Christmas 2005

The annual Christmas photo in front of the tree.

Kids do daddy's work

Yesterday after one year of waiting Robert, Patrick and Maaike went with Henny to his work in the Hague. Henny wanted to take only two kids at a time and then the other day another kid. But the children couldn't agree on who would go with who on what day so finally he decided to take them all at once to the work.
Jos accompanied them to The Hague as he wanted to go to some shops there.
Here you see Maaike and Robert in the train

The kids had a fun time. They especially like the lunch at the work's canteen. They can take then what they want. They also met and played with Ezra, the almost 2 year old son of Irene, our secretary.

Christmas with my mother

At christmas we first went with the whole family to my mother who is in the elderly home. First we thought that she might be able to come home with us and celebrate Christmas in the parent's home. But this was impossible. She is too fragile and too weak. It would have been too tiring for her.

So we had a very nice meeting with her for 2 hours in the central restaurant of the Elderly home. It was nice to chat with her and she was enjoying herself as well.
After two hours we went to my parent's home.

Merry Christmas

Baking cookies

This morning it is busy in the kitchen. The kids are baking cookies with Gosia. They can also decorate them with special sweets. The first bunch is already in the oven.
In the afternoon we will try them out. Although I don't know if the kids can wait that long.

The cooks in action:

http://www.youtube.com/?v=rWZTdloPtdw

Maaike "live" swimming on video

If you want to see Maaike swim on two short video films then please look at the two links below where you can see a part of the swimming activities that Maaike had to do in the swimming pool last sundayafternoon.

http://www.youtube.com/?v=inEmZEZyeGg

http://www.youtube.com/?v=zUUKw9dRVf4

Maaike Swimming degree

This sunday Maaike did it!

She got her final swimming degree which is called in Dutch: Diploma C.

We are of course very proud of her!And happy too!

She did very well: imagine: 9 meters underwater swimming through a hole. Swimming with clothes, coat and shoes on! Good girl!

It also means that we are finished with driving to and from the swimmingpool after 6,5 years. Phew! But other activities will sooon follow.

Patrick's Birthday

Hurrah. Patrick is 8 years old! Party!
On the day that Sint Nikolaas has his birthday (6-12-05) is also the day that Patrick celebrates his birthday. This means that in two days he gets a lot of presents.
Lucky Patrick.
We had a nice party with gifts for him.

One week later he invited all his friends for a bowling disco party!
That was a busy busy time with 11 wild screaming kids.
But we ' survived' and at 17:00 the kids went home and Patrick was happy with the party and the gifts of course so we were happy too.

Skating in Roosendaal

For a few weeks we have in Roosendaal an indoor skating rink. Normally there is no place in the centre but a year ago there was a huge fire in the centre of Roosendaal.
Then there was place enough.
So now the indoor skating rink will stay for the whole Christmasholidays
In the morning and afternoon schools can come with their classes and have fun
But we also had fun as you can see. I was a bit rusty in the beginning but soon I got the hang of it. The kids didn' t need much time to adjust to the ice. I'm a bit jealous.

Here some live video's of the skating events:

http://www.youtube.com/?v=Brms7HGXwnU

http://www.youtube.com/?v=92OBueuZ4Aw

Decorating the tree

Just after Sinterklaas we already started to get the Christmastree from upstairs.
The kids helped decorating the tree.
It looks nice now! here you see the family in ' action' :
http://www.youtube.com/?v=rA1kD7LwJ6A

Nieuwe blog!

Hoera, de blog is aangemaakt!

Birthday and St Maarten

Last friday the 11th Henny had his birthday. He was spoilt by the kids with sweets, a sudoku puzzle and from me he got the Davinci Code.
Let's see how long it will take before he reads its.

In the evening was the light parade for the kids in our neighbourhood. It is because of the Saint Maarten who as born on that day. Kids can then go along the houses and sing a song and then they are supposed to get candy. This tradition is mainly in the northern provinces of the Netherlands. Buit they start to do it on our province as well.