice gifts in front of our door. We knew he would bring one, but were surprised to actually see two gifts.

I guess PS got lucky this year...