My new phone

I just got a sweet new phone from Novell. It is an HTC TyTn II:

The coolest specs about thiis phone are it has WiFi & Bluetooth, a 3 Mega Pixel camera, GPS with TomTom, and a slide out keyboard and the screen tilts. I already tested out the GPS. I let it guide me home along the bicycle paths. I also just ordered an 8GB MicroSD card.

Specifications

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Processor: Qualcomm® MSM 7200, 400MHz
Operating System: Windows Mobile® 6 Professional
Memory: ROM: 256MB
RAM: 128MB SDRAM
Dimension: 112 mm (L) X 59 mm (W) X 19 mm (T)
Weight: 190g with battery
Display: 2.8 inch, 240 X 320 QVGA TFT-LCD display with adjustable angle and backlight
Device Control: Finger scrolling and panning 5-Way navigation control
Keyboard: Slide-out QWERTY keyboard
Connectivity: Bluetooth® 2.0
Wi-Fi®: IEEE 802.11 b/g
Main camera: 3 megapixel CMOS color camera with auto focus

Second camera: VGA CMOS color camera
Audio: Built-in microphone and speaker Ring tone supported formats:
MP3, AAC, AAC+, WMA, WAV, and AMR-NB
microSD™ memory card (SD 2.0 compatible)

A couple of Hannah "firsts"

On Thursday night, Valentines Day, Hannah and I went to the Temple with the Young Men and Women of the ward The temple is in den Hague which is about 45 minutes from our home. The Bishop and first counselor were the only other brothers there to perform the ordinances. I ended up baptizing everyone (14 kids) and the Bishop and First Counselor performed the confirmations. Needless to say, I was very tired by the time I was done. I have never performed 140+ baptisms at one time with no break. Hannah was, of course, as beautiful as ever stepping into the fountain and I was proud to be the one performing the ordinance.

On Friday the 16th, Hannah was able to attend her first dance. Her school had a Valentines Day dance for all Group 6, 7 and 8 students (4th, 5th and 6th grades). She hasn't yet said much about the dance yet, we have not yet pushed for info, but she I know she actually danced with some boys. Of course, in light of this latest info, she will not be attending another dance for at least 10-20 more years.

A long story

There seem to be certain unnamed people, Lisa, who think that we are slipping into blogging oblivion, so I thought that I would write something to put their mind(s) at ease. We had an 'series of unfortunate events' happen last week...Isaac got into a bike accident on his way home from school. Nothing glorious, but the wind blew him over and we, or I should say, I and some very nice Dutch people ended up at the hospital where we got him glued back together sufficiently. It turns out that Abby, being the couragous little thing that she is, ended up being blown over off of her bike on the way home to drag me to the scene of the crime. It is very exciting when you open the front door and you have two Dutch policemen standing there with your teary eyed daughter. Can I just add that the police here are very nice and understanding and pressed and polished looking (which is a little scary up close). Due to a serious lack of communication between Abby and I, she ended up lost the next day. Now, I can think of very few things that are as scary as this is to a parent but it is greatly magnified when you are in a foreign country, even if most people do speak very good English. Everything turned out alright and I only went bolistic a little bit on her afterwords. The things that go through your mind though...I tell you!

Our first Holland movie experience

Kristal, Hannah and I hopped on the metro last Saturday afternoon to make our way to the center of Rotterdam. We decided it was finally time to visit a movie theater to see "National Treasure 2 - The Book of Secrets" First, the building looked large but there where only 7 theaters in it, we quickly found out why. We walked into theater 1 and found ourselves at the base of the most ginormous screen I believe I have ever seen. It was a bit larger than a typical IMAX screen. We then turned around to see row after row of stadium seating. I think that it seated about 2 1/2 times the number of people that a theater at the Cinemark does in American Fork. It was awesome! We have heard about dubbing vs subtitling before our experience but this just confirmed it. The dutch people do not like watching dubbed movies. Childrens movies are often dubbed since they do not all speak english and they may not be able to read yet but everything else is in English with Dutch subtitles. When I went to purchase the drinks and popcorn, they asked if I would like sweet or salty popcorn. I suppose the sweet was like kettle corn but I chose the salty.

As for the movie itself. Very Good!!! I was not disappointed and I am anxious for the 3rd "National Treasure". Hopefully we won't have to wait too long.

The Foods the Kids Love

The diet of ourselves as well as the kids have changed a bit to encorporate dutch foods. I figured that I would write about a few of those foods. I think the overall favorite is stroopwaffles and stroopkoekens. The stroopwaffle is featured in the movie "The Best 2 Years", if you have seen it, you should know what I am talking about. They are basically 2 thin waffle-type cookies that have a layer of a caramel-type stuff inbetween them. Stroopkoekens are basically the same thing that have thin butter cookies instead of waffles.

Another favorite is hagelslag. They are chocolate (chocoladehagel) or fruit (fruithagel) sprinkles like you would see on cake in the states. You spread pindakas (peanut butter) or chocolatapasta (Nutella or hazelnut spread) on a piece of bread and then sprinkle the hagelslag on top.

Pancakes are also popular. They are actually more like crepes but a little thincker. At ward function we had the pancakes and they baked apples or cheese in some of them to give different tastes. You could also take a plain pancake and add fresh fruit, whip cream and syrup sprinkled with a little powder sugar on top. MMMM leker!

We all like the cured meats. Cheese and cured meats are very popular and you have a lot of choices in the stores. We just had a sausage that you slice up and cook in a grill on the stove and we eat it while it is still sizziling. Gouda cheese is big because it comes from the town of Gouda, Netherlands. We will probably go to the cheese festival in that town this summer.

The popular dutch foods are very good and we have found that we love most everything. They eat a lot of meat and potatoes which makes us feel more and more at home.