Aunt Mieke's visit

Our aunt Mieke from Germany paid us a visit this weekend. Maaike and Jaap picked her up from her hotel near Rotterdam and took her to the hockey games of Maartje and Guusje and finally, all of them drove to grandpa where we met with them. We had dinner at a restaurant in Kappellebrug in Belgium and we already had the experience that the service was not too good. So this time we helped them a bit and that resulted in us having the menu within reasonable time, having our drinks when we wanted them. The kids enjoyed themselves in the playground which is huge! Unfortunately, Ingmar fell ill and we had to return home early.. The next morning he was feeling much better and had a good breakfast. Nils Wende and dad went to the swimmingpool where we also saw Liselotte, a friend of Nils from school. We had a great time and Wende showed us that also she could dive (flat on her belley that is.. autch). The rest of the day we spent at home in the garden, having lunch and playing with toys and water.

Kidsswing, Hockey, funpark, great grandparents, Peter and Mellanie

Yep, that sums up our busy weekend but we had a great time and it was especially great to be able to visit Lisette's grandparents (Nils Wende and Ingmar's great grandparents). Before the weekend really started Wende and dad went to the gym for Wende's first kiddswing lesson. And she LOVED it! Saturday after Nils's hockeytraining we went to Rotterdam to join Lisette's brother with wife and kids at the "Plaswijkpark". At the end of the day everyone was wasted and Wende and Ingmar fell almost immediately asleep in the car on the way back.. Sunday morning instead of the usual sundaymorning swimming after breakfast, we went to Naaldwijk to visit Lisette's grandparents. Although time was short, we did enjoy seeing them again very much. Great granddad for the kids always has some exiting story to tell, this time why he failed his scootmobile test... After seeing granddad and grandma we went to see Peter and Mellanie and Duncan and Jayson. They offered us a nice lunch in their garden and afterwards we went to Hoek van Holland and parked the cars near the beach. In the dunes there was a cafeteria where we had a few drinks and the kids played in the sand. Ingmar developed his own game, throwing small stones on the terras over the seat into the sand.

Boat cleaning and celebrating granddad's 86 birthday

Friday dad had taken the day off from work to do some serious maintainance on the boat. This time he took the polishing machine with him to try to get the greyness from the what was white 30 years ago. The upper side of the hull. First washing the hull, then grinding with special sanding paper 2000 and then with sanding paper 4000. After that, once again claining and then polishing with a special polishing paste and the result was actually quite good. (to my own surprise..) Saturday lisette took Nils to his hockey training and dad took Wende and Ingmar to do some shopping. When lisette came home we all went to buy some gifts for granddad's 86 birthday. Dad bought him a plastic frog that could be used at the small waterside in granddad's garden. Lisette choose some nice plants for granddad's garden. We also took a couple of strawberry plants for grandpa loves these and now he can grow them himselve. When we arrived, Maaike and Jaap and the kids were there already. The frog needed a pump so dad had to do some more shopping on the spot but in the end granddad had a nice fountain and a frog spitting water.. Aunt Henny came over as well to join us for dinner at a restaurant with an outside playground and a donkey. Ingmar now knows what a donkey sounds like.. Dinner was great but we still miss our mom who passed away last year. Sunday morning Lisette and I went to the park with the kids and took a couple of hockey sticks with us. Jaap joined us later on and we played a match kids versus parents. The kids won.. somehow.

Lisette, Tom, Laurens and Vera and swimming with the family

Saturday our friends Lisette and Tom came over to visit us. Their eldest son Milan couldn't be here because he had a party to got to. But anyway, Lisette and Tom had Laurens with them but als Vera who had grown so much in the mean time. Nils and Laurens played together and Wende tried to keep up with the two boys. Did not always worked out well but overall they behaved very well. Vera made these lovely noises as she is still in her first year. Ingmar liked her immediately and carefully stroked her hair and shared toys with Vera. Tom read a Rupert story in English and Laurens translated it for Nils and Wende. It was great seeing them again, looking forward to the next time which will maybe at the end of April when The New Cool Collective will play near their place. Sunday morning we had to get used to the change of time for the clock was set 1 hour ahead. After breakfast we went to the swimmingpool with the whole family. Ingmar loved the slide and could not get enough of it. That meant that mom or dad had to go with him everytime. Nils practised his diving skills and that went very well! Wende showed mom how well she can jump from the swingboard.

Nils's first real hockey training

Today was Nils's real first training at the Drunense mixed hockeyclub. Ofcourse the paperazzi were there too!

Land van Jan KLaassen and Grandpa 65!

Saturday we went to see Leonie, Marc and Danne again. They had this great idea to rendezvous at a kids playground called "Land van Jan Klaassen". The playground was quite big with lots of swings and stuff to do. There was also an indoor playground but the weather was so nice that we stayed outside. The only time we went inside was to check out the puppet theater. Nils was so excited he jumped up and down his seat and Wende was shouting along with the other kids, they loved it. Ingmar was simply stunned.. In the mean time we had the chance to talk to Marc and Leonie again (it has been a long time since we've seen each other). Afterwards we went to have dinner at my brother's reataurant "bij kobus" which was close by. We had a great dinner and the kids had a pancake in the shape of a bear's face. We also had the chance to see Nikki who gave birth recently to Ryan. It is a great little guy with lot's of black hair.

Sunday was (at first) spent in the swimming pool and after that we went to De Lier to celebrate grandpa's 65 birthday. We (lisette, Martin etc) bought him a high tech sun dail and grandpa himself bought himself a nice electronic weather station. It was nice weather again so we spent most of the time in the garden enjoying the sun. The kids ran around the house and made sure that it didn't get too quite..

Schnitzel center of europe and carnaval in Hulst

Dad had to go to Würzburg for a training in industrial safety and saw many many schnitzels.. But luckily the Italian cuisine has also infiltrated there.. Saturday we went to the library in Den Bosch and along the way we saw many strange looking creatures as this weekend the carnaval started. Nils and Wende suddenly saw a bunch of bananas running from the railway station chased by a gorilla! We went to see my dad this sunday and there was carnaval as well so we went to the center to see the wagons pass by. Afterwards we bought some food to prepare for dinner and the kids tried the piano, who knows, Nils likes to play self made up tunes..