McLennan Family Adventures
You’ll be sick of us in no time!

Prettig Kerstfeest en Gelukkig Nieuw Jaar!

We didn’t totally abandon this website, but let’s just say we’ve had a lot of things going on the past 3.5 months.

Brenda has been great. She’s a bit more work than Marcus was the first couple months, but really, she’s a doll. She smiles and giggles and is fun to be around (most of the time). She’s been suffering a bit from acid reflux and that makes her fussy and cry sometimes, but we recent began transitioning her to formula and that seems to be helping.

Marcus started preschool last week. He seems to like it – once you get him in the classroom. He doesn’t like saying goodbye and often he’d rather stay outside playing than go into the class with the other kids. I think he’ll adjust quickly and will do just fine.

As for the grown ups, there have been some changes as well. I started a new job at the beginning of August. I’m now the Director of Technology for a Belgian advertising network. I don’t know much about marketing and advertising, but I do know a thing or two about technology, so it should be interesting.

Christine is still at home, but she’s getting ready to go back to work at the beginning of October. In the mean time, she’s been keeping busy with Brenda and doing stuff around the house and in the yard.

Brenda’s birth

Marcus’s first day of school

Our day trip to Luxembourg

Bokrijk

Gent

Introducing Brenda

More to come

With our little Marcus running around, I haven’t had much time to give updates about my experience as a happy pregnant lady.

Currently, I’m 30 weeks along. Slowly we are preparing Marcus for the arrival of his little sister. We predict that Marcus will have a hard time to share his mom, dad and toys.

Besides a few very bad colds,  I have felt well during the pregnancy so far. My stomach is starting to get a substancial size, making it more difficult to tie my shoes or walk normally.

Last Thursday, my sister Caroline delivered a lovely little girl for which I will be the godmother. It’s fun to know that our little daughter will have a cousin to play with at all times.

Maybe at the next update you can expect a picture of the fat lady belly.

Today was Marcus’s 2nd birthday. To celebrate, Christine baked a cake and I frosted it. Mom sent us a dinosaur cupcake pan for Christmas, so I thought I’d break it out and give it a go. It turned out pretty good if I say so myself (and I do). We made some whipped cream to use as the frosting and added some food coloring to make it green. The kids (and adults) loved it.

Christine’s sisters and their families came over for the party. They kids always have a good time playing together and with some “new” toys to play with, it meant they were entertained for the afternoon. Caroline and the girls brought Marcus a toy train with some zoo animals. The kids immediately connected everything they could find to the end of the train while Marcus pulled it around the living room, dining room and kitchen.

When Jeff and Staci arrived with a remote control car for Marcus, the train was quickly forgotten (at least for the short term). The kids were fascinated by the car and fortunately, everyone got along and shared it.

Caroline’s girls stayed the night and that meant more giggling and playing. Marcus was so happy to have them over. He still talks about his cousins.

This was the first Halloween that Marcus was awake for. Unfortunately, he had been sick and Belgium isn’t big on trick-or-treating, so he only got to wear his costume around the house before he went to bed.

As you may remember, last November, we began the process of landscaping our yard. Since then, we’ve had a new fence installed, the patio has been enlarged, more dirt was brought in to level things out.

A couple weeks ago, the landscapers came and killed all of the wild grass growing and seeded the yard with grass. Friday morning, Christine and I noticed a little bit of green showing in some places. Today, it was much more noticeable.

We’re going to have a lawn soon!

Later this week, the landscapers will come back and start working on the driveway extension.

Every year, Brussels and most of the larger cities in Belgium have a car-Free day where people can walk, ride or skate around the streets with only the buses and taxis to look out for. It was an absolutely beautiful day so we took Marcus and our bikes on the train and spent a couple hours riding around.

It seemed like everyone in Belgium had the same idea because the train was absolutely packed. It turned out to be a good thing as we were able to ride up in the front of the train and Marcus was able to sit with the engineer.

We had a nice time. I was able to show Christine and Marcus the building my company will be moving to the first week of October. After that, we stopped in a square and had some lunch and Marcus chased some pigeons. We then spent about an hour riding around Brussels before we ended up in the Park van Brussel next to the palace. Marcus made a friend with one of the security guards and was giving him all of the Buckeyes he was finding on the ground.

After that, we caught the train home and put a very happy and tired little boy to bed.

Thursday

After our wonderful evening at La Palme d’Or, we slept in until 11, then got up, packed quickly, checked out and headed to Nic’s father’s house. Many of Nic’s friends from all over Europe came down for the weekend to party. Christine and I had a great time. We met many new people and just enjoyed relaxing in the sun and playing in the pool. Nic’s girlfriend, Aurore, made a nice pasta dinner and then the booze came out.

As Nic and his dad are Finnish and Finns love their saunas, it was inevitable that we’d end up in the sauna. Since there were more people than seats in the sauna, the girls went first while the men stayed upstairs and were perfect gentlemen and didn’t try to peak when they jumped in the pool afterward. OK, maybe there were some attempts at peaking, but no one saw anything. After the girls were done, it was the boys’ turn. Somehow, the jumps into the pool to cool off turned into a game of 500 followed by flips off the pool cover. You learn not to take a swimsuit for granted when you don’t quite get all the way around on a flip and certain man parts hit the water hard.

Friday

Jeff flew in from Amsterdam early Friday morning, so I had to get up and pick him up from the Nice airport. We thought we were going to miss the boat ride, but everyone was running late so we headed back to Nic’s dad’s before heading to Cannes for a ride on Stig’s boat. 10 of us cruised out into the bay and anchored off a small island. The water was incredibly clear and we had some nice weather. Flips and dives off the front of the boat and a little swimming before heading back in. The afternoon was more swimming and pool volleyball in Stig’s pool. We decided to make it an early night to bed as we had to be up early for golf the next morning.

Saturday

Met up at Stig’s at 7:30 and played golf at his club, Four Seasons Terre Blanche. Very nice. Since we didn’t have room for our clubs in the car, Jeff, Christine and I had to play with rentals. The rental clubs were Taylor Made and other than the wedges being short and hard to use, it was a nice set.

Nic, Jeff, Icaro and I have a little golf league and we decided to make this round our 3rd major of the year: The Riviera Championship. Icaro has been tearing up the league this year, having lost only once (to me) and winning the 2 previous major championships. That made Nic, Jeff and I more determined to win this one. Unfortunately for Nic, he was playing against his dad in a side bet so he had no chance of winning it all. Jeff had a horrible day and couldn’t get things going. Icaro started poorly as well, but managed to fight his way around the course for a 108. I shot 100 to tie Icaro on net score, but won the major on the tie breaker of low gross. Christine played pretty well and finished with a 123, which was good enough to finish 8th out of 9.

After the round, we had a quick bite to eat at the club before heading back to the house for more swimming and a sauna before Nic’s birthday party. Good food (except for the beef) and good conversation with loads of new people offset the fact we had to leave a bit early so we could pack and get ready for the long drive home.

Sunday

We got up at 7, checked out and got on the road by 7:30 to get Jeff to Nice airport. After dropping Jeff off, we began the 1200+ km drive home. With some detours and some minor traffic delays, we made it home around 9pm. We thanked oma and opa for taking care of Marcus, put Marcus to bed and then crashed ourselves. It was a great vacation.