Musicians in our ward

I figure you would be interested in this mom so I figured I would write about the musicians in our ward. There are many professional musicians in our ward. Our bishop plays trumpet and I guess sometimes is a guest teacher at BYU. He is going to Utah again in a couple weeks to teach for 2 weeks. There is a young girl from Orem that is here studying the violin. There are also a couple that both play the violin amoung other things. You may of heard of him, his name is Igor Gruppman, he is the Director of the Orchestra at Temple Square. They do live here in Holland but travel to Utah regularly. They both performed in Sacrament Meeting a couple of weeks ago. Here is the info about him:

http://www.mormontabernaclechoir.org/info/person?person_id=24

Because of all the musicians in the ward, obviously music is focused on a lot. I don't think we have had one activity where music has not been invloved.

Christmas 2007

Last night, for Christmas Eve, we invited the missionaries over for dinner. We ate a wonderful meal of American Casseroles (the missionaries suggestion) and pumkin pie for dessert. The missionaries then spoke about the importance of Christmas and we watched "The Joy of Christmas" (on our new 40" LCD TV, I have to add, my present:). We had a good night filled with the Christmas spirit.

We started Christmas morning today by hopping on the metro and heading out to the church for a ward Christmas breakfast. Much of the ward showed up and the food was fantastic! We were able to visit and heard different musical numbers from members of the ward and the missionaries also sang The First Noel. After cleaning up, we hurried home because the kids were anxious to get home, start a fire, and open presents. I think a record was set not opening the Christmas presents until around 1:00 PM.

Below are the pictures of us opening the presents today. Ther are alot of the (55 to be exact) but I did not want anyone to miss anything.

If you want to view the pictures larger, click on the slideshow and it will then take you to the online photo album. You can then view the pictures individually, watch a full screen slideshow or even save any picture to your computer to print out.

Beautiful winter in the Netherlands

Last week it started to freeze here and frost covered each tree limb and the canals and ponds iced over. The kids went out and played on the local pond, making snow angels on the ice and Hannah practiced her photography skills taking pictures of the trees outside our home.

If you want to view the pictures larger, click on the slideshow and it will then take you to the online photo album. You can then view the pictures individually, watch a full screen slideshow or even save any picture to your computer to print out.

Fast Internet

We just got our new internet connection. It is an amazing 20mb connection which means it is 357 times faster than the old dial-up modems, 13 times faster than the average DSL connection in the states, and 3.33 times faster than Comcast which, for the most part, is the fastest you can get for a reasonable price. Speaking of price, I only pay EUR19.95 a month for this connection and Novell reimburses that!

Gotta love Holland!

New Callings

Here is a new picture from a different angle of our church I took today for the fun of it. Anyway, today Kristal was officially called to serve as 1st Counselor in he Relief Society Presidency. I was called as the 1st Counselor in the Young Mens Presidency. We are both excited about our new callings.

We just got back from dinner at the Stake Presidents house. They live in a small town about 15 minutes from where we live. One year ago, they bought a 5 story old police station and over the last year have been remodeling it slowly. The kitchen is mostly done and is interesting. The new kitchen
has an old jail cell as a pantry and right outside of it is a solid steal door which was the door to the police safe. They still have a lot to do but it was cheap, it is very large, and it will make them a lot of money in the end. Housing has a coupke decades of stability here with no projections to start moving down so it is generally very safe to buy.

Yesterday we went to a primary/ward activity. The kids made cards while the adults made holiday candle arrangments and wreaths. The kids then went caroling abd delivered the cards and candles to older folks in the area. We all then enjoyed a Dutch Pancake dinner followed by watching the Musical Christmas Program by the Tabernacle Choir. We had a good time visiting with the ward and enjoyed celebrating the holidays.

The 5th of December

The 5th of December is a big celebration in the Netherlands. The 6th is Sinterklaas' birthday and they celebrate the coming of it the night before. A couple in our ward invited us to come over to their house for a party. Soon after arriving, Zwarte Piet knocked on the back door and when we opened it, we found bags of candy for the kids. We then drank hot chocolate, has lots of different kinds of treats and played games. Shortly after arriving home late last night, we are all just relaxing and eating some candy when we heard a hard knock on our front door. We we opened the door to find that Zwarte Piet had again visited this time leaving many presents for the kids.

Kinderdijk

Last weekend, since we had a car from Novell, we decided to do a little tourist action. It was very cold and rainy but we decided to suffer through it anyhow. We went to a place called Kinderdijk. I guess this is a big tourist attraction because there is a long path on both sides of a canal lined with authentic Holland working windmills. We were able to go in one of the windmills and see how it works. These are all also houses. In the one we went in, there were a total of 6 levels and I think around 4 beds.

I am starting to use slideshows to cut down on the length of the posts. To see a picture better, you can click on the slideshow and it will take you to the web photo album.

Sinterklaas Visits Novell

Today we all packed in a car I borrowed from Novell and headed to the office. It was the annual kids Christmas party thrown by Novell. The kids could color, make Zwarte Piet hats, play twister and sing and dance. Also, of course, there were lots of goodies. The kids all sat on the floor about half way through he party and started to sing some Christmas Carols. They were all in Dutch and we did not recognize the tune but they sounded fun. While singing a few Zwarte Piete came running in throwing candy and cookies. They were followed by Sinterklaas himself who came in and spoke to he children and handed out presents. Hannah got cool heart beaded door entry and a French Manicure Set. Isaac got spy sunglasses with electric ears to spy on secret conversations. Abby got a little toy puppy with carrier and Alex got a scooter.