We caught up with the Lupton today. A swim at Crystal Cascades and then some fish and chips at the beach. It had been a busy week for all of us but especially for the Luptons and their friends with squeezing in all they wanted to do in one week. They did well to do what they did!

The lady in the back left is my cousin Karen! she had arrived earlier in the week for one of my other cousins 21st! We practically grew up together: her, my brother and myself!

The boys where at the other table

Dylan having a rest after a massive week and endless play with my kiddos on the beach!

The last three weeks Marcel has been getting his hands dirty! 6 days a week, 12 hour night-time shifts in the grime and rain as a trade assistant has been an experience and a half. Silly us forgot to get some photos. He hasn't needed to go to the gym!

Anyway, as of today he starts a new contract at the Cairns City Council behind a desk. He starts work at 8.15am finishing at 4.30pm and is home for dinner! Next thing he'll be asking for a gym membership??!

What an eventful couple of days !

Over the weekend there was the discovery of a 3 metre croc in the swimming nets of a local beach! 

Today Northern Queensland was sent into a panic with the warning of a possible Tsunami threat. The warning started going out on the radio and TV around 8am that an earthquake had occured in the Solomon Islands and that a Tsunami wave might be headed this way. The officials were predicting that if there was a wave it would hit Cairns around 9.50am. The wave was due to hit Cooktown first at 9.35am. Well as you are most probably aware of by now there was no Tsunami but the panick that the warning provoked up here in the north brought everything to a complete stop. Businesses closed for the morning, the hospital moved patients up to higher floors, stopped all procedures and closed it's gates, while the local schools sent the children home. People started to flock to the mountains behind Cairns ..... it was pandamonium. At 9.35am Cooktown experienced no wave which meant that the threat had lessened.

The end result, the ocean water rose about 30cm and there was alot of confusion.

We are so blessed to be staying near some great beaches! The kids have been loving the time they spend in the sand.

You can see the stinger nets out in the water behind the kids.

(DL, this is the beach where you guys will be staying on your hols!)

Although, I haven't been that crazy about the 3 metre crocodile found in a stinger net a couple of beaches north of here recently VERY FREAKY!!! These are the nets that people can swim in so that they are protected from the stingers that frequent these waters during the summer months. HA so to find a croc INSIDE one of these nets was chilling news to say the least. Welcome to the tropics!!!! These nets are watched over by Lifeguards so that is a little consolation

A very quick pop in! More updates soon!

• We arrived back in Cairns last Wednesday to HEAT AND HUMIDITY
• The week has been spent traveling between my In-laws place in the south of Cairns and mum's place on the northern beaches (Marcel has had two kiddos with him at his parents home and I've had 2 with me at my mum's and then we would swap the kids each night)
• We have been extremely blessed with people giving us cars to use (no people movers so lots of juggling there)
• my brother-in-law and his wife are due to have their first baby in less than two weeks so I've been taking my cluckiness out on her and also patrolling the baby section of Target!
• my FIL Henk is currently down in Townville undergoing chemo and radiation treatment which is expected to last a month. His treatment started yesterday. We are praying hard for a good outcome there
• After spending a nice week with family Marcel and I are now job hunting with the hope of picking up casual work here and there. We are after work that will tie us over untill we head back to the Netherlands.
• At present we are at the inlaws home enjoying the cooling rain

More soon!

love from the vdBs xxxxxx

BBQ with some of  the family

Hi everyone!

This week has been a funny week as we have stayed in the apartment alot mostly because it has been raining. Michael's hand has healed up nicely!

Some major things happened that means we are moving along with being able to settle into our new life! Marcel got THE LETTER saying his work permit had been processed. So he was then able to make an appointment with the Tax Office to get what is equivalent to Australia's tax file number. The appointment is next week (we are learning that very little happens quickly here ) so once that number comes through we can get a bank account (where is that jumping for joy smiley when I need him!! ). What a common experience this is for people coming to work in the Netherlands! Our experience has given me much food for thought for those people comming into Australia on work visas or in other ways (T & V, thinking about all the paperwork you guys have had to do!!).

In the mail today (yes, Amsterdam has mail delivered on Saturdays!) a letter came to say that Marcel's residence permit is ready to be picked up. Another huge YAYYYYYYYY ....... that will mean many services and conviences become available to Marcel. Mine and the kids permits are yet to come through as they needed some extra documentation that says I'm married to Marcel. But hopefully it won't too much longer!

On Monday Marcel started a project at Aalsmeer Bloenveilingen. This is the worlds largest flower auction. Apparently the auction starts at 7am each morning and is over in an hour! More on that later as we are going out on an excursion to see the auction next week.

Marcel has been starting work at 6.30am (leaving home at 5.30am) with a collegue who travels from another part of the country. This man starts wok early to miss the traffic and leaves to go home before the home-time traffic. this is one of the many things I'm still getting use to: the way lots people travel from villages into the cities to work ..... it is still a 'foreign' concept to me . It seems people prefer to stay in or close to the villages they grew up and are happy to travel to work. The distances here aren't that great and the roads/public transport make it fairly easy traveling too!

