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.

Visby, Sweden

I arrived in Visby, Sweden a few hours ago and have already found the city to be amazing. It is on the Island of Gotland which is East of mainland Sweden. I am staying in the heart of the old city which is still surrounded by a wall that, as far as I have seen so far, is still fully standing. The wall was built in the 12th century and many of the original buildings and churches still exist as well.

What I found most interesting are the ruins. There are several churches that were abandoned in the 16th century. The walls still stand but roofs were destroyed.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visby


This is a picture of the wall with the opening (the small arch) I drove through to enter the old city. I am standing outside of the wall when taking this picture. The opening were not built for cars but thankfully, they do barely fit.

Picture of the coast

A cool old building

Ruins of St. Katarina

Looking inside St. Katarina Church

Just another cool building, typical medieval construction

A cool small ally with an arch. The arch itself is actually a dwelling.

Ruins of St. Hans

More of St. Hans

Ruins of St. Lars

Inside St. Lars

West side of St. Drottens

More of the West side of St. Drottens

The East side of St. Drottens

(I have some other pictures but will just post these for now. I took the opportunity to have Sunday dinner at a local sports bar. I know it's the sabbath but a man's gotta eat and it was the first place I ran into that served food I understood. It was named O'Leary's. The story is that in the mid 80s, a man moved from Sweden to Boston and fell in love with the sports bar atmosphere as well as a local Botston woman. Soon after marrying, they moved to Gotland and opened a Botson-style sports bar in the middle of medieval Visby. They have since opened several locations but they all have the Boston feeling. I tell the story because though I have never been in a sports bar before today, As I sat there eating my BBQ Baby Back Ribs, I felt like I was back in the U.S. (except for the fact that all the TVs were showing soccer instead of football, basketball or baseball).

Prague

I was in Prague on business March 16th - March 29th. Kristal came to join me on the 26th and we were able to see much of Prague 'old town' as well as the 'lessor town'. Here are some pictures followed by a slideshow including most of the pictures we took. Click on any picture to see it bigger.
Charles Bridge


A view of the Prague Castle from the Charles Bridge. The cathedral you see in the distance is within the castle walls.

A view of 'lessor town' at the end of the Charles Bridge

Within the walls of the castle in front of the Cathedral

Powder Tower. There are 13 towers which served as town gates throughout Prague. This one was built in 1478.


A couple street views near the center of Prague

Old Town Square, looking at the clock tower which also has the Astronomical clock as seen below.

Old Town Square

Old Town Square

Old Town Square

Again...Old Town Square

The Astronomical clock at the base of the clock tower


Here is an interesting sculpture.


The Prague Church

and sign

The metro was very deep. Here is the stairs leading down. I had already been on it for about 10 feet before I took this. It took over a minute by escalator just to get to the bottom.

"That was who?!?"

Last Saturday I was at the local electronics store buying a new Navigation System. The employee that was helping me walked me back to the front to pay for the system I had selected. When we got to the register, there was an old man and a younger man speaking to each other as the older gentleman was waiting to pay for his DVD player. The employee shook the younger mans hand, said some things in dutch ( no idea what) and the younger man left the store. The old man then said to me "do you know who that was?". Of course, I didn't. "That was the Prime Minister". I was standing shoulder to shoulder with the leader of the Netherlands and had no clue. He just happened to be out and about doing some shopping. I knew that he lived in Capelle, in fact he lived within a kilometer or so from our old house. I never figured I would run into him at the discount electronics store. My latest brush with a celebrity.