| Update Page #9 |
Saturday April 6th (cont...) gardens. We drove through field after field of tulips, crocus, daffodil and (My Favorite) Hyacinth. Later that night the kids had Virginie over to babysit again. Doug and I finally got to celebrate our birthdays. We went to a restarant on the ocean and watched the sun set into the north sea. Very romantic (and very cold!). Sunday April 7th Sunday was a slow starting day, but when we did get going the kids got some homework done then we went for a walk past the tulip fields to the beach. We had lunch at a restaurant on the water. Daniel ordered pannenkoken (pancakes) and when it came to the table it was the biggest pancake any of us had ever seen! Daniel's exact words were "It's bigger than my head!". He obviously enjoyed it since he finished off the whole thing. All of the kids have taken to the Dutch way of eating pannenkoken, with powdered sugar instead of syrup. That night we went to dinner at the house of our friends Stacy and Jeff. Jeff is a American officer doing and exchange program with the Dutch surface Navy. (Not everyone can be a submariner, some people need to be targets!) We got to meet some Belgian friends of theirs who are also doing and exchange program with the Dutch navy (seems to be alot of that going around doesn't there?). We had lots of great food and a really great time. The kids enjoyed watching their first American Disney video in over two weeks! Emma has asked almost every hour on the hour if she can PLEASE go back to Miss Stacy's house! Monday April 8th Monday was spent catching up on homework and laundry. Boring!, but needed. Daniel finished homework first and he an Emma started channel surfing for cartoons. Em was happily surprized to come across one of her favorites from home, "Rolie Polie Olie". The only thing was that it was in Dutch. Luckily she had seen it so many times before that she was able to follow right along anyway. Either that or she was just so starved for a Disney fix that she just didn't care if she could understand the words or not! Shortly after that Daniel came across the BBC kids channel and now we can get a cartoon fix anytime we need it, IN ENGLISH! (Well, British English, but beggars can't be choosers!) Tuesday April 9th We finally finished homework! I just went back and read some of my other entries and I noticed I mention having to do laundry a lot. The main reason for that is because the Dutch washing machines are so tiny. You can only fit two pairs of jeans (and nothing else) in one load. It's kind of strange to me that even though the Dutch people are all pretty tall, (Doug is 6 ft and on the short side of average for Dutch men and I am 5'11' and about average for Dutch women) their stuff, (like washing machines, frigs, cars, & homes) is all so small. Wednesday April 10th Today I went shopping for souveniers with my friend Stacy. I got a little bit of everything from a porcelain windmill music box to wooden shoes. Thanks for all your help and advice Stacy! Later we made another trip to the pool. We all had fun just like the other times we had been there before but something big happened this time. Emma let go of me in the pool and swam all by herself! |