explosion

of our stomachs. i'll get there in a moment.

we were invited to join stan, raquel and maud's family (stan's sister) for a day at 'aquaventure', the water park at atlantis. we unfortunately had to pass, due to a number of reasons, although it would have been nice to see them again before they go back to holland. serge wanted to go (and couldn't - wants us to go together), julian is maybe a bit young to really enjoy it (or at least to let us enjoy it), and weirdest of all, julian has been freaking out about water lately. it's really bizarre - he doesn't want to go in the pool, or in the sea, and even cries in the shower. i guess being around all that water maybe wouldn't have been a good idea. it's a good thing we declined, because he was super cranky anyway yesterday (sunday). hopefully the next time we see stan and raquel will be in amsterdam!

anyway, we're exploding because of our upstairs neighbors. they are so nice! julian and i went outside in the afternoon yesterday to get some fresh air and have him play. it happened to coincide with the return of moustafa and safinaz from school. what does julian do? climb down off the porch and make his way upstairs to their house. so we sat up there and chatted and looked at pictures (and ate and drank) until about 7pm. 

since they are always giving us food, i decided to give them some (PAUSE - i turned on the tv and even though it's 8:55am, i'm watching the CBS evening news from last night. how WEIRD.) of the food that i was cooking for dinner. since i was southeast asian in another life, i wanted to give them a taste of tom kha gai (thai chicken coconut soup) and jasmine rice. so we go upstairs to bring them the stuff (i couldn't carry it all by myself), and they invite us in to sit and then whip out plates and pile the food on. wouldn't take no for an answer. so nice. and then we had some tea and different kinds of sweets. we talked with them for quite a while and then sleep called everyone. 

pants are a little tight this morning...now i'm off to the mom's coffee where i'll most likely stuff my face again, as everyone brings sweet things (me included - some of serge's chocolate) and chat while the kids play.