Earlier this month Marcel and I hired a car for the day, heading north our goal was to spend some time together just the two of us and see a couple of places!

We drove to a place called Hoorn, once a thriving coastal port and in the towns heyday had its own currency. We had a wonderfully, roaming time.

Hoorn ~ Habour

After Hoorn we continued north, over the dike and into Friesland to the childhood village of Marcel's mum.

Friesland countryside ~ old bike

Quintessance of Holland ~ the windmill

Common farmhouse

Working the canals and roadways ~ sailboat moving over the autos

On this day we visited the village of Marcel's mum, saw the old house and visited the graveyard. In all we traveled about 300Km that day - for a couple of four wonderful children we enjoyed stepping out of our normal routine for the day and simply hanging out together ... yep, it was a special day.

Our three older children are camping this week, the girls in Baarn and Michael in Haarlem. Check out the girls on the day their troup left for camp! One of the leaders was offered a work truck to carry all the equipment needed for one week away!

Loading the truck ....

Truck and trailer ~ equipment included the usual tents, food etc plus all the scout kids took their bikes too!

A couple of weekends ago we headed up to a beautiful area of Holland to see the dunes and hang out in nature with our friends the Middendorfs. We had a wonderful, relaxing afternoon!

That's where we were headed

The kiddos running ahead

Jackson playing "I'm exhausted" Yeah right, he can't fool us. He enjoyed running around the dunes too much to be tired! Look at the dirt on those legs and I was finding sand in the house for days afterwards LOL

Our new car .... NOT .... Marcel, keep dreaming ok ;-)

We met a good number of our neighbours this weekend at a combined BBQ for our street and 3 other surrounding streets ~ it was lots of fun! Lots of activities for the kids and adults alike. At the end of the night we all sat outside to watch the Holland/Russia game on a big screen (definitely not the highlight of the night ) ... but still we all totally enjoyed meeting more of our neighbours.

Edited:  :-) it was such a random photo. We were walking down a back road taking a shortcut from the Albert Cuypmarkt (100 year old well known, loved markets in de Pijp area) and it was sitting out front of this apartment come business office. Who knows if it belonged to the business for carting their goods around the streets of A'dam or if it belonged to an apartment-owner - it's difficult to say. Ppl can have the strangest bike adaptations!

Take a guess who is playing Russia in the quarter finals in one of the European Championship Quarter Finals on Saturday night. Maybe this will help! 

Life here in the Netherlands is going along well and we are experiencing lots of things. Below is a quick overview of some of the things that we've been up too!

At church we had our ladies day (19/4) which was fabulous .... lots of laughs and learning. We had some families from Dusseldorf, Germany come to town for it too and one of the families stayed with us.

Marcel started his Monday night dutch course! There is only one other lady doing the course with him so they should cover quite alot of material over the 10 weeks!

A day in the Centrum with Jikke and then dropping by the Rijks Museum (we feel really spoilt to be able to drop in when we can!)

On the 30 April each year is Koninginnedag! Koninginnedag or Queen's Day is a national holiday that started with the current queen's (Beatrix) grandmother: April 30 is actually Beatrix' mother's birthday but it was dicided when Beatrix came to the throne that Queen's Day would be celebrated on April 30th each year. Each Koninginnedag the queen visits 2 cities in the Netherlands and this year one of the cities was Franeker. So we had the opportunity to visit with our friends again in Franeker enjoying a day of celebrations and lots of orange. To say that the Dutch love their orange is an understatement! So getting into the spirit of the day we started collecting the orange: hairspray, glasses, headbands, wig, shirts, and the Holland flag. So we were ready to meet the royal family . A few favourite piccies!

This photo made it into one of the national papers! One of the reporters on the day was kind enough to interview us ~ if you are interested in seeing the article let me know I'll send it to you on PDF

Notice the orange beard!

Queen Beatrix in pink

Princess Maxima ~ we shook hands with her back in Australia when her and the crown prince visited for the 400year celebrations a couple of years back

We had such a fun day!!

I got my new mobile phone today which was exciting. But what was more exciting was that I worked out how to change the language settings from Dutch to English all by myself. Not an easy feat with the phone menu all in dutch and all you have is a dutch user guide. Tehehe, thank goodness for online ENGLISH user guides!! Sometimes a girl's just gotta sacrifice learning a new language so that she can communicate with the world. So with english user guide on the puter, dutch user guide in one hand and in the other hand my NEW mobile phone away I go through the dutch menu system trying to find that elusive 'english' switch. HA managed to find it in the end and at the same time add a few more words to my dutch vocab .... will this ever get easier?!!!

With a beautiful, blue sky above us some of our family headed off to do some ice skating! Jasmine had done ice skating before and it was Michael's first time. We had lots of fun!

We even got a little sunburnt!!

We got back last night from a great time of fellowship with our new church family! We went to this amazing place in the middle of the countryside down in the south of the Netherlands. Our venue was an old monastry that is now used for accommodation and conferences ~ there was so much character and  the simplicity of the place was charming.

