Travelling again

That is, Pieter is travelling again. He returned from a one week trip to Poland on Thursday last week and is leaving today of another 8 day trip to Gorsow, Poland. In Gorsow, TPV has a relatively new tv-factory, which is suffering from a lot of start-up and inexperience problems. Pieter is helping them to straigten things out. Quite a different job from 'Europe Sales Support, but he likes to do it. And that's important too. Pieter's frequent trips to Poland also mean that I don't have a computer, because the only one we have at the moment is his laptop. No computer means no weblog up-dates.

As for me and my job, ASML didn't come through in the end. 'Things changed', as they always do at ASML, and my help was not required after all.

EuroSoccer Craze has started officially today. The first match of the Dutch soccer team for the European championships is today (against Denmark). Half the country is coloured in orange and all shops are selling orange/soccer items. It's quite a lot of fun to see the supporters go nuts in this period. And, who knows, the team might even win and it might get really interesting. On tv, they're now replaying the semi-finals and the final of 1988, the last year Holland became soccer world champion. Hoping that it will inspire the current team to rise to the same hight, no doubt. We'll see. If I get a chance, I'll post a picture of a really funny street in Eindhoven, which is decorated totally in orange.

Fun filled weekend

This weekend, we met with friends again. Originally, Monique and Jeroen are Karin's motorcycle friends, but when they moved to Singapore six months after we moved to Taiwan, they also became friends in Asia. They moved back to the Netherlands two years ago, so they can relate to what we are going through at the moment.
In front of the new house (behind the trees)

They were able to fit us into their extremely busy schedule because their 11 year old daughter was competing in the regional (Brabantse) swimming championships (!) which were taking place in Eindhoven. I took the girls to see Evy swim, hoping that maybe it will be a first step in the direction of getting them interested in the sport. I was a competitive swimmer until the age of 13 and I would love for Emma and/or Janne to be able to enjoy the sport as I did (and still do). We'll see. Evy had a good race, she finished 3rd in her series. For me, it was really nice to feel the atmosphere of a swimming competition again. Maybe I'll check with the Veldhoven swimming club Njord, to see if they have so called masters swimming, for 'older' swimmers ...
There's also a really good ice cream shop in our new street

Of course, we also showed them our house, in which now all the walls and ceilings are plastered. It looks a lot better now that everything is white! Within a month or so, we should be able to move. Can't wait to have all our stuff back!
Sitting room looking a lot better

On Sunday, Emma and Janne had their first Dutch cultural experience. We took them to a children's theater performance called 'Dikkie Dik, limonade met prik'. It was a one hour interactive show and the girls loved it. They are already looking forward to the next time we'll take them to the theater. A nice extra was the 'cat play area', which they created for the children in the theater lobby. There were dozens of big soft dog (cat) baskets, some enormous stuffed cats to play on and even an oversized cat litter box (with balls instead of sand) to play in.

We ended the weekend with Pieter's customary raisin pancakes for dinner. Some things never change!

Sunny days

Emma sharing a blanket with Douwe and Pippa

Pentacost weekend was very sunny and warm and we had a great time outdoors; at playgrounds, bycicling, the parrot park and in our own small back yard. That weekend, we also visited Pieter's son Michiel in Arnhem. It was a great day to go there, because they live a stones throw away from a nature reserve, with great walking trails. Plus, they have a backyard with lots of playing equipment, including a pool. Needless to say that Emma and Janne enjoyed themselves tremendously, although the (unheated) water in the pool was still really c-c-c-cold. Karin enjoyed a nice long walk with Marielle and Spats, their dog. Pieter helped Michiel to build a wood shed in the back yard. At the end of the day, we had a very nice and yummy BBQ. A perfect end to a sunny, three day weekend!
BBQ time!

Work on the house is going well, with only a 2-3 week delay. The critical thing now are the floors. They should be in when the container arrives mid June, so that we can move everything into the proper rooms. All the other work is progressing nicely and timely.

Below, a picture of Janne playing bunny rabbit with one of my sweatshirts.

The warm weather has caused all the spring flowers to start blooming and there's lots of colours in front and backyards. This one is growing in our neighbour's front yard. The flowers are enormous, as big as my hand. Really beautiful!

Mother's Day

As in most of the Western world, yesterday was Mother's Day in the Netherlands. For me, that meant sleeping in until 8.30 am (after Emma and Janne played in our bed from 7 until 7.30 am), breakfast in bed and some wonderful gifts. Emma had made a beautiful painting on a real canvas and sang a sweet mother's day song. I was so proud of her, because she kept the nature of her present a secret for over three weeks AND she remembered all the words of her special song, even though they learned it three weeks ago and she had two weeks of vacation. Janne had made a pretty paper tea pot, with a real tea bag in it. She kept her present secret for over a week, but a few days ago, she blurted out 'your little teapot ... oops ... I shouldn't have said that mommy' :-) Pieter surprised me with a house wife-set, including mostly very practical kitchen tools, but also a book and a lottery ticket.
Emma and Janne playing at my mom's cousin's house