On Tuesday the kids and I visited the Tropenmusuem! No piccies sorry as I forgot the camera (DOPE!) But we had a great time at this museum and I definitely plan to take the children back to this one. Hopefully when we have a better grasp of Dutch (Nederlands), as all the tours are in Nederlands, we can go back to get more out of this fantastic museum!

If you are interested to have a look at the tropenmuseum webpage:

http://www.tropenmuseum.nl/smartsite.shtml?ch=FAB&id=5857

More soon! love to all from the vdBs xxx

My SIL put me onto these great little guides produced by DK. As it says on the front "Your guide to the 10 best of everything"....... in the guide for Amsterdam I was looking up the Top 10 Sights and Sounds for Free, seeing we are watching our euros until we get back to Oz ~ they don't have pennies in Holland ~ and rediscoverd the Hollandsche Manege (19th-century royal riding school).

And surprise, surprise ...... the school is located just on the other side of Vondelpark, walking distance from us! Going through the park we are noticing some spring flowers popping up their heads early. We are enjoying the sneak preview of just how awake Vondelpark will become when spring bursts upon it!

Walking from the park on to Vondelstraat we start looking for the riding school. The houses and apartments along this street are stunning. One of the houses had this beautiful tiled scene high up on the second floor window!

As we walked along the street continuing our search for the riding school we nearly walked past the entrance, concealed down a long, beautifully ornate driveway.

With no way of knowing where to go to find the arena we opened a heavy, wooden door and walked through into a walkway NEXT to the arena. A horse riding lesson was in progress before us. The arena is an inside arena with lovely plasterwork sides and horse head scuptures decorating a wall. We watched for awhile before realising that above us was a gallery with a better view of the arena!

Finding our way upstairs where we found more heavy, wooden doors ....... we opened one door to discover a cafe full of people and to the side of the cafe doors leading out the gallery we had noticed from downstairs. The gallery has tables and chairs to enjoy a coffee while watching the lessons below.

It still amazes me that dogs are allowed inside cafes ....... another reminder that we have Gone Dutch!

And this is the scene below .....

I had to take a photo of the staircase going up to the cafe and gallery! The iron work is stunning too and the wooden stairs uneven from many people walking up and down them over the many years. The school was built in 1881!

Unbeknownst to me, Michael had tripped a little down the stairs and sliced his hand open on the iron railing. You can see Marcel looking at his hand. There was blood everywhere by the time I got down to them. Michael was brave through the whole ordeal, whereas mum and dad were thinking ..... stitches, hospital! Glad to report he is fine and the long cut wasn't as bad as it first looked.

Marcel and Jasmine are now dreaming about how they can manage riding lessons at the school!!

....... busy at the office doing research for a new project ........

......... and busy in an important testing phase ..........

(photos from last week)

I can't believe it is the 1st day of February TODAY!! Just to give you an overview of the last couple of days as they have been busy ones for us.

Monday ~ found us hunting around for National Strippen Kaart  for the trams. We were surprised to discover that many of the shops around this area (probably the same throughout Amsterdam) were closed in the morning! My mission today was to buy a stroller . After getting the Strippen Kaart (card) we headed into the Centrum to find a shopping center or baby shop. We got to Dam Square (the heart of Amsterdam) SO AMAZING! The Royal Palace and Memorial of World War 11 are both in this incredibly huge square. That was the thing that struck me the most -- the huge space in The Dam. Amsterdam gives you a reality of being small, small streets, small living spaces (for a city that holds 730,000 people there isn't much space anywhere), small cafes , small shops (etc) ...... so to walk into The Dam, for me, was overwhelming. All that space that I could breathe in and soak up.

The Royal Palace is in the background on the left and on the right you can see a little of De Nieuwe Kerk!

On another day the kids wanted me to take this photo as it reminded them of the lamp post in Nania

Catching trams

That's our tram coming up in the background

Jassie on the flying fox in Vondelpark

The boys taking off on an adventure!

The most colourful bird we have seen so far ~ we have seen them regular in Vondelpark

More on the stroller later and what we discovered with trying to buy one!

love from the vdBs xxx

Today the kids and I were home by ourselves for the first time  but it was fine we did some work ,caught up on some other things and went down to the shops for buy some dinner. The Netherlands has a couple of supermarkets, smaller than what we have back in Australia. Dirks is similar to ALDI in price. So today we went to Dirks as it was just around the corner from where we are staying. Albert Heijn is the other supermarket being more like Woolworths. I got to practise my fledgling dutch and work out the money too!

Such a relaxing, encouraging weekend down at Bateman's Bay. We all stayed at the Coachhouse resort ~ great venue

Arriving Friday night it was check in time and catching up with everyone who was staying over that night.

And there were prayers happening for Rory and fam too!!

Saturday morning it was PANCAKES in one of the villas over looking the Bay. The girls did a fantastic job of hosting and making sure we were well fed! You go Clare, Nina and Zoe

Saturday morning was a mix of teaching, discussion and prayer time ~ there were great lessons from Stu on being a family and from Diane, being knit together.

