Mum's funeral

It has been more than a week now that our mum died and we have had a week full of things to do and to arrange. A friend of mine from long ago wrote me that she experienced a funeral at which she was told by the family that despite the sadness, they experienced a beautiful day.. This inspired me.. The funeral of our mum should also be a beautiful one, one that reflects the gratitude towards our mother who has done so much for us. We put together a program in which all of the children had their say with memories and Maaike's husband who has been alsways been so helpful also had his say. Lisette my wife sang a beautiful song of tears "Lascia ch'io pianga" It is a song about one's tears due to it's cruel fate and longin for freedom. In a way it reflects my mother's suffering the last 5 years just so she could be with us for as long as possible.

It brings me tears to my eyes because she hid her suffering for us as much as she could and she suffered.. Her death came to us still as unexpected and now I'm left with the words repeating in my head: "I just wish I told her that I loved her and that she was the best mother in the world". I was going to tell her this but her health seemed to be relatively well that I kept postponing it. Now I am too late, but I did not let her leave me without writing her a letter that now rests next to her on her pillow.

The amount of family and friends that showed up to pay their last respects was amazing. It helped us through the day and although the ceremony did not go completely smoothly, we did it ourselfs just as mum would have wanted. My mom and dad had been together for more than 50 years, I can not imagine what he must feel, they did everything together. I just wish I could be there more for my father but the distance is too great to visit him regurarely. We will do what we can. Now we have to live our lives without mum who used to be the centre of the family. It will be difficult. We miss her soo much.

Dear readers

Yesterday our mum was suddenly taken away from us. We knew it would not last but this soon was not foreseen.

We are so proud and lucky to have had you as our mum, wife and mother in law.

We will miss you soo much, it hurts not to have you in our midst anymore.

I just wish I had been able to tell you how much I love you.

After demolishing it's time to build up again

Today the contractor dug out even more stones and rubbish, the fourth container was towed away and that is that. It's official, the soil is clreared of anything that could be in the way of our new garage. Tomorow they will start with the woodwork for the concrete foundation. The concrete will be poored in as soon as we have our permit from the councel. It should only be a formality as we followed all the rules and behaved nicely..

Rebuild episode 2

So, after the house was expanded we only had to have a new garage. Finally after we searched and searched for a suitable type of garage together with our neigbhours, we came up with a solution. A couple of months ago we looked at various garages but we were not satisfied with the structures and feared that these jig saw garages would not last 10 years.. Now we finally found someone who was willing to build what we liked in a time frame we wanted and who we knew. A friend of my neighbour who has his own construction company. We only had to demolish the old garage ourselfs and luckily this friend lend us a big help. Our neighbour hired a compressor but that one sprung a leak on one of the fuel nozzles and stopped unfortunately. And we still had to demolish a great chunk of the foundation. The part we did before that was relatively easy because it did not have any reinforcement in but this was something else.. We ended up hammering away for the rest of the day.. Finally we were finished and we demolished both the garages. Dad's muscles were acking and it was extremely difficult to get up again once he sat down for a minute.. But hey! we did it!

Andel beach and 300km sunday

As we are going to put up a new garage, the old has to be removed first and to remove the old one you need to clear it.. But where to put it.. So we set up the party tent as a temporrely shelter for all the rubbish we ant to keep. That was friday in the heat.. The kids just played in the swimming pool while dad was sweating his #ss off. Nils showed his manouvering skills to his friends because he "earned" a radio controlled speedboat with his "plate finishing letter". That's a small piece of paper with stripes for every time he empties his dinner plate. When the magical number is reached (normally 25 but for this boat 30) then he get's to choose a toy within a limited budget. So he earned it last wednesday. As soona s he finished his plate we presented the boat and he was so overjoyed! Great t see him so happy. Wende is nearing her 20 stripes, after today (monday) she only needs one more! Saturday was such nice weather. So we went to the beach of Andel. There we saw a lot of friends of Nils and Wende so they had a great time. Our neighbour MOnique also joined us with their sons who took their small sailing boat with them. So Niall and Ean and even Monique had a go in the sailing boat and they did remarkebly well as NIall and SEan learned to sail from a small book he studied the evening before!
Sunday we went to see the grandma and granddads. First we drove to Hulst and there we spent a couple of hours with my mom and dad. They still had a birthday present for Ingmar. It was a 3 wheeled bike with push bar and he loved it! He enjoyes to walk behind something that rolls. After that visit we went to Vlijmen just above Gorinchem to help Lisette's mom and dad with the tent of the caravan. They drove their caravan to a campsite near us to stay there during the weekends this June. After we finished that we went to a pancake house (again..) to have dinner. It was very busy there but we were just in time for a place at a table. Wende was the quickest with finishing hers and soon after the adults finished their plate and even Ingmar ate half a pancake. And every time he wanted more he slaps his hand on the table or tries to climb out. But dad figured that out, he put the plate within reach and that kept him in his seat (finally). Unfortunately this time dad did not take his camera with him.. So only 2 this time..