The driveway and front door.

the backyard!

Jackson making his lantern

the kiddos singing This Little Light of Mine

The weekend reminded me of our church camps back in Australia where a great balance was achieved of lessons, singing, playing games, chilling-out, chatting, meals cooked for you (!), entertainment, quiet-time, walks in a beautiful setting and kids having lots of fun!

Well, can you believe that the last day of October is tomorrow?? My, how the time is flying by and, before I know it, this year will be over! Now that is a scary thought :-).

On the weekend we traveled to Marcel's mums home-province of Fryslan (Friesland) where we enjoyed some beautiful countryside and some very lovely cities.

We left the house Friday morning in a leisurely manner to travel by train to Alkmaar, Noord Holland (North Holland and then by bus across the Afsluitdijk one of the largest dykes in the world. We were amazed at this manmade "lake"! Crossing the dyke and looking inland there is no land in sight, just water for as far as the eye can see.

Haringen was the next town we visited. It's from Haringen that you can travel by ferry to the islands at the top of the Netherlands. We plan to see some of the islands in warmer weather!

Walking down the street we caught sight of this man wearing clogs while working! Yes, people still wear clogs for everyday use. :-)

Family shot!

Now it was onto Franeker, our final destination for that day!

We were totally smitten with Franeker, with it's canals, lovely houses, the old streets, lush greenery. For such a little city there is a large amount of history to be gleaned from over the years.

On Saturday we came downstairs for a leisurely breakfast of bread, fresh juice, cold meats, boiled egg, an assortment of jam, peanut butter, patee, and then there was fresh coffee and tea.

After breakfast we strolled across a couple of streets to visit with another family for the day. We had a lovely morning of chatting and enjoyed a lunch together of smoked fish and fresh bread. I won't embarress Michael with photos of him trying some smoked fish! Tehehe. Actually, I was pleasantly surprised at how tasty the fish was to eat!

In the afternoon we were given a tour of Franeker and shown some of the cities historical points of interest.

One of the lovely gardens ~ even in Autumn the gardens so green!

Michael with one of the 'guards'

A house with a fascinating history ~ the ground floor office was added later when the owner decided he didn't want to be bothered with customers coming into his home. And the simple solution was? Rise the whole house and build a new office underneath at street level! Notice how there are only an inch or two separating this house from the ones next door.

Eise Eisinga's Planetarium was one of the other places we had the prigilege of visiting. We are in awe of what this man accomplished in seven years in his spare time: an Orrery (the oldest working one in the world today)!

A man-made mound used for the defence of Franeker

After another filling breakfast on Sunday we traveled back to Amsterdam via Leeuwarden and Zwolle, getting back to Amsterdam for our church meeting where the children sang a song they had practised in their Bible Class.

A quick overview of our first weekend away staying over two nights!!

..... after a frustrating week with the grocery shopping it was time to get a car. I mean really, how could I be expected to shop for a family of six on a bicycle and get all my other things on the to-do list done too. Also, it's exhausting to go shoping on an almost daily basis! ;-)

Check this Dutch solution out!!!

and some Technology roled into one ....

A BIKE TRAILER!! WooHoooooo ..... think how much I can pile onto this lol!

PS. one of these days I'll post some photos of a Bike Shop - the contraptions and gadgetry is mind blowing. :-)

Today, was Marcel's mums once-a-year family day. She has three brothers and 3 sisters living in the Netherlands. This year the family, with their children's families, gathered in the town of Arnhem right next to the Rhine River. People might recall the description 'the bridge too far' from the last year of World War 2, when the Allies were advancing on Germany, this bridge is in Arnhem.

In order to squeeze in some sight-seeing we left the house just before 7am. A tram to Zoid Station then train to Utrecht where we had a change over, then onto Arnhem. We got there about 8.30am and had about 2 hours to kill before meeting up with the family later in the morning. Getting off the train we walked down to the Rhine River for a stroll along the banks with all the cafes and restaurants. At that time in the morning there was hardly anyone around ~ that was a treat!

We walked up to 'the bridge too far' (seen above) and then into the town square and the Saturday market. For this Aussie girl it's bizarre to think that this market has probably been happening in the townsquare for hundreds of years!

At 10am the doors of the Square church opened and we checked out the incredible views from the top of the tower ~ that was really awesome!

At 11.30 we were greeted warmly by the family at the Open Air Museum on a warm, sunny Autumn day. A good feeling to put faces to names and having those get-to-know-you chats! The rest of the day was spent having coffee together, meeting up in smaller family groups and as one huge group, checking out the museum, more chats, eating, doing some craft with the children, more chats, dinner at a nearby restraunt and more talking.

Michael doing some craft 

Marcel "trying" to ride an older style bicycle!

Some of Marcel's aunts and an uncle!

