Week 39-Week 42 Jan 4-Jan 31

Yet again, we are a few weeks behind!  Welcome 2016, better late than never!  So far it has been a very busy year.  Molly is back to working 5 days a week, and we are both still taking Dutch classes three nights a week.  On top of that, we had a few holiday parties in the first few weeks that occupied our weekends.  At our offices here in Belgium, it is customary for each department to have a twice yearly get together or a Summer Drink and Winter Drink as they call it.  Since Tyler is on the management team, he not only goes to the management drink, he also holds one for his team.  Molly got to attend the Quality department drink.  On top of all of those activities, there was a company wide New Years party as well.  So if you are counting, 4 parties!  And since there is so much vacation during December, all parties were held in January.  

New Years fireworks

Ringing in the New Year with friends (and Mom not pictured!)

The most interesting part of the Winter Drinks, was that they were much more than just a drink!  Tyler and his team went karting (high speed (40mph) go-karting) and Molly got to go to the driving range.  After the activities of course, there were dinner and drinks.

Other than that, we haven't had many adventures as it has been cold and rainy for most of the month.  We did get out a few weeks ago to go to an Antwerp Giants basketball game.  The Giants are the local Belgian basketball team.  It was fun to watch as the level of play was fairly high and the crowd was pretty into the game.  Also, we recognized a couple players from the US.  

This past weekend we ventured out in the rain to the Red Star Line museum.  The Red Star Line was a passenger line that went from Antwerp to the US from the 1850's to the 1920's.  Over 2 million immigrants came to America on the Red Star Line.  The museum is located in the same building that all immigrants came through to board the boat.  It was fascinating to see the process that was required for them to be allowed in the United States.  At the end of the museum, you can search names and pull information if you had a relative on the ship.  We tried all the family names we could think of but either we weren't spelling correctly or our ancestors choose a different method of travel to cross over to the new world. 

The original Red Star Line building