Earlier this week, me, Emma and Janne, together with my mom, went to see a cousin of my mom's. When I was little, I spent one week at their place for a couple of summers. Mostly because Stijn, the cousin's wife, worked at the local swimming pool, which meant free swimming every day for me. I remember I always had great fun staying with them. Now, they are both in their mid-eighties and great-grand parents. At that age, every day is even more a gift and I really wanted to visit with them at the earliest opportunity. With Pieter in Poland and the girls having school holidays, there was my chance. It was so great to see them again (after some eight years or so), also for my mom, for whom it had been a year since she saw them. Their house had changed so little over the years, that entering it felt like taking a step back in time to when I was 10 years old. Very weird experience indeed.
Emma and Janne with my mom and her cousin's wife

With the finalization of the house still over a month away and with that, the arrival of Pieter's piano, Pieter has leased a piano. He hadn't been able to play since we left Taiwan for Australia on Feb 1st, so he decided to rent an (upright) piano for a few months. This way, he can start playing again.
Hopefully she will still be this happy when her lessons start :-)

Family weekend

Saturday, my sister celebrated her birthday. It was a typical Dutch birthday party, with family sitting in a circle, chatting and enjoying some bites and a few drinks. Emma and Janne of course enjoyed the attention, as this was the first time in years that my cousin, nieces and nephew saw our two girls.
Emma waving goodbye on her way to oma's

This weekend was also a big one for Emma, because she spent the night at oma's. It was her very first time away from home, without mom and dad! She was very excited about it. So excited in fact, that she didn't go to sleep until 11 pm ... and was awake again at 7 am the next morning. She was a bit grumpy on Sunday, but is already looking forward to her next 'logeerpartijtje'. She'd like to give Tante Elly's a try next time.

When we picked up Emma the next day, we noticed that the yearly fair was in town. As a child, I always loved going to the fair, to ride the merry-go-round and helter-skelter and to see what surprises the other attractions had for me. Emma and Janne really liked the two rides that were there for smaller children, as well as the fire-fighting booth, where they got to shoot with powerfull waterpistols. Besides that, I found the experience rather dissappointing. There were only a handfull of people and a handfull of attractions and rides. I cannot imagine that this was all there was when I was little. Were we so easily amused at the age of eight to ten? Was there so little entertainment in our town, that we got all excited over this? I really hope Emma and Janne's memories will be as happy as mine, but it's a bit hard to imagine ...
Emma and Janne enjoying the ride


Mama was a bit nervous to join this ride, so Tante Elly got lucky

I've got one more photo I'd like to share. It's of Janne walking around with one of my (few) dolls and my toy baby stroller. It's so much fun to see how Emma and Janne are now enjoying all my old toys. Thanks to oma, who kept all these things for all these years!

Queens Day

A cold and rather empty Queens Day market

Today was Queens Day in the Netherlands. On Queens Day, we celebrate the Queen's birthday. Traditionally therefore, it is held on the Queen's birthday (tata!). Our current Queen Beatrix though, decided that she would like the 30th of April (her late mother's birthday), to still be Queensday under her rule. This leaves her to celebrate her own birth day (January 31st) with her family, instead of with the whole Dutch people. Beatrix also changed the ceremony on Queens Day. Instead of having a parade of people from all over the country passing by the balcony of the Palace, the royal family pays one or two towns a visit.
Janne and Emma enjoying a pony ride

Veldhoven was not one of these towns, so we had to make do with the regular Queen's Day festivities. These usually include a market on which kids can sell their old toys, a parade of (red-white-blue and orange) decorated bycicles, a balloon flying competition and some more games or rides for kids. As it was dissappointingly cold (yes, still ...) and a lot of people were on vacation (due to two weeks school holiday), there weren't very many people out. Still, we went to the market, ate some popcorn and Emma and Janne got to ride a pony. All in all it was a bit dissappointing. Maybe our 'own' side of Veldhoven makes more out of Queen's Day celebrations. We'll see next year.

Back of the house, with extension on the left and new sliding doors

The house is still making good progress. Most of the upstairs rooms are plastered and ready to be painted. All of the prep work for plastering the ground floor has been done. This Friday, the cement floor will be put in on the ground floor. They started building the kitchen (in the factory).
Final prep work in the kitchen

I'm getting to a point where I feel that I'm becoming knowledgable on much more topics than I would like to be. Topics like heating systems, door handles, ceilings, floors. But, in about 5 more weeks, all this knowledge should be translated in our own, beautiful, new house. If you look at the pics, that might be hard to believe, but we're still being told it'll all work out fine!

Master bedroom, with dressing room on the right

Family wedding

Today, we went to Venlo, to attend Pieter's youngest sister's wedding. It was a nice opportunity to see a lot of Pieter's relatives again. Last time we saw them was, very typical for large families, at the funeral of Pieter's mother. The Dekker family has not changesd over the years that I've known them. It's still a unique and crazy bunch of people, garanteed to make every party very interesting and lots of fun. Emma and Janne were entertained the whole time by their cousins, both the French and the Dutch ones. Pieter's youngest sister has lived in France for over 20 years and she became French several years ago. Her children speak Dutch, but with a strong French accent. That was probably part of their attraction for Emma and Janne. That, plus the fact that they were willing to play all kinds of games with them.
The real wedding party will be in France in August. Having heard very wild stories about French Dekker weddings, I'm looking forward to attending one!