Wednesday July 23

Lunch at Arjan's high school friend Berjetta's place, with 'gebak van Brokkel' (world famous cream pie from Brokking Bakery) and ice cream.

Berjet's kids Marije, Anoek and Wouter are fabulous on the trampoline, and taught all kinds of new tricks

Next to Berjet's house are 9 railroad tracks, among which the high speed line to Amsterdam. Even sitting here, you wouldn't know that this grass is actually the cover over those tracks.

A good game of Balance (a game we played as kids a lot, allegedly from France but this time I found out that it only has 1 word in French on it [depart], the rest is all in English). Julia won!

Thursday July 24

Ahhhh, coffee in the Parents yard. Nothing better!

We took a trip through the Alblasserwaard, a big polder next to the island of Dordrecht, mostly made up of farm land, speckled with windmills and tiny little villages. We visited a glass factory in Leerdam where they demonstrated glass blowing. Kids were marginally amused. They had a much better time at the farm we visited next, where the farmer's wife makes Dutch pancakes.

(The sign says: Farmer's terrace, coffee with applepie, pannekoeken, welcome) 

When we got there the farmer's kids were fishing in the nearby river. They actually caught a good size fish, but then didn't know what to do. Mom was busy with the pancakes, so Arjan got the slimy bugger in the bucket. (fishing kids are just left of the bridge)

Awesome pancakes! These things were made with fresh milk, eggs from the farm, and all kinds of other goodness. The whole rest of the day I had such a nice, happy, wholly satisfied feeling in my stomach.

And as we were eating our pancakes, 300 feet further on a cow gave birth. We missed the actual 'plop', as it was hard to stop eating.

The farmer said that this cow gave 11,800 liters of milk last year. That's 8.5 gallons each day! She had already given birth 8 times.

Even though the kids on the farm have certainly seen their share of livestock births, they still came out to gaze in glory.. They get to name all the calves, and this year they decided on a candy theme. This one is therefore named 'Mars'

While lounging at the farmaurant, kids enjoyed Dutch style goony golf (club is half a wooden shoe) and bathing in a bucket.

Sofia rides with Oma and Opa. She waves exactly like the Dutch Queen does when she rides around in her golden carriage on Prinsjesdag.

Early morning wake up for Opa. They have these fancy electrically controlled beds, and the kids got a hold of the controllers so for an hour it was like a slow roller-coaster ride.

Happy happy Holland days

The kids set up their own private picnic in what is actually the drive port to Parent's garage.  It feels like a hidden cove and served its purpose well and often.

lovely visit with Grand Oma (now 98), Ad's mother.

Home made Challah.  A first for both Elly and Tara.

Cousins carousing (dog is Dibbes, Bram and Sander's sweet sweet Lab)

4 generations (by marriage) here:  Grand Oma, Elly (married to Oma's son Ad), Arjan, Sofia

breakfast for the bunch.  Kids table outside of course! Hagelslag every day. They are very good about helping themselves, although when we occasionally looked we saw that Julia managed to get a whole inch of sprinkles in between a sandwich.

Big send off as we head to Amsterdam (Ad, Elly, Betsy, Henny, Harry, Michiel, Bram and Sander waving) 

En route to Amsterdam, we stopped at Arjan's college friend Pierre's house.  This is where Tara wants to live when we move to Holland.  Unusually large back yard equipped with trampoline, play house, play ground, blow up pool, tons of toys and live pet goat (behind playhouse).

A fine gathering now that everyone's begun to reproduce: Pauline (married to Leon) with little Koen, Arjan with J, S & V, Pierre, Leon with Jelte, Mark on bike with Isis (daughter of Pierre and) Minka.

After hanging around at Pierre's house in Maarsbergen got too hot we went to the Henschotermeer (lake), where Vincent surprised us by an unannounced trip to the island in the middle of the lake (Madagascar, according to V), which was a 200 ft trek through open water. We had never seen him swim more than 20 ft at a time, so we were very impressed. To top of the moment, Julia then did it too!  Truly a wonderful day.