Another backlog

Even though I've been okay posting regular up-dates on our weblog, I've not been so good in keeping our family photo albums current. While in Taiwan, I was extremely (almost obsessively) keen to stay up-to-date with my albums and I completed over 20 photo albums in seven years time (indeed, obsessively ...). Since we're back, I did not print one photograph or added one page to any of the albums, meaning that I had a backlog of a whole year.

In the past, I've had albums printed through Apple.com, namely for my sister, my mom and for Julie. So now, instead of doing it the hard print-cut-and-paste way, I made our 2008 photo album using iPhoto and Apple.com. It only took me seven nights to complete and it should arrive in two or three weeks time. That's how easy it is. I might stop cutting and pasting all together and switch to digital album making for all future memories. Depending on the quality of the 2008 family album that is; I'm still pretty critical if it comes to the quality of my photographs. On the other hand, when I start working again in another month, I probably won't have time to make albums the old fashioned way anymore. We'll see.

Christmas backlog :-)

Well, I did promise to post some picture of our Christmas Holiday exploits. Even though we're halfway January, here they are.

First of all, there was Emma's birthday. We had her kids party before the Christmas Holiday, but the family party was held later. That was when oma, tante Elly and oom Kees came to celebrate Emma's birthday. Of course she received lots of presents, but her most favorite item was her Mega Mindy costume. Mega Mindy is kind of the female-and-Belgian version of Superman for little kids. No violence, just (always two) very dumb crooks (similar to the Home Alone guys), who are always stopped just in time by ... Mega Mindy. Both Emma and Janne are big admirers of this policewoman turned superwoman.
Mega Mindy on a mission

On Boxing day, we invited oma over for dinner (her third trip to Veldhoven in 10 days ...). As the main family Christmas dinner was planned for Dec 28, we kept it relatively low key. Still, we had a nice dinner and a great time, enjoying a table cooked dinner of 'gourmet'; cooking your own food in little frying pans, right there on the table. It's quite popular in the Netherlands, as it allows people to choose the food they like and prepare it the way they like it. Oma, Janne and Emma, ready for dinner

As my sister's kids live on their own and have full agenda's as well, the family Christmas dinner was on Dec 28, a bit after the fact. Still, we had a great time. Everybody prepared some food and it was all quite well coordinated. All our three ovens were used, as well as a deep frying pan and all burners on the gas stove. For me, it was surprising to see that my sister's girls could actually cook. I still remember holding them as babies, not so very long ago it seems, and here they were, independent woman (23 and 25 years old), running their own household and even able to prepare a meal :-) We really enjoyed having them all over and would love to do it again next year. As we were quite busy most of the time either preparing food or eating it, there are no pics of the dinner itself. I did take a photograph of the table though, because I was quite proud of it :-) I also took a pic of Janne in her (self selected) Christmas outfit, as this might very well be the only occasion where we'll ever see our little tomcat dressed like that.
Christmas in purple; surprisingly pretty

Janne, dressed up as a real little girl, also very pretty :-)

On Dec 30, we celebrated Emma's birthday for the third time. This time with Pieter's (grand)children. Another fun and busy day, with six adults and seven kids, ages 1 to 9. Emma and Janne loved having their nephews and niece over and they loved it even more that Pippa (their seven year old niece) was spending the night.
Emma and Janne with their nephews and niece (really, they're not cousins, but aunts, nephews and nieces ... )

The next day was the last day of the year. So, Pieter baked about 50 oliebollen (Dutch donuts) and went out with the girls to buy a few pieces of fireworks. Emma and Janne were ever so excited that they were going to be allowed to watch the fireworks at midnight, as we promised them to wake them up quarter to twelve. It took a little while until they were really awake, but we managed to get them downstairs by ten to twelve. Together with them, we counted down to midnight and had a sip of champagne / apple juice. Warmly wrapped up, we took them outside to watch the fireworks in the streets and to light our own. Looking at the fireworks that went up, you wouldn't say there was a financial crisis at all; it must have been thousands of Euros worth of fireworks going up in smoke (and lots of bangs)! But, I've never seen such beautiful fireworks (in Holland) in my life. The girls loved it and were not even really intimidated by the bangs and the smoke. Warmly wrapped up, enjoying the fireworks