We got home around 9.30 that night and fell into bed exhausted but happyt.

Was to ride to our soon-to-be new home! This would mean traversing traffic, traffic lights, bike tracks, riding on the right side of the tracks, Michael dinking Sammy the whole way and many other challenges. Well, we were ready!

Leaving the apartment

With our handy map we made it there and back with no mishaps. I definitely felt like a mother duck with all her ducklings following in a line behind me. Stopping at the lights was a hoot waiting for the 'green bicycle'  to cross over and away we would scoot making a dash for the other side.

Riding onto a roundabout was very hairy! We entered the roundabout on the bike track and once on there the cars are required to give way to us, just like in Australia cars give way to people on a pedestrian crossing. I said to the kids "once we are on the roundabout just keep going, don't stop"  Needless to say, we were all totally fine.

On the ride back to Oud Zuid (Old South) where we are staying I finally got an opportunity to picture a canal bridge lifting to allow a boat through!

You can just see the bridge start to lift

About half way up .....

All the way up and the boat is now starting to go through.

This road is a commonly used one, including tram track and everyone (people, bikes, cars, trams, mopeds) all wait for the bridge to come down so that they can cross. A regular occurance on the streets of Amsterdam!

Mission completed: Round trip approximately 1 1/2 hours and no mishaps SUCCESS!!

FINALLY, Marcel has a Dutch tax file (SOFI number)!!!! AND a residence card ..... We can truly start our new lives ..... LOL! ........ well that's how it feels to us.

So it was worth going out, catching the wrong tram and fighting the rain for the SOFI number. But without it we are nothing here in Holland. After Marcel picked up the number we went straight to the bank to open an account and finished off some other administrative things today! WOOHOOO!

After doing the other paperwork we wondered up an Open Street Market checking out the wares. The fishy smells from this stall didn't appeal to us overly

But this next stall was a totally different matter ..........

SLABS OF CHOCOLATE ........ what more could one ask for?!  So, of course, we HAD to buy some ...

We'll definitely be coming back to these markets in the future!

Just thought I would let you know about the new photo!!

love Shelso xxx

Hey Craig and Esther ...... we've put the garbage out twice now since you've been gone! Really we have!

SEEEEEEE tehehehehe

Today was collection day (it happens on Thursday and Monday) and there are no wheelie bins in Amsterdam. Twice a week all the rubbish goes out on the pavement in piles and gets collected. The pavement then gets cleaned by being hosed down and sweeped!

In other words "Enjoy your meal!"

This is a dutch saying or tradition that we have heard repeatedly a few times now. Our family has started the little tradition of saying this after we have given thanks to God for our food. As a family we hold hands and someone says thank you to God for the food we will soon be eating. Then we all chant "EET SMAKELIJK!" ....... something we wish for all of you too!

..... but not in hot tea. Being a new comer to Holland it's surprising to me how the dutch use milk. Now I am a tea drinker from way back. Addicted as a child to pots of tea and to help the hot liquid taste more palletable it was better to add a couple of teaspoons of sugar. Unlike my hubby who still prefers 3-5 teaspoons of sugar in in each cup of tea I've managed to bring my intake of sugar back down to one teaspoon per cuppa. So my hot beverages order is usually "tea please, white with one". White being milk. Well, I've discovered here in the Netherlands they drink their tea black and no sugar. Tea is not the norm as the dutch are usually big coffee drinkers. If the drink happens to be tea it is of the herbal sort ..... so that would make sense to serve herbal tea black and no sugar. I've had to hunt down the English blend teas and (THANKFULLY) there is plenty of milk around to add to my tea.

I was saying that the dutch love their milk. Glasses of it, in fact. It's not unual to see people drinking a glass of milk at lunchtime or for dinner and, of course, in the mornings. Being a family of 6 we will buy the 2 litre milk and I've yet to see a 2litre full-cream milk. You can buy 1L and 500mls of full-cream but the 2L only comes in half-full cream milk. I've not seen any of the 3L milk containers we get back home. AND I'm still on the hunt for an equivalent to the King Island Double Cream that we get in Australia. I've been able to work out that the cream here is actually closer to the sour cream that we get back in Australia.

The kiddos have been enjoying a dairy drink called 'Goede Morgen', a yogurt tasting drink that you have here in the mornings, hence goede morgen is "good morning" in dutch. Not to my liking but the children simply love it!

I've been told that the reason why the Dutch are able to consume huge amounts of milk and the other dairy products that they do is because of a particular gene! So it is yet to be seen if our kids have inherited this special 'dairy consuming' gene from Marcel's side of the family??

Coffee and chocolate are other topics I must tell you about but that will have to wait for another entry ......... it wouldn't be fair to you if I reported on the chocolate situation here without sampling as wide a range as possible, now would it?!  

Although, I MUST say I'm DESPERATE for some TIM TAMS!!!! Gotta find that Australian shop that's meant to be around somewhere. LOL