New Year - Welcome 2014 - Brussels

We spent New Year back in Belgium. We ate massive burger with chips, my favourite food, at the Comics Cafe in Sablon, then to see the lightshow in Grand Place, crepe with chocolate in a cafe' but even I was defeated from the big burger and then watched the fireworks at midnight. I was straight to sleep within 30 secs of getting back into the car. New Year's Day we went for a bicycle ride, for some reason I now need to walk up any small slight hill...After we had yummy lunch at Jenn and Philippe's with Florian and Audrey. Best wishes for 2014!

Happy Christmas - England

and yes here I am with my Tintin new hairstyle - well it lasted until the next day when I always have a wonderful slept hairdo all over the place. We spent Christmas with Grandma and Ti'pah. We did loads of things and had a great time, well fed as always and got loads of presents. We saw an excellent Pantomime of Jack and the Beanstalk with Paul Morris as Dame Trotter, superbly funny and I shouted at the top of my lungs, joining in. We met A. Vicky, U. Keith and Lauren at Disraeli's special Christmas decorated house at Hughenden, I saw Father Christmas' helper and with my mamã's hint talked of I need to use my ears to listen and not my mouth...We saw A.Vicky, U. Keith and Lauren again at Grandma's and Ti'pah's a week later with Sally, John and his dad - what a lovely time we had including making bouncy balls :-)
I watched Harry Potter 6 and 7 - lucky me - and went for walks to the playground, wave at the trains, shopping, cinema to see Frozen in 3D. We also went for a very soggy walk along the Thames in Henley. I got new boots, shoes, coat in the sales - well my parents bought them when they got more clothes for themselves :-)

St Nicholas

The morning welcome on 6th December - chocolate - do you like my old man's face expression?

We also had St Nicholas visiting the football ground where I practise Wednesday and play matches Sunday. We had a goodie bag and a new training tracksuit plus drinks and crisps as the usual after match celebration (or commiseration).

St Nicholas - at work

Happy St Nicholas to you all. I got a tiger painted face and my gift from St Nicholas was a real badminton set with proper rackets and a net for us to use in the garden. I am now ready for next year's good weather :-) I am also showing off my tattoo here - do I realise what it is of?

Birthday - my party :-)

And yes I had a party - of course I want the presents...not that my parents are pleased I say this. I did also enjoy driving around on the cars outside at Planetkids with my friends. Luckily it was not raining. I drove round and around and stopped to get some petrol and then carried on again. Mid point, we went inside for cake - chocolat one and not bad. We took a refreshment break and then back to playing, this time up and down on the play area inside :-) To end we gave Mr Men/Mrs Women books, sweets and balloons. I made sure we got some extra books and could keep the 'leftovers'. I now have more than 20 of these books :-) Thank you for coming and for the lovely gifts.

School Photo

Yes it's school photo time - and this year the men had to pose like this :-) My mamã and papá made sure I did not wear the same shirt two years in a row (well, technically it would have then been 3 years in a row).

London - the cool pictures

On the Saturday straight after karate, we went to train station and on Eurostar to London. What a wonderful 3 days trip. We went to Madame Tussaud, where I could do my best Michael Jackson impersonations and this time even in front of him, put my foot and hands next to famous people's foot and handprints, do the "Bolt" stand, sit next to Hermione from Harry Potter etc... etc...Even stood next to the Queen with mamã and next to Barack Obama with papá. After we met Grandma and Ti'pah, celebrated again with candles and cake before a dinner in local pub. The Sunday we went for a lovely walk along the Thames and up The Shard for the fantastic view over the city and beyond. Although I still remain frightened of heights taking the lift to 68th floor and then walking out and further up was not tooooo bad. I enjoyed the viewing binoculars more than looking through the actual glass. After we made our way across London via Covent Garden and saw a great entertainer in gold sitting on an invisible seat + an entertainer in british boxer shorts (only) with juggling acts. We met Uncle Jose, Chandni and Vivaan in St Pancras for lunch after a rather long walk around trying to find it but i worked it out from the multiple maps and looking at the shops to find out where we were :-) Then onto a train to go north to see the Making of Harry Potter - the highlight - I loved it. So much to see, learn, understand, read. It was cool for me and my parents. I even went broomstick flying and tried my hand at using a wand to cast spells. With a warm chocolate in our tummies enjoyed the bus, car and street outside before going to see the mechanical mechanisms for the dementors, griffith (?) etc... So cool. The Monday we walked along the front and had a mexican lunch back via convent garden and to Eurostar home.

My 8th Birthday

What a great 8th birthday. Jenn, Florian, Audrey and their Grandma came to celebrate with us on the Friday night. I had Star Wars birthday cake (deco only, my mamã would add) and home made cakes by me and mamã (with at least 5 power cuts for 40 small cakes made for school over a 4 hour period - aaahhhhh ! Although we got very efficient moving down to the fuse box).

Portugal

We spent the school holiday in Portugal visiting all the family, playing with Rodrigo and Renata, going for walks, visiting the Porto stadium and new museum (loved again the videos of football, my mamã and papá were happy to see the trophy they saw when Porto won the Champions League) and spending time in Obidós with vovô and vovó and more on the Sunday for a big lunch and then with Tia, Tio, Rodrigo and Renata for a few days including Halloween :-) We played football and went to the park and watched the sunset at the coast (while mamã went climbing the medieval walls :-)). We had a big seafood lunch at Peniche....yep not my favourite as polvo (octopus) still makes me sick. However, I made my way reluctantly through a very tastey fish (I was not going to show it was good and complained a bit but ate all I was given). We walked along the fort in Peniche and saw where the prison cells use to be. We had a great time at the local town Halloween party. I was very well dressed my my "Scream" outfit and was happy to walk around looking dazed and scarey. Mamã and papá enjoyed the babysitting and watched a film and went late night shopping from 10 to midnight. The house works continued and we could sit in our new kitchen. I slept in my room and throughout the week more and more things appeared and got put up or fixed with the helping hands of our big family. THANK YOU, OBRIGADO. I love our new house.

Home - our garden

From a small garden shoot that Ti'pah and Grandma brought 3 years ago, we now can go into production :-) Luckily grandma was with us to make grape jelly, grape jam, grape sorbet and grape ice cream, only the last two with a little help from mamã. However, there is only so much you can eat all the necessary sugar to be used to make all these things. Maybe wine next year?

Holidays - Barcelona

I am a big boy now. I went with my mamã to Barcelona and we had a great time. We flew Friday night and arrived only at the hotel at 2 am in the morning as the aeroplane was very delayed but I helped my mamã with the bags and went nicely to sleep to 11 am. We walked straight out into main shopping street into glorious sunshine and straight onto a bouncy castle. Then we had a BIG breakfast of orange juice, toasted sandwich, muffin yummy and onto visit the Cathedrale. We then took a audio tour of the former city underground. I listened to every number and looked at every detail but did not remember much when I finished :-) We then had quick lunch onto the way to Sagrada Familia and upto the tower tour after a very long look of the facade where i think mamã took more than 50 photos before deleting a number. Not a keen heights person I kept in the centre of the tiny footpath/steps up and down and had my eyes closed near the edge for the photos. I was very glad to be back on the ground floor. After visiting the museum we got our next audio tour and went inside - what beautiful light and colours and such high ceiling. We then went to the playground opposite where I think my mamã thought I was more interested than the last few hours touring. We then reluctantly took metro to walk past the bull ring and up past a massive fountain to hilltop where my mamã kept asking me to wait so we could get a good view of the fountain. I was much more interested to get to the top and luckily there was a small portable cafe' so we got ice cream before seeing there was a show - light and sound- on the fountain....we made our way slowly down, well I ran ahead and took loads of photos of every colour and every height of the fountain to my mamã's dismay :-( :-). We enjoyed it for 40 mins before then going to a small funfair where I got some pocket money and settled on taking the stretchy ride up and down bouncing on a trampoline and strapped in. We then took metro back and found a yummy tapas/resaurant before making it back to bed at midnight. Sunday we went back to the same place for breakfast as I was so pleased with my meal the day before and would not allow mamã to take me anywhere else. Then we got into the metro and took a walk to get THE Barcelona Football stadium and my hero Messi. I had such a great time, looking at all the videos of football matches, every cup including the sports cups of Barcelona handball to take photos back to papá. My mamã wanted a photo of me with the golden boots with Messi but that was not so interesting for me. I did like the fact that when I stood next to 'him' I looked nearly as tall as him. We visited the stadium and the changing rooms. All of it was fun. Then it was back to the hotel to get my suitcase and we met papá at the airport as he had been playing a P&G football tournament about 1 hour away south. My mamã stayed behind for work.

Brussels - Comic strip

I love to read comic books so I was so happy to go to the comic strip museum. It was so much fun to see all the displays to read about Tintin, Spirou, Gaston Lagaffe, Bob and Bobette. I loved the shop as I got some new books and card games. We then had lunch in the Horta restaurant. We then went for walk to the centre.

Stockel

It's our local street party in Stockel. We had dinner at mamã's favourite salad place (not for me the salad, I have macarroni cheese and ham and it's yummy) at Table d'Argile (clay table) where papá and I also shared a big strawberry ice cream. We felt so full we went for a walk to the square and found the party. There was a DJ playing cool music. I love music, I've learnt a lot of songs from listening to the radio, CDs and iphone music. My fauvorite songs/artists are Michael Jackson and Thriller, Macklemore....

Anniversary

It's mamã and papá's wedding anniversary. We went to our usual restaurant brasserie for lunch and sat in the covered courtyard. I could take this photo of them :-) I love you both very much.

Belgium

We went to Bellewaerde. Do you like my 'cool' stance in this photo. I often do this now for photos so my mamã is very happy that the camera is digital to delete them and be patient to take more than one photo. However, this time she decided to keep it and include it - so enjoy the rare occasion :-) There are rides and water slides - here is papá and I coming down the slope and close to the bottom we got lovely and wet.