Saturday afternoon Renee, Janette and I did some retail therapy. Although, Janetteso (sorry Renee, I couldn't resist the 'so' bit ) was having too much fun helping me get that just-right top!

Marcel took the kiddos to a local beach to collect seashells. Back at the resort others were resting, chatting, walking along the bay frontage or whatever they wanted to do.

Sunday morning, instead of having the communion in the park (the wind had pick up), we worshiped God in one of the villas. Taking on the beach theme, David, talked about Lifeguards saving people and how Jesus is our Lifeguard ~ saving us and looking out for all of us!

Some other photos from the weekend!!

We really enjoyed the relaxed weekend!!

Yes, we were there at 8am banging on the doors!

A sad farewell to our friends the Smarts. They are off to Tasmania, the first leg of their tour around Australia

The feeling that our school year is finished is really upon me, especially after today! Our year still has 2 more months to go but the simple fact that I've done my end of year report and then today it feels like this year has been wrapped up.

What talent and wonderful displays of entertainment!! Our group enjoyed a morning of being entertained by our children and their various talents.

Our children displayed some of their learning in the form of workbooks, artwork, models, poems, written work, and lots more. As well, as perfoming musical pieces, plays, singing, acts, we also got to see a dog training act and sing a farewell song to a dear family moving away.

No, we aren't talking about one of Canberra's football teams (as some friends thought ). These are the wild horse that were made famous by Banjo Patersens' poem Man From Snowy River.

We went with a group of other homeschooling families to a property, out from Braidwood (1 hour from Canberra), where these horses still live in the wild.

Marcel took the day off work to come join us too!

Such beautiful country and to see these horse thriving in the wild was a joy to see. The kiddos had a crazy fun day with rides on the back of a ute Brumby-spotting

 a nature walk

 and lunch over looking a valley. So much better than being in a classroom!

PHEW!! Coming out of this planned 'unbelieveably social' time I was really looking forward to a breather. We had such a great time visiting others and having people over that all of us were looking forward to some quiet time at home just with our family. The breather will need to wait for another couple of weeks!!

Our 6yo DD had her first concert at Floriade on Saturday! Marcel and Grandma were there to see her perform and mum got to see her on video. All the littlies looked perfessional and sounded beautiful with their sweet angel voices.

Well, we had one of those proud parenting moments when our oldest, who is only 9yo, went to his first real job today! Ok, it's only casual gardening for a friend AND he is only working on an as-needs basis. But we couldn't help but get a bit teary and sending him off with parental advice that he probably already new lol. He did GREAT! Not that this surprised us, it's just that he was out of our control and there can be that niggling doubt that he might mess up. Well he didn't and he is going back next time. Then there was the issue of being paid for something. Marcel handle that well by saying that a worker is worthy of his wages! Just had to share!

Wow, Sydney was so wet. Raining pretty much for the four days we were there. Thankfully, we still managed to see a few of the historical places we had planned to visit and soak up. Driving into Sydney from Wollongong the weather report on the radio was describing torrential rain and flooding, so that meant the Taronga Zoo was off the radar , and a quick change of plans. We stopped by a much smaller zoo just north of Wollongong to feed the kangaroos and cuddle a Koala! Driving straight to Parramatta River to imaging the first fleeters coming up the river in search of better land to feed a starving colony and trying to see what they would have seen. My, how things have changed. There we were sheltering under gumtrees with not much of a hope of staying dry. We where glad to get to Elizabeth Farm for some dry warmth! Elizabeth Farm is so worth the visit. It is here the John Macarthur and his wife Elizabeth built up their farm in the Parramatta area. By all accounts he was a very difficult, opinionated man. But a visionary too! Elizabeth's story was one of great character and strength, such an ability to keep things going despite her husbands long absenses and the illness towards the end of his life! The kids remember the Macarthur's bed having 3 mattresses (one made of hay, another horse hair and the last one, feathers) and being so fluffed up that you wondered how anyone could sleep on it without rolling off lol!

We spent a day walking around Sydney's Habour, seeing the Opera House, The Rocks and other spots of historical importance. In amongst all the highrise there were these gems that if you didn't take the time to stop and read would easily be missed in the bustle of city life.

Well that's all for now, if I get some time to upload some photos I'll try but we still have more to see so here's hoping we get an opportunity to play the tourist some more in Sydney.

We were able to relax in Wollongong and enjoy some R&R in our 'up-graded' cabin. So sweet! I had booked us into a family cabin but the caravan park management blessed us with an upgrade to a delux cabin, so we had a few more luxuries for the five nights we stayed there. We chilled out at the beach that was five minutes away and did the touristy thing, walks in town and out on the Wollongong point including lighthouses and spectacular views. For those of you who don't know, Wollongong is about an hours drive south of Sydney, it has a reputation for being an industry town. But away from the ugly industry stuff it's a gorgeous place, with great beaches and a mountain range skirting across the back of the Wollongong area. After our couple of weeks of sickness we took an opportunity to rest up and enjoy some ocean air!