Self made train, shovel saturday and 3D sunday

The three stooges Nils's self made train including the track

Nils still trying to finish his pop corn from the movies Mom finishing the chocolate cake

The wizard Ingmar putting a spell of fruit hail on his sandwich Nils, Valentine ready

When I arrived at Nils and Wende's school last friday afternoon to pick them up I could not find Nils. Turned out that he was cleaning the class room (voluntarily) with a friend. His teacher was also there and she informed me of what Nils had told her about me and Lisette.. Mom is always getting angry when dinner is ready and dad is still sitting behind the laptop... thank you Nils..

Nils made a nice train at school with the rail road track as well. This week Nils and Wende didn't have to take sandwiches to school because that was taken care of by the school and Nils and Wende took advantage of that according to the mom's who help out during lunchtime..

Last week also Valentine's day passed by and Nils was invited to a private party at one of his girlfriends up the street. So dad bought him a red rose and he made a nice drawing for her and armed with the Valentaine's gift's, dad delivered him at her house. Dad saw a candle on the table in the kitchen and there were two donuts on the table as well.. At 7.30 pm dad picked up Nils again and he had a great time.. Probably next year girls will be awfull.. Ah well.. Wende had a rose as well from dad just as mom. Even dad had a Valentine's present (thanks dear) a nice box filled with chocolate and a nice card. Friday afternoon dad started with dugging a trench in the front garden to widen the drive way a bit and to put slabs of concrete in to mark the border between the gravel and the lawn. Hard work with lot's of clay. So not suprisingly dad suffered of muscle aches the next day but also then, the work had to continue. And it's still not ready.. Got the small generator to work as well, dirty petrol was the cause of it not wanting to start. Sunday we went to the cinema with Nils and Wende, mom stayed at home with Ingmar who is suffering from a major cold. The movie was in 3D and about Yogi bear and they loved it, Wende especially loved the pop corn wich gave Nils a belly ache in the end..

Spruitjes, lache

Mom's birthday

Yesterday 4th February, mom should have reached the age of 74. Unfortunately she's not around anymore but we do "celebrate" her birthday by visiting her at her resting place

That will be today Saturday. My dad is on his way by bus and as soon as we picked him up at the station, we will continue and meet my sister with family at the cemetary

I've posted a couple of pictures of her from last year.

We still miss her very much!.

After our visit to mom we all went to Woerden to a restaurant. On Sunday Maaike and Jaap together with the kids and my dad came to our place and we had cake with coffe and tea. I then drove my dad to the busstation in Breda from where he went back home again.

Waalwijk,a visit to Hulst, Grandpa is now great grandpa!

Nils had a birthday party of one of his friends friday afternoon ( a girl..) and he was the only boy there. This girl lives up the road and is very fond of Nils.. Wende was a bit disappointed that she was not invited but she and I spend the afternoon playng games (although losing was not an option for Wende..) Ingmar slept a hole in the day as we say.. Saturday dad had to go to the barber to have his hair done.. (what is left of it that is.. ) In the afternoon we went to Waalwijk to buy new shoes for Wende and dad needed a new pair as well. I noticed that one shop had only left shoes in the shop displayed and in the other shop, across the street, they sold the same shoes but had the right hand side displayed. Now if I was a clever thief.. (but then again, I'm not)..

We bought Wende a nice pair of boots for her to grow out of in a couple of months. Mom had to go to the HEMA to order a new curtain for in the hallway but that took ages, there was this customer who had a million questions and wanted to have her whole house done.. In the mean time dad went outside with Nils Wende and Ingmar because there was a air cushion for kids to jump on. And next to it there was a stand were kids were given free candy floss!! wende loved it and so did Ingmar but Nils thought it was hair and did not even want to taste it.. And dad ended up eating most of it. Sunday we went to see my dad in Hulst. He also needed a new light in the kitchen which we picked up at the DIY when we did some shopping for dinner. It was good to see my dad again although he is a regular viewer of our webcam. The kids ate their supper and even had a second plate! It is still unreal to think that mom isn't with us anymore, coming friday will be her birthday and we will all visit her on saturday. Last but not least we heared that my brother's daughter Nikki gave birth to a son and that makes my dad a great granddad. He is as proud as a peacock. Congratulations Nikki and the rest of the family!

What else is new?

Well, not much, we had quite a routine weekend. Groceries, get rid of stuff at the recycling point, pumping water out of te bacement with a new toy (since the experimental previous pump burned as dad overloaded it ofcourse.. ) The new one is safeguarded in ever way so more or less idiot proof. Saturday we went to Duncan's birthday party in Honselersdijk where we saw a lot of friends from the past with their kids and time has certainly went on.. Afterwards we went to grandpa and grandma in De Lier. We told Nils and Wende that we would go to China, little China. So after a phonecall and a short trip we arrived at "China Graden" in De Lier. Wende and Nils loved the drawings and the paitings but the food was a little less for them. They missed the butter and a little sugar as we do at home for them.. Ingmar suprised everyone by loudly breaking wind in the middle of the restaurant. Sunday morning dad took Nils and Wende to the swimming pool where it was crowded with parents and their kids. I have never seen the pool so busy. A couple of Nils's friends were there as well and we had great fun on the big slide. Afterwards we had lunch at home and Nils made a collection of shells he found in the garden. We saved some shells from a holiday in France years ago. He wanted to show what he made to grandpa through the webcam but dad had a better idea, we took a couple of pictures and dad promised to put them on the web for grandpa to look at. Mom and Wende were working in the garden, Wende "cleaned" the windows and Ingmar played with the water. Another weekend passes by, another busy week is eminent.

Sicko

Nils was feeling a bit ill this weekend so we spent a lot of the weekend at home. A well, not entirely true, dad took mom to the movies on friday night. Loft, nice movie with a unpreditable plot and to dad's liking, without an open end.. I hate that.. Wende found her Efteling dance outfit and regurarely the music would be turned up so she could dance on it. Ingmar regurarelt takes a book from the shelfs and sits down next to you pointing out all the things he knows the words of. Auto is still favorite followed by "bal" and "bouwer" (from Bob the builder). Let's hope Nils will be better soon as this week the decision will be made if he is allowed to do his swimming exam next saturday..

birthdays, family and friends

The christmas days were spent at the families, first christmas day at tDe Lier and the second one in Hulst. In order to prevent too much trouble we went straight from De lier to Hulst at the end of christmas day 1. The third christmas day we went back to De Lier again to celebrate Lisette's mothers birthday. The next day was my birthday and we planned to escape to France to visit our friends the Smaals. Still with me? I was surprised with presents by Lisette and the kids as I woke up. There was not much time to celebrate as we were to drive to rance to see arthur, Lisa, Jack and Emma in a nice place near Montargis. The north of France gave us a bit of snow but after the traffic jams around Paris, the road was clear and we arrived around five o'clock in the afternoon. We had a great time with the Smaals and went skating in Montargis the following day. They even remembered my birthday and surprised me with a cake which gave me a hard to time to blow out the candles... Thanks arthur.. As a small thank you we had the equipment with us to fry real dutch fresh oliebollen or in French:"Boule d'huile". In addition we also had Appelflappen.. When we went back, we stopped by my dad in Hulst to "celebrate" the new year. The first new year without our mum. It still is hard to realize we'll never see or be able to speak to her again.. Nils and Wende were allowed to see the fireworks at midnight and together with Maartje and Guusje they enjoyed the fireworks for the first time and they loved it!