Nils and Wende's last few days at kindergarten

Nils and Wende gave presents and ice cream at the care centre because this week is the last week they are at kindergarten. From monday Nils will be going to school and Wende will be at a sort of kindergarten but privately held just opposite Nils's school.

So today was a little farewell party although tomorrow is the actual farewell.

The personell took some pictures of the festivities but dad put the wrong memory card in the camera limiting the amount of pictues to 4...

Tomorrow will be a second and last chance and dad will be there also at the end of the afternoon to shoot some video and thank the people who took care of Nils and Wende all these years.

They did a great job!

Village festivities in Andel

Every 4 years Andel has festivities and the streets are decorated with lights and billboards.

This year our kammetweg theme is Disney and billboards with a donald duck cartoon are set up in the gardens.

As you walk through the street, the story of the cartoon unfolds.

Festivities in Hulst

Saturday after groceries we went to see Roos at the hospital with Nils and Wende and we were just in time to see Cor and Sandra giving Roos her first bath ever! I shot a video with their camera and filmed the whole bath so they have something to look back to. From experience I know that the first few days are hard to remember because there are so many new things happening.

After we went to see Sandra and Cor and Roos at the hospital in Gorinchem, we went home for lunch and after lunch we drove up to Hulst in Zeeuws Vlaanderen were there were festivities going on this weekend.

The "vestingdagen". We stayed at my parents place and walked together with my dad and mom into Hulst to do some shopping and have a look around. I was really surprised to see my mom walk this long distance and that felt good to see that she is still going strong after all these chemo's. On sunday we went there again and we saw a stand with tame owls, really beautiful birds sitting just a meter away from us.

There were people walking around in medieval clothes and my aunt started a small business in antique so we payed her a visit at her shop as well.

Hurray our neighbours child is born!

Cor and Sandra were expecting a child but they had to go to hospital because of complications. Fortunately everything went well and a daughter was born on 22 august at 8.30 am.

Her name is Roos (like rose) and she's a lovely little and beautiful girl.

Remember this guy?

Once in a while we go through the old video's and I found this little piece of film of Nils before he was 1 year old. How time flies..
I'm so glad we made so many video's of Nils and Wende, a total now of app. 250 hours of film.

Sailing to "Oude Tonge"

We went sailing on saturday to Oude Tonge and stayed there until sunday morning.

Unfortunately we had to start up the engine on our way there because there was no wind at all on the Volkerak!

Before we entered the harbour in Oude Tonge we had to motor through a narrow canal and the depth guage was sounding the alarm constantly but we managed to enter the harbour without running aground..

Luckily on sunday there was enough wind (force 3 to 4) and we hit a record speed of 4 knots!

A UFO in our living room!!

Nils spotted a UFO hovering just above our hoover.... Or is it a fake?

Who can tell..strangely, after it was gone again, the living room suddenly was much cleaner!

Wende's getting smart

Wende is getting smarter by the day especially with her comments. During dinner she suddenly was afraid of fried mushrooms???

When she was finished with her food, she automatically shouted "toetje" (desert) and "hagelslag" (chocolate chips) The hagelslag was earned by eating enough food and Nils because he did not pee in his underwear last night..

Party time at kindergarten

At kindergarten they celebrated Nils's birthday and Nils loved it. Mamma made sure that all kids got a small balloon she made from, yes, balloons, staws and a paper cup.

He was standing on one of the chairs and all the children sang him a birthday song! After that Nils gave every one a cup cacke mamma bought for all the children. They also made hats and played outside with the bycicles and the sand pit.

Comparex party

Sunday, Tamara, Marius and Desmond visited us in the afternoon and Nils Wende and Desmond played in the gardenafter the sun started shining again. We had dinner with them and lots of things to talk about..

Saturday afternoon we went to Waspik a small place in the south of holland where we spent time with colleguages of Lisette. A small company party at a place of one of Lisette colleguages. They had a place with horses stables and more. An air filled castle to jump for the kids and a trampoline. Wende had a lot of attention from the older girls and Nils ravaged around with the older boys and even the director of Comparex was not safe for Nils.

Kite flying

This morning Nils and Wende were running and screaming...

In the afternoon Nils and dad went to the park to fly with Nils's kite which he got as a birthday present from Joost our neighbour

Wende and Nils having a ball(th)

Wende and Nils at the end of a hard days work, a bath a story and then off to bed.

Wende's female instinct

Wende is a typical girl, she already showed us her love of shoes and bags.At the kindergarten she's already putting on shoes fromotherkids and running away with them, the original owner running after her. Now she found dad's motor gloves and her instinct told her what to do with them..putting them on!

Friends from Italy

Yesterday our dear friends from Italy were here to visit us. Well, not really from Italy but dutch friends living and working in Italy..

Lisette, Tom, Milan and Laurens were visiting us briefly after which they had to continue with their ohter appointments. Normally they live near Rome in Italy and we went there once with Nils and Wende and this time they were spending their holiday here among friends and family. But because they had so many friends and family to visit, they could only stay here for a short time, anyway, we loved to see them again and hope to see them at the end of the summer in Italy.?

Milan, Nils and Laurens were crawling like rabbits in the garden and ended up in the rabbit pen.

Ofcourse they had a lot of fun on the trampoline...

Thanks Lisette and Tom, hope to see you guys again soon!

Nils's birthday party!!

Nils will be 4 years old coming sunday but because Maaike (my sister) is going on a holday then, we decided to celebrate Nils's birthday a week earlier.

Nils woke up early on sunday because he had wetted his bed... Dad took him (still sleepy) to the bathroom where Nils spotted a giant trampoline in the garden..... Bugger, dad wanted to keep this a secret until after breakfast... Dad? Who put this trampoline in our garden?? And "Maybe we can jump on it"... Anyway, we had great day and thanks to our neighbours Cor and Sandra, we kept it dry. They lend us their party tent against the rain. Although the temperature was still okay.

A lot of family and friends came over and Nils received a lot of toys (where are we going to put all these...)

Later that night dad asked Nils what he found the best gift of the day and Nils said:"the race car grandpa gave me" "and the trampoline". Thanks to Sandra I could take some film because my camera quit after 20o hours of film. Enjoy the pictures and movies!