Vacation Photos

While my parents were here this summer, we also spent a week in Belgium. While we were there we also saw a couple of places in Germany and in Luxembourg, both countries about 15-30 kms away from where we were staying in Belgium. We had a nice time together, and enjoyed seeing all the beautiful scenery and old buildings and castles in the area. Here are a few of my favorite photos of the vacation.

We stayed in a park that was built on a hill looking out over the town of Vielsalm, Belgium. Here is the view from the playground near our cottage:

The day after we arrived, which was a Tuesday, it was beautiful weather, so we decided to go on a boat trip on the Mosel, a river running through part of Germany. The views from the river are amazing. Here's one of them, behind Beppe and Ilianna:

On Wednesday we drove to nearby Bastogne and visited a war museum. For any of you who have seen "Band of Brothers" or any other Battle of the Bulge related movies or documentaries, the town of Bastogne will sound familiar to you. On the way to Bastogne we stopped outside of Foy, near the Bois de Jacques, where we found a monument dedicated to Easy Company, the company featured in "Band of Brothers". Seeing the monument with all of the names of the men of Easy Company who were killed during the battle of the bulge felt very personal all of a sudden, maybe because of the fact that we have seen "Band of Brothers" very often, and we feel that we know the main characters who fought and died here. It's hard to imagine, until you have actually been there.After discovering the monument, we decided to explore the woods. We had heard that there were foxholes, still intact, and went in search of them. We ended up finding quite a few!

The woods were very quiet and it was quite eerie feeling knowing what had happened in those woods more than 60 years earlier.

Later on in the week we went to another little town in Germany called Monschau. This picture gives you an idea of how pretty it was there:

Another beautiful town was in Luxembourg. The town of Vianden was once home to Victor Hugo, and on the top of the hill overlooking town is a beautiful castle. Here are two of my favorite pictures:

Our last day trip was to Durbuy, Belgium. We visited a topiary garden and walked through town. Once again we found another castle:

This last picture is also the last photo I have of our vacation. It was definitely a successful vacation with memories that will last a lifetime!

Crazy about Oranje

While Dave was here and some of the time my parents were here this summer they got to enjoy the European soccer championships. Two days after my parents arrived here my Mom celebrated her "16th" birthday. Holland also had an important match that evening, so we all wore orange all day and watched the match in the evening.

Ilianna was right into the spirit of things!

And Beppe helped out with getting ready for the big game. Here she is painting Ilianna's fingernails orange:Here we are watching the game, which turned out to be a very disappointing loss...

Well, even though the results for Holland were not great, it ended up being an interesting tournament, and ever since this summer Ilianna's favorite colour has been ORANJE! HUP HOLLAND HUP, Uncle Dave!

Expected visitors and summer fun

Well it's been way too long since I updated my blog and now I finally have some free moments to do so. The summer has flown by and it's hard to believe that the kids are back in school now, which is way too early in my opinion, mainly because I grew up in Canada where the kids don't go back to school until the first tuesday in September.

It has been a busy summer, with a premature visit from my brother, Dave, and a visit from my parents, a visit that we knew about since January and were looking forward to! This is the first of an unknown number of blogs with some pictures of our summer. We took over 400 pictures, so it's hard to pick out the favorites.

Here is the first one, when Mom and Dad first arrived:

One of Ilianna having fun:

Here's a nice one with Uncle Dave:

And on July 9 we said goodbye to Dave, who was leaving for Taipei:

More pictures next time...

Hup Holland and an unexpected visitor

On Monday evening my brother, Dave, arrived here from South Korea. He was just in time to see Holland beat Italy (3-0) in their first Euro 2008 match.

Everywhere you go you see houses decorated in orange flags and streamers, and kids have orange hairspray in their hair. Even Ilianna's school got into the spirit and on Monday afternoon Ilianna came home with orange bangs and dutch flags painted on her cheeks!

She's really in the spirit! Oranje boven!!

Here she is with "Uncle Dave"!

Ilianna spent all day Tuesday following Uncle Dave around, saying his name, and imitating what he did and what he said. It was pretty funny! Here they are playing with the ball in our backyard.

We can definitely say that she really likes Uncle Dave! We hope to have some fun times with him and my parents who arrive in a week!!

Fun with friends

On Sunday morning we had some friends over for coffee, the parents and big sister of Hendrika. Hendrika is Ilianna's friend who also is in the same group as her in school and also sits in the same taxi to school. Hendrika's mom has also become a good friend of mine, and we walk together two evening a week. Ilianna and Hendrika are total opposites when it comes to their personalities, but they really like each other and can really play well together. They also have a way of communicating with each other and they really understand one another well! It is so neat to see them play together!

We really get along with Hendrika's parents, Alle and Bertha and her sister, Grietsje is a really nice girl. They were here for a couple of hours and we had some nice conversations. It was beautiful weather so we were able to sit outside!

It was beautiful weather all day and Ilianna, happily playing outside, decided to get dirty!

Ilianna has never been much for playing in sand or mud, and has never really taken an interest or notice of small things around her. Last week she came inside with a couple of ants in her hand and later on that day she caught a small beatle. We are happy that she is discovering the world around her. A year ago she would never have done this. Yes, she may get dirty, but who cares, that's why we have a bathtub!

Spring

It's spring here in Fryslân. This week has been kind of cool, but last week and the two weeks before were very nice! We've been taking some nice pictures and here are some of them.




















Here are a couple of pictures with the girls I babysit:



















This morning I took some pictures when we walked to the corner where the taxi picks up Ilianna. She really loves going to school, and you can tell by the way she runs to the corner to get into the taxi!




















And one last picture of Ilianna in the cab.

Winter for a couple of months

While everyone here was so excited about a little bit of snow for a couple of hours, the exact opposite is happening in Canada where my parents live. They are hoping that the winter will end at some point! This past weekend they got another dump of snow and my mom sent me some pictures. The first one is of the front of their house.


This next one is of their backyard, with the snow piled high. My mom said that they were running out of room to put the snow that they have shovelled.

The last picture is self-explanatory.

Ever since I moved to Holland 8 years ago I hoped and wished for snow like this! It would be nice to experience it again, but if it lasted as long as it has this winter in Ontario, I don't know how much I'd be hoping for it again! Hopefully for Ontario it will be over soon!