On Jan 1st, we brought Emma and Janne to tante Elly and oma for a stay over; Pieter and I had two days off! And what did we do with our freedom? Of course, we went out for dinner (twice). But our big outing was to take the train to Schiphol Airport, Amsterdam, to the only Starbucks in the Netherlands! Despite the near freezing temperature, we thoroughly enjoyed our Caramel Frappuccino and carrot cake!
Starbucks in Holland; it's not the same, but close enough

After that, we went to down town Amsterdam, red light district. Not because of the red lights, but because that's also where the Chinese quarters are. We walked into all the Chinese shops in the area, but managed to control ourselves and only bought a few small items. I will go back to buy an authentic Chinese wok and bamboo utensils though :-) We even ran into a genuine dragon dance!
Dragon bringing good fortune to Chinese shops in Amsterdam

On the ice

As Dutch as can be :-)

It's been twelve years, since it was this cold in the Netherlands. That means it's been twelve years since there were such great opportunities to go ice skating outdoors. A Dutch ice skate manufacturer sold 150.000 pairs of skates in less than two weeks. Three pairs of those are now ours :-) We finally decided we wanted part of the ice skating fun and went out to buy skates yesterday. Each of the three stores we went to had only about five pairs left and only the third store had some in our sizes. Emma now has adjustable figure skates (size 30-35, last pair in the shop), Janne has training skates (double irons) and I bought my very first pair of 'noren' (I think the translation is Nordic skates).
Having fun on the ice

And today, we went to Charlotte in Alblasserdam (near Kinderdijk, see earlier post) and we skated all afternoon on perfect natural ice, in a perfect Dutch scenery (along canals, past windmills), together with hundreds, even thousands of other skate enthusiasts. Maybe so many people love to go skating outdoors, because we hardly ever get the chance! For me, it was my very first time to go ice skating outdoors like this. I remember ice skating outdoors in my home town, where they would flood a square or some grassland, so it could be used as ice skating ring. But, that doesn't even get close to the experience of ice skating on a canal or river! You can literally skate for hours, without having to turn back or having to skate the same stretch twice.
Emma on skates at Kinderdijk

Janne on skates (on skate to be exact) at Kinderdijk

Emma and Janne are very lucky little girls, because they got to ice skate on natural ice during their very first winter in the Netherlands. And they loved it. We were on the ice with them for over two hours and they still wanted to go on. Janne didn't do much real skating, she was walking and running on the ice with her double-iron training skates. Emma on the other hand gave us a huge surprise. After about one hour of practice, she skated on her own! And this being her very first time skating (ice or roller). We were so proud of her. The only person more proud was probably Emma herself :-)

Happy New Year!

Just to let you know we didn't fall off the face of the earth; we wish you all a very happy, healthy and prosperous 2009! May it be a year filled with joy, laughter and happy moments for you and everyone around you. I still didn't send out any Christmas or New Years cards, so I'm now thinking about turning them into change-of-address cards (since we didn't get those out yet either ...).

We ended 2008 with parties, dinners and visits from friends and relatives. The two Christmas Holiday weeks were quite busy weeks, so not very much time for postings. But, with all that behind us, this week I hope to find the time to post some pics of our recent 'adventures'. The most recent being the current spell of cold weather; it snowed Sunday night and the whiteness is still there, due to the low temperatures. Coldest temp measured in the south of the country was -21 degrees C! Here, the mercury didn't go below -12 degrees C. Still, pretty good for our first winter back in Holland. Pics will follow.

