First day of school

Back to school after 11.5 weeks of holiday! I think the girls were ready.

Last Wednesday we went to school and met their teachers. Floortje is in Mrs. Roach's class. She already knew her a little bit as she is the mum of one of the girls in Floortje's class from last year. Floortje says she does crazy stuff like eat worms and drink three cartons of chocolate milk without stopping. Should make for an exciting year... Famke's actually has three teachers, Ms Salak for math, Ms Hymel for science and social studies and Ms Carioso for language.

Both girls seemed happy after school so happy mum too :)

It has become a tradition to take a picture of the girls on their bike in front of the house on the first day back. However, just a we wanted to get on our bikes the rain started coming down with bucket loads! So the car it was.

Therefore, first picture is first day, second picture is second day on our bikes!

 

Sky High

What to do with the kids when they have three months of summer holidays and it is 40 degC outside?

You find indoor entertainment :)

Sky High is a trampoline place that has wall to wall (literally!) trampolines. Huge areas are covered in trampolines and foam which makes for a very jumpy afternoon!

 

 

Cycling season has started

Even though it is still pretty hot in Texas, the guys have decided that cycling season has started again.

This year, a new contender for the white jersey, Michiel de Rijk! (for those of you not so familiar with cycling, the white jersey is awarded to the best young - read 'new' - cyclist in the group).

 

Poezeoma wins!

This summer, while we were staying with Gerda, she asked me to call the 'sponsor loterij' (an automatic lottery she was participating in). I called and took care of things and asked her if I needed to cancel anything else. She told me she also participated in the 'postcode loterij' but was not ready to stop that one yet.

Well, turns out she was right! This week her postcode was drawn and 3.2 million euros was divided in her neighborhood.

There was a big party with a famous Dutch singer and she received her share there. Congratulations!

 

Despicable Me 2

Our girls have never been too enthusiastic about going to see a movie at the theatre but today they were quite excited to go and see 'Despicable Me 2'.

Of course we had to get some popcorn. When we paid $7 for our huge bucket (a small was $6.50!) the girl behind the counter told us we could get unlimited refills which Floortje got very excited about. However after our movie the bucket was still half full and we decided that are refill was not really necessary!

Funny movie by the way.

 

Going home

Always very double... Sad to leave everyone behind in Holland and always realizing that we still didn't get to see everyone. On the other side, happy to go home again. Back to normality, our own beds and clothes in a closet instead of a suitcase.

 

 

Dinner in Assen

On our last few days in Holland with Thijs we also managed a trip up north :) to visit Gerda and Elsbeth in Assen. One of those nights Elsbeth and the girls had a night in with pasta while Gerda, Thijs and me went out for a very nice dinner in Assen 'Bij Jaap'.

 

Papa's old home

While visiting Gerda and Elsbeth we passed by Grolloo so Thijs wanted to show the girls 'Middenstreek 3' where he had lived from his 4th until his 15th.

Grolloo is a very small village and when Thijs and his family moved here in 1973, they were the first family from 'outside' to ever move there. It took Thijs' dad quite some time and 'jenevertjes' to become accepted! The village was so small that every phone number consisted only of three numbers!

Funny to see the faces of the girls as they obviously have a hard time imagining that their parents were once also small :)