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.

Brussels

I am Superman.....A great large balloon display of my favourite characters including Tintin, Le Chat.... We also visited with Grandma and Ti'pah a chateau south of belgium with lots of prizes from hunting in the forests - antler table legs....weird...enjoyed the chateau walk around.

Back to School

I am now going to the 3rd year. I am excited to be going back to school and see my friends. My teacher is Monsieur Marc. I have my new school bag of Skylanders although after the first couple of days it was clear this was going to be a packed bag and not ideal for even my parents to drag with the daily books, files, pencil cases etc coming back home. I got straight back into the daily french. Now dutch will begin - 4 lessons each week. I am happily reading in all 3 languages as I also speak them at school or home. I am not quite sure how I will be good at dutch since I don't speak with my friends or family - mamã and papá tell me not to worry about this and I will learn. I am given a few lectures on my behaviour and to play nice etc. I even needed to read and sign the rules of the class with my parents. Well, I will be better at this but talking and continuing to get up and walking around during the classes, this is going to be MUCH harder to slow down. Have a good school year, my friends.

England

Mamã and I stayed on at Grandma's and Ti'pah's for another 10 days after papá went back by train. We visited a national trust house where I had children's quiz to find our way through the secret garden and to a great playing area with a stream and climbing frame. It also had a building converted to colourful display of fake birds and mamã took this picture of us 3.

We also saw Lauren and Auntie Vicky and had loads of giggles :-) We played games.

I love playing cards and monopoly and Ti'pah would be ready to keep me entertained vs the television especially on the days when mamã was working and grandma was preparing lovely dinners.

Grandma and Ti'pah took us to a new place mamã did not know although it was only 15 mins drive from the house - Dinton Pastures - a massive lake(s) and walking paths as well as a big playground. We were lucky with the sun two times. On not such a sunny day we went to Marlow at the end of the day for a short walk. It suddenly started to pour down with rain heavily but I braved it to feed the swans while mamã and grandma stayed under a tree.

England - welcome Vivaan

I am proudly holding Vivaan in my arms - he is only 6 weeks old. He is Uncle Josh's and Chandni's gorgeous little boy. He is so cute. I love babies and when I grow up I want at least 3.

England holidays

We drove to England and as usual M25 was busy and very slow....we stopped in Bracknell to have a long overdue break. Grandma and Ti'pah had organized a lot of different activities. We went to a great farm where I fed all types of goats, held the rabbits, bounced and jumped up and down on a big bouncy surface and went helter skelter down two types of slides....one slide gave me a nice 'burn' on my cheek...not so nice but I still got up and carried on down the slides again :-). Ti'pah taught me the rules of cricket, we would watch 8 pm at night the highlights of the games. Another day just with mamã and papá we went to Legoland. They have a mini UK made of lego including a cricket game where I made sure we not only had 1 good picture but 2 for Ti'pah. There with a few buildings from Europe even Leuven townhall. We saw a 4 D film with Chima, put out a fire, went swinging in a very large pirate boat where we all felt our stomachs were leaving our mouths but luckily we caught them :-) Papá and I went on a hoovercraft ride where we were spun around in a circle and people including mamã could create little water bombs to get us wet.

England holidays - Henley

We went to Henley. Mamã and papá took me to an old curiosity books and maps shop. We bought a map of the Thames for the Twyford room in Óbidos. We also walked around other shops and bought loads of second hand books. Then I played in the playground and we went for a walk along the river Thames.

Stage

Hip hop dance stage - this was cool. I joined 2 other boys and about 8 girls and we learnt a dance routine that mamã came to watch at the end of the week. We were zombies, cool dudes, Michael Jasckson, comics etc.... I have the groove....

Portuguese Family

We had a wonderful 10 days in Portugal, seeing the family and friends. We joined Bivó for the village festival that takes place every year on the first weekend in August. My Papa's uncle Firmino and Papa's godson Fernando play in the band (both trumpets). We had a massive lunch with lot of the family in the courtyard of Bivó. I loved playing with my 'cousins' especially Rodrigo, Victor and Rafael visiting from France. We stayed late and saw the band start the night concert in front of the chapel.