Proof that our kids grow

These are two photos of the kids in front of the building at my work.
Left side 2005 . Right side 2006

Well, all of them have grown about " one stone" . .

Kids at daddy's work

Waiting for the train and in the train.

Another tradition is that the children accompany me to work.

They seem to like it. We left early and Jos accompanied us as well. We stayed for half a day which is just enough before they get too wild at work. They especially like the hot chocolate at my work, the restaurant with all the good foods and deserts and the games they can play at one of the empty computers at my work (most colleagues are free of course in this time)

Jos and Henny in front of the building. . .

Christmastime in Roosendaal

As tradition in the family at 24th of december we celebrated Christmas at our home. According to the Polish tradition Gosia served only non meat dishes (mostly fish or salads).

My brother Jos and my sister Marja and my father joined us. Luuc and Marina are in Malyasia at this time.

Part of the tradition is also to wish each other a Merry Christmas while breaking bread as you can see on the photo.






After the dinner the kids couldn't wait to unpack their gifts under the Christmastree. That was fun to see their excitement while unpacking.

Happy Holidays

We wish you all happy and healthy holidays with your friends and family.

Ewa Faligowska passed away

Yesterdayevening we heard the terrible news that our dear Polish friend Ewa passed away in the hospital of Szczecin.

Last month she told us that after a long time the doctors in Poland found out what was the cause of her health problems. Only last month the hospital could make the right diagnosis. She had a very rare disease called pulmonary arterial hypertension.

Her condition deteriorated very fast and last monday she passed away. We were shocked when we heard the news. We are all very sad to loose such a dear friend. She was such a kind and friendly person. We all loved her dearly and now she is gone at such an early age. She will be missed by many.

We wish her husband Michal , and son Grzegorz and her family all the strength in these very difficult times.

Sinterklaas

I can tell you a lot about the Dutch tradition of Sinterklaas at the 5th of december wich is themain event for Dutch children

But this website explains it a lot better in English:
http://www-astro.physics.ox.ac.uk/~erik/sint/sint.html

Anyway we had a good celebration. My sister Marja and my father were also present to see the kids unpacking the gifts. This year Sinterklaas had accompanied all the gifts with a funny poem that told the children something about themselves and about the gift they received.
They were all happy and content.

Robert discovered the bags with gifts upstairs

Birthday skating

In the afternoon of my birthday we went skating. We had gotten free tickets for a big skating event in the town Breda which is about 25 km away from roosendaal.

There were a lof of people there but the skating rink is really big so there was place for everyone.

We had fun together.

Sinterklaas at work

At Gosia's work Sinterklaas came to meet all the young children of Gosia colleagues.
They have an age maximum of 8. So it was the last year for Patrick that he could attend the celebration and get candy and a gift. Next year its only Maaike left . . .

The parents could watch the events while the children were singing and helping Sinterklaas.
At the end they got some gifts of course

They all had a great time

Sinterklaas is in town

On saturday afternoon the biggest event was that Sinterklaas with his helpers "Zwarte Pieten" arrived in the Netherlands. Mysteriously enough he simultanously arrived in all the towns in th Netherlands. He also arrived in Roosendaal. As the weather was good we went by bike and saw the arrival of Sinterklaas on his white horse 'Amerigo' with music bands and many Zwarte Pieten. The kids got a lot of candies and talked to the Zwarte Pieten.

Now the children have to be extra good until 5th of december when Sinterklaas celebrates his birthday by giving gifts to all the good children in the Netherlands.

During that time occasionally they can put their shoe under the table. Inside they put a poem or a carrot for the hosre. And the next morning Zwarte Piet has put some candy in the shoe.

BIrthday and more updates will follow

Well it has been quiet for a while due to busy life at home and laziness from my site. But I will start today and this weekend with some updates from november.
First Big thing was my birthday! Yes, I became older again.
The kids know I am a fan of the soccerteam Ajax so they bought me an Ajax set: an Ajax pen, pencil, gum, AJAX penbag.
Gosia gave me a 400 gigaybyte external hardrive which always comes in handy!

This year now the traditional breakfast on bed as I was out of bed sooner than the kids! Robert had to play soccer really early so I was also up early. But then at 08:00 o'clock we were called that the match had been cancelled due to bad weather. Lucky Robert and lucky me but a pity about my breakfast . .

Confirmation Robert

At the beginning of november Robert did his confirmation in church. It was a nice ceremony that lasted pretty long. but the priest gave a lot of attention to all the children that did their confirmation. Robert and all the children who did confirmation had a special event the day before confirmation. They did an evening walk with torches.

After the church ceremony we invited all the family and had a good time at home.

Art

Once a year my work has a cultural trip / excursion.
This year we had a painting workshop. That was fun although I have no painting talent whatsoever.
Here you can see my group before the 'creative process' started:
The colleagues were divided into 3 groups and every group had to make a painting in the style of a famous painter. We had the choice of Keith Haring, Picasso and Miro. I was in the group of Picasso and all 9 colleagues painted a part of the painting and then they were put together.
These were the results:


Guess what part was painted by me!
(the left upper part )





And the other 2 groups:

Kids business at the shopping centre

This week the children had their Autumn holiday.
First we had plans to go to Poland but we decided to stay at home.

It is a tradition here that at the end of the Autumn holiday the children in our neighbourhood can sell their toys and other stuff at our small shopping centre.
So we collected a lot of rubbish from the attic and put it on sale.

The kids were very enthusiastic and sold a lot of stuff. Good for them! and good for us as we have more space again. Although they also bought cheap stuff with other kids at the shopping centre.

Free Hugs

I saw this video on one of the blogs recently
I wanted to share it with you all
I really liked it
and good music too

Friends from school visiting Maaike and Patrick

Occasionally friends from school come over after school and they play together
Yesterday it was Berend and Elaine
They had fun together

Orange skies

Yesterday evening the sky above Roosendaal looked really spectacular

Trip to Iceland, the whole island that is airconditioned!

Last thursday Gosia and I went for our 4 day trip to Iceland.
It was really an adventure. It was c-c-cold but the landscapes and the nature were really spectacular.
After a 3 hour flight we arrived at Keflavik airport.





The travelagency advised us to go first to a geo thermal bath resort called the Blue Lagoon before going to our hotel.












The Blue Lagoon ( http://www.bluelagoon.com/ ) was really relaxing. It is a huge complex where people can bathe or go to a sauna. Outside it was raining and 8 degrees celsius. In the seawater it was really nice with a temperature of around 40 degrees celsius. The seawater actually looks even light blue due to the minerals in the water. For the skin you could put special mineral stuff on your face.
We stayed for about two hours and even when we were in the bus we were still afterglowing from the heat.

The second day we went on the so-called: "Golden Circle Tour"
For more info: http://www.nat.is/re_gullfoss_geysir.htm
This tour of around 300 km takes you to the beautiful landscape of Iceland. We saw Geysers, vulcanoes, different waterfalls like the famous Gullfoss, a national park and more.
The only disadvantage of this tour was the weather.
The temperatures were around 9 or 10 degrees Celsius and there was a storm with heavy rains all day long. So at parts of the trip our trousers got really soaked. But we thought now we are