jayden's kite

Jayden's Godparents, Sarah and Dave, sent him a kite to celebrate his baptism (June 2005). The package arrived on Saturday morning. Jayden and I happened to be in the house when the bell rang. He answered the door and was so surprised that the postman had a package for HIM! He quickly opened the package and ran outside with the kite. Although there was not much wind that afternoon - it did not stop Jayden from running around the backyard for a very long time with his kite! As soon as he finished breakfast on Sunday morning - he was back out flying his kite :)

But with every good kite-flyer ... somehow always a tree nearby to snatch the kite out of the air! No worries... the kite was not damaged :) Jayden was back to flying his kite again.

A big thank you to Sarah and Dave for such a special gift for Jayden in honor of his baptism! Oh, I must not forget that the package included a very large jar of Jiff peanut butter for me - YUM!!!

Avondvierdaagse

Graham participated in the annual Avondvierdaagse walk in Hilversum. The Avondvierdaagse is roughly translated into the 4 evening walks. Graham participated in the walk with his school.

For his age group, the evening walks were 5 kilometers (3.1 miles) for the first 3 nights and on the final night 7 kilometers. Each night, the walking course was a different route and on the final night the walk was more like a parade with bands playing and groups dressed up.

Graham walked the first night with Ross. I walked the 2nd night with Graham (Jillian, Jayden, and Helen stayed with Ross). The 3rd night, I walked with Graham but Jillian came along this time :) On the last night, Ross started out the walk with Graham and I was going to meet them at the finish with flowers and the other kids.... but as we were biking to the finish - we came across the "parade route" and happened to catch Graham's group..... well the Group - but not Ross and Graham. So we biked up a bit further into town and found them! Jayden and Helen joined in the parade and Jillian and I watched the parade and met them all at the finish. It was a really neat way to see parts of Hilversum and be a part of this great cultural even..... oh and we arrived home around 10:15pm!

Needless to say after biking each day to the start and walking all those miles - we were all tired but got to sleep in on saturday morning!

tp bracelet?

leave a toddler in the bathroom unsupervised for a couple minutes to take care of her "business" and this is what you might come back to! (don't worry - it's clean tp)

next time i'll give her a book to read!!

la la lalalala

.... yep! it's the theme song to the Smurfs! we found an itialian ice cream place (all the more reason for me to keep biking the kids around!!) in town and they have Smurf ice cream. ross picked some up saturday when we were in town shopping. i bet you're wondering if the ice cream turned our mouths blue - NOPE! now that's some good ice cream!

the ice cream reminded me of when i was a kid... i loved the Smurfs! one summer we collected glasses from Hardee's and i also had a Smurf comforter on my bed.... Smurfs on 1 side and soft, white flannel on the other. i bet my mom will remember the comforter and my blue carpet to match :) i wonder if she still has the Smurf glasses at the lake?

oooo vla vla !

vla is a yogurt-type dessert.... a unique treat in holland! ross decided that hagel slag (which is another dutch treat... similar to chocolate ice cream sprinkles) would taste good mixed in with the vla! jayden gives it 2 thumbs up!

Helen's Dutch Preschool

Helen's preschool drop off went much better last thursday and today. phew! she talked about going to school all weekend and couldn't wait for school today! in her classroom they have a fish tank filled with tadpoles - pretty cool to see the tadpoles turn into frogs. today her teacher pointed out that the tadpoles have legs now.... soon they will be frogs!

i'm so glad she likes going to school and hopefully she will be teaching me some dutch words soon :)

tulips!

somehow i failed to publish some pictures from our trip to see the tulips in april! we will definitely go back there next year! such a breathtaking view of tulips! i took about 70 pictures, but chose only a few to post here :)