Henry Visit

Towards the end of April, my dad and Merry, my new step-mom, came to see us and we got to show them some of the sights in the Netherlands. We had a lot of fun and it was great to finally meet Merry, who we definitely approve of:)

The Netherlands is famous for it's tulips and that is where the first two pictures are taken at. It is called the' Keukenhof' and is acres and acres of beautiful flowers. All of these different vendors come with their new variations of flowers to show off and they have different landscape designs each year. It is open for only two months a year and since they were here in the spring, I decided that they should see it, with their approval of course. Chris refused to go because he "didn't want to pay good money just to see some stinking flowers!" so it was just the three of us.

Dad and I taking a snack break above and below is Merry and Dad trying on some really big wooden shoes.



These next two are of Queen's Day which is the day they celebrate the Queen's birthday. You see a lot of people wearing orange (it is the royal house of Orange-Nassau) and everyone takes their old junk out and trys to sell it on the street. We were in Amsterdam last year the day before Queen's Day and it was already crazy with the partying and drinking, so we decided that we never want to go back on this specific holiday. We happened to be in Delft this year and we walked up and down streets lined with people and their junk The kids had a lot of fun while we cringed at all the worthless stuff that they were purchasing with their allowance. The picture above is Dad with Hannah and Chris all decked out in orange.

After what seemed like days of walking, we stopped and rested on a bridge behind some street performers. You can't see it in the picture, but the little house behind us looked like it was about to fall in the canal.

One of the things the kids wanted to show off was the Kinderboederij, which is a glorified petting zoo, that is close to our house. Lots of baby goats and other farm animals. The kids would probably live there if I would let them. This one is of Merry and the kids.

We went to the 'Mariteim Museum' in Rotterdam and the best part of it was the huge ship that you could tour. It was lots of fun with all of the hands on stuff for the kids to try out. Chris, holding Alex, me, my dad, Hannah with her friend DeeDee, Abby and Alex. Merry must've been taking the picture.


These next three are at 'Madurodam'. It has minature buildings, airplanes and everyother thing that you can think of. Even the bushes are pruned to look like trees. It is basically a minature of the Netherlands with all of it highlights. Pretty cool although after the third time, the kids don't ever want to go back. Grandpa, Hannah and Abby.

The kids and I trying to find our way around? We look confused...

Hannah, Alex, Abby and Isaac sitting in and on a really big wooden shoe. You can see the minature ships and bridges in the background.

Whenever anyone comes to visit us, we always take them to 'Kinderdijk' which is not far from our home. It is nice little area where you can walk or ride a bike along the canal and see around 18 windmills all together. You can even tour one of them to see how people used to live. These were all used to pump water at one time and were all built around 1740. Ken and Merry.



This is grandpa and the grandkids. Can you tell the kids were not thrilled about being here again.

Isaac and Alex in the Corrie ten Boom house in Haarlem. This is where Corrie and her family hid 6 people from the Nazis while they were led off to a concentration camp. It was a very small room and if you have never read 'The Hiding Place' I highly recommend it.



Here is a fabulous picture of us on the streets of Haarlem. Haarlem is my favorite city here by far. Beautiful and very old.

This is the Euromast in the background. It looks lots smaller in the picture then in real life.

The view from the Euromast. The kids were very afraid at first.

Rotterdam is renowned for it's architecture and these are the 'Kijkkubus' or cube houses. Isaac, Chris, Kristal and Ken.

Here we are inside one of the houses. Merry, Ken, Kristal with Abby, Chris with Alex and Isaac. Hannah must be taking the picture here. A very interesting house design.

More architecture in the background (the Erasmus Bridge) with Abby and Alex in the front. These next three pictures are of us on a boat tour on our way to Kinderdijk. It was a bit chilly and I would never do it again. The diesel exhaust was not worth the trip.

Hannah being bored and maybe a little tipsy from the fumes.

Don't we look like we are having a great time.

We wanted to show our guests how we get around in Holland so we went on a bike ride close to our house. It was a great day for a bike ride and we got to see the nice trail area that we have so close to us.

Part of our bike ride included a little hike up one of the only hills in our area that also has a strange piece of art on the top of it. I have included pictures of this before, but here are some spring ones.

Here we are posing in front of it. Ken, Kristal, Alex, Hannah, Abby, Chris and Isaac.
So, there we are...our visit in a nutshell...anyone else up for adventure?

From the mouths of babes...

Today on our train ride home from church, Chris and I were talking and the subject came up about a friend of the family who has just gone through a messy divorce and now has a girlfriend. Abby, who is always in the know, piped up saying, "But isn't he married?" Chris and I look at each other and not wanting to go into too much detail say, "Well... he was but he got divorced." Then little Abby says, "Why did they get divorced?" After hemming and hawing a little bit, I say, "They had problems." So matter of factly, she interjects, "Doesn't everyone have problems?"

A little while later the conversation turned to Hannah babysitting for another family in the ward tonight and Alex says that he doesn't like it when Hannah babysits them because she is mean. We got a big kick out of that and Chris says, "You mean, that she acts like a parent?" All the kids agree wholeheartedly with this and then we say something to the effect that the kids need more structure in their lives. Abby then says to Chris, "You don't hardly ever act like a parent! You act more like a big brother!"

We bought a watermelon in Italy and brought it home with us because they don't have good watermelon here. As we were walking into our house, Chis tells the kids that it needs to be eaten for lunch before it goes bad. Alex wails, "I don't like watermelon!" Disgustedly Chris says, "Why not?" Alex cries, "Cause it tastes like water!"

When we were in Italy, we were talking about what we were planning for the next day and Alex asks Chris, "Are we going back to the 'broken place' tomorrow?" He was referring to the Roman Forum.