hi all!

How are you all going? We miss our family and friends back in Australia. I really want to take this time to say thanks to you all for skype calls, emails, comments on the blog, messages on egroups and boards etc. You have no idea how much this has encouraged us, made us laugh, and at times .... cry, strengthening our resolve in the things that we are doing. You guys have all been great THANKS SO MUCH!!

Today was a few first for us. The kids and I signed up for a craft activity. Doing craft is not new for us (though the kids would always love to be doing more than what we do ). In this case we traveled down to a town called Baarn. Lovely place. This meant leaving the apartment at 8.45am catching a bus, two trains and then a bus ...... two hours later we arrived at this place that does workshops for children. There are all sorts of machinery and craft materials that the children are able to go wild with making, building and decorating. So that was our first craft activity in a new country.

We also got to meet face to face for the first time other home educators. That was really fun and encouraging for me. I've been told that Amsterdam has a good sized home educating community in it, so I am looking forward to meeting up with more over Summer.

So check out the photos from todays venture into the Dutch countryside

Michael's brick house creation with foam roof and car (in the backyard)

Michael made some little wooden swords which you see here been painted

A Jas and Sam creation!

I was so pleased to see the two girls working on a project together ...... knowing just of different my girls are this was truly lovely to see.

The finished product!

Samantha loved using this machine that cut through foam

Building time ....... another fun activity that all the children enjoyed!

So home we go ....... it was raining on this leg of the journey but we were happy and content with what we had achieved that day! So it was one bus, two trains, one bus and we were home again!