Emma's birthday and more

Emma's birthday invitations using her own art work

On Wednesday, Emma had her kids birthday party. It was our first Dutch kids birthday party and it was a big success. I think I was more nervous about it then Emma was, but fortunately I had my sister and mom to assist me. First, Emma handed out birthday treats in school. Usually, those treats are packaged in some fun or decorative way. So that's what I did. It took me a bit longer then I anticipated, but the result (especially Emma's face when she saw it the next morning) was worth it.
Tree of treats (takes about 4 hours to complete)

Detail of Emma's birthday treat

After school, we took all six invitees home for a pancake lunch (thanks Pieter!), some creative activity and some games. That afternoon, I experienced something all mothers (apparently) experience when organizing a kids birthday party; despite all your careful preparations, things never go the way you planned them. For me, it was a surprise how quickly the kids went through the planned activities and games! Lunch was over after about twenty minutes (iso 45 min), the DIY photo frames took only half an hour (iso 1 hour) to finish etc. Fortunately, they were okay just playing with our toys in between the organized parts ... Unwrapping the gifts and eating the cake provided the much needed quiet moments of the afternoon. I was quite happy to see the mothers come at 3.30 pm sharp to pick them all up :-) But, hearing Emma say that this was her BEST birthday EVER, definitely made up for all the hard work.
Birthday girl and her guests

On Thursday, Emma and Janne had an early Christmas dinner at school. Each classroom was festively decorated and from 5 until 6.30 pm, the kids were having (tomato) soup and sausage rolls. You could tell that some teachers really put a lot of effort in preparing and decorating their classroom. Janne's classroom for example looked really nice and special.
A very festive Christmas table in Janne's classroom

Janne with one of her teachers

Both Emma and Janne really enjoyed having this 'formal' Christmas dinner without their parents. Pieter and me used this free time to go out for dinner ourselves. We all had a good time :-)
Emma with one of her teachers

Pakjesavond

Emma and Janne apparently were very good girls this year, because Sinterklaas brought many great gifts on Friday, the eve of his birthday. At about 6 pm, someone (Black Peter?) nocked on the window very loudly, which startled us all. Emma quickly opened the curtains, but was too late to see Sinterklaas' black helper. When Janne opened the front door, a bag full of gifts was standing on our doorstep!
A bag full of presents from Sinterklaas

If we would have let them, Emma and Janne would have opened all the presents there and then :-) Instead, we had them open them inside, one present after another. Still, they unwrapped all gifts in the record time of about fifteen minutes ... The next day, we literally didn't do anything but play with all the new toys.
Hurry, hurry; there's more presents to unwrap

Sunday, we went to oma, to celebrate her 78th birthday. And what a surprise when we saw that Sinterklaas also delivered gifts for Emma and Janne at oma's house! Another fifteen minutes of frantically unwrapping presents were followed by cries of excitement, jumps for joy and requests for help (to take the packages off all the new toys). At the end of the afternoon we had a fun and delicious meal at the local 'Tasty Wok' restaurant with my mom and my sister and her family.
Look mom, Sinterklaas was here as well!

All (or at least most) of the gifts were real hits, so Sinterklaas did a great job at selecting presents once again. And now, after three weeks of excitement and anticipation, Sinterklaas is finally over ... Emma and Janne, as most kids in the Netherlands, will need a few good nights sleep to recover from it :-) Family dinner at the Tasty Wok

Colourfull faces

Two Zwarte Pietjes

This weeked, Emma and Janne got to meet Sinterklaas in person and even received their first Sinterklaas gift. Great excitement all Saturday long, also because we grease-painted the girls as Black Peters. It was very nice that Sinterklaas was so well informed about all the kids, so the meet-and-greet met all expectations :-)
Have you been good this year ...?

On Sunday, we went to the local mall for lunch and to our surprise, there were also a lot of Black Peters running around. That was a nice extra for the girls. To top it off, there were make-up artists at the mall, who grease-painted the kids. The lady did a great job and it was worth the long wait. Our pretty little cats