Taking a ride

Now that the girls both have a bigger bike, we thought it would be nice to go for a bicycle ride. With the little bikes it was too difficult for them to cycle for a longer time. So, we went to the playground in the morning (8 km round trip) and in the afternoon we rode to the Pannenkoekenhuis (16 km round trip). On our way to the Pannenkoekenhuis we had some head wind and I had to push Janne a bit, but apart from that, they rode 24 km without complaining. Well, almost :-) A few kilometers from home, they started to ask how much farther they had to bicycle ... Still, great biking!

Oops ...

While practicing riding her new bike, Janne had an unfortunate meeting with a neighbor's garage door. Janne and her bike are doing fine, the garage door a bit less so ...

Proudly presenting the defeated garage door. Well, Janne always wanted to become Mega Mindy; she seems to be making progress in that direction here ...

New rides

The girls are growing up so fast ... This week, we bought them both a new set of wheels on Marktplaats, the Dutch version of eBay. I hope we will sell their little bikes as fast as everybody else seems to sell their bikes :-)

Riding fast ...
... and even faster!

Sunflower harvest

With the end of summer nearing, most of our sunflowers are ready to be harvested. Janne has won the contest, with both the tallest and the biggest sunflower. Emma ended up having the plant with the most flowers on it; her sunflower has as many as five blossoms!

One of Emma's small sunflowers

Janne's big sunflower, heavy headed, ready to drop its seeds

Janne posing with part of our harvest

Sunflower heart, minus seeds

Trappen en Happen

Emma and Janne are spending the weekend at Oma's and Tante Elly's, so we have a few days to ourselves. Last night, Pieter and me went to the movies; The Proposal, with Sandra Bullock. A bit of a chick-flick, but still funny and ok enough. We'd like to go go Alaska one day ...

Today, we did a Trappen en Happen Tour (Bike and Bite). It's a 46 km bicycle tour, this one through the Kempen earea, in combination with a four course meal. At each of the fours stops in the route, you eat one course of the meal. Beautiful route, nice food, great service and a fun way to spend a leisurely Saturday.

Sprinklers in action

No tour in Holland without a windmill

In the woods

Enjoying a drink before the main course in Knegsel. If you look closely, you can see that the place-mats are especially for the cyclists of Trappen en Happen.

Toverland revisited

Like last year, we again chose a REALLY hot day to go to Toverland (Magic Land). Most of the rides and activities in Toverland are indoors, which is the reason that most people go there when the weather is not so great. Dutch people prefer to go to the beach on the few days a year the weather permits it. That, combined with the fact that the northern part of the country started school already on Monday, caused Toverland to be practically empty (1/5th of it's max capacity). So, we got to go on all the rides without waiting in line and Emma and Janne still got to play in the water area outside. Emma and I got to ride in Troy, one of the biggest and fastest wooden roller-coasters in Europe. While the girls were playing in the water area, mom tested her survival skills on the survival course.

Enjoying the wet fun of the Back Stroke ride

Aardbeienland

Yesterday, we visited Aarbeienland (Strawberryland) in Horst, Limburg. It's a very small theme park and it's all about ... strawberries! You can take an easy stroll in the wooded area, learn a lot about (the various species of) strawberries and the way the are cultivated. There are also a few small playgrounds, a restaurant, a gift-shop and you can pick your own strawberries. So that's what we did.

It reminded me a bit of Taiwan, where one can also go to strawberry-fields to pick one's own strawberries. At the time, we thought that was quite funny ... As the park is rather small, they make it more interesting by offering various puzzles to solve while walking through the park. Emma and Janne earned strawberry plants by completing two.

Searching for clues to solve the puzzle

Playing on a real tractor

Picking (and eating) strawberries

This brought back memories of my time in high school, when I worked at the farm each summer. Mostly, we picked strawberries and beans, sometimes, we picked berries or planted leek. Picking strawberries was most fun, because it only lasted until about noon, and fresh strawberries taste very good!

Some more picking

There was also a lot of posing ...

One week in Normandy

We had a wonderful time in Normandy, France, and did all the things we wanted to do. We went to the beach, visited Pieter's sisters, payed Michiel and his family a visit and went to see Le Mont Saint Michel. Normandy is a beautiful part of France (actually, most of the country is beautiful), with rolling hills, little villages and beaches.

The church of St Mere Eglise, with its famous paratrooper hanging from the church tower. Sainte-Mere-Eglise is situated at the Normandy coast, where the Allied Forces landed in 1944. In the same town we visited a very impressive and detailed Airborne Museum.

The interior of the tent in which Michiel and his family were staying. It's an amazing concept, thought up by a very smart Dutch marketeer. Started in Holland, the organization now has tents in France and England as well. The tents are all on small (biological) farms and surprisingly well equipped, be it in a traditional way (see for yourself under 'accommodation'). It's really a perfect way to 'camp' with kids and we surely want to give this a try next year!

On our way to Le Mont Saint Michel

Crossing the drawbridge of Le Mont Saint Michel and entering it's medieval streets

Building our own Mont Saint Michel at Grandville Beach

The girls, playing with their French cousin Paul

In France

We have arrived in France and have inspected (and cleaned) our pied-a-terre for the next week or so.
Having breakfast in front of our holiday home

Charming detail

The kitchen (doubling as living room ...)

Art and flowers

Jeugdland is over for now. Emma and Janne loved it and we have a house full of crafts projects to show for it. Because the girls know that all these pieces of art will eventually disappear into the trash, they made me take a picture of them. Well, here they are!


Some garden news: Even though we made good progress in our back yard (new wall, new fence, extra grass, several plants), it's still not completed. But ... we do have some great flowers blooming already.










One of the twelve contest sunflowers; not the tallest one ...