While we were on vacation in Belgium last July, I took the girls to Leuven, the small university town where we used to live before we moved abroad, to meet a very good friend of mine and her two kids. My friend and I met at work and we became really close friends over the years. She got married, I met K. and at some point we both found out we were pregnant of our first babies with the due dates only one week apart. The way we found out about each other's pregnancy was quite hilarious, actually. It was at another friend's birthday dinner party - my friend had some important news to announce, she said. "Me, too!", I replied. "I'm pregnant!", she said. "Me too!", I screamed. You can imagine the excitement! By then the whole restaurant was looking at us - a table with four screaming girls!
We took our prenatal gym classes together, admiring each other's growing bellies from week to week . Her little boy was born 6 days before my little girl M., now 9 years ago. It gave an extra dimension to our friendship.
Our family has moved a couple of times, but somehow we managed to stay in touch.
Since I hadn't been in Leuven for the longest time, we decided to meet there again, with the kids, for an afternoon of fun in our former hometown. We went for lunch at the very same restaurant, where nine years earlier two proud, brand new moms went for their first lunch outside the house with their brand new babies in their brand new prams, close and within reach. I remember we had the hardest time finishing our plates because our babies were hungry too and we'd been breastfeeding almost uninterruptedly. By the time we'd finally finished our plates there was no-one else left at the restaurant... That was then...
Now, nine years later, the kids (we both have two now) quickly finished their lunch the way only kids can do. They couldn't wait to go play outside in the restaurant's beautiful courtyard, leaving the moms inside talking - about what it was like nine years earlier...
Because we wanted to go check out a couple of stores, we bribed the kids with ice cream later. Leuven has some really nice boutiques. I especially like the stores located at the "Mechelsestraat". Turned out the store where I had bought my wedding dress, Opus II, now has moved to that very same street. And that's where we spent most of our afternoon. Don't get me wrong, we didn't have our kids running around wildly in a wedding gowns store. Opus II is not just a store - There's a smaller store on one side of the street with accessories, stationary and plenty of "things-I-don't-really-need-but-gosh-it's-so-cute-so-I-buy-it-anyway"-stuff. The main store is located right across the street and has woman's clothing and more accessories - and a nice kids playing area - the owner, a mom of four herself, knows exactly what she's doing!
The accessories, that's what I was trying to get at with my long story.
I bought a whole bunch of tings, small gifts mainly, and this - my great find, or so I believe - the colorful wallet with the yellow ric-rac trim! Doesn't it look great!? I spent about half the afternoon deciding on the color - the alternative was grass green - a perfect match with the green purse I was carrying that day. But I took orange - for some reason I'm all into orange at the moment. I've even painted one of the walls in our apartment orange. And then there's still the orange Hermes leather and my linen shopping bag with orange leather and ditto lining...
Back home, I experimented with the leather I still have plenty of and some ric-rac ribbon ... I'd love to make something in the same spirit, though I've no idea what. To be continued, or not... but in the mean time I enjoy my new wallet which besides its size has another great advantage: thanks to its bright colors I find it immediately in my bag when trying to pay at the store...
Oh, and in case you were wondering: the kids did get ice-cream that afternoon. We also went to the park where they had lots of fun running around and climbing. And at the end of the afternoon we ended up in a storm. By the time we made it back to the station we were soaking wet! But even that was fun...
Wishing you a wonderful weekend!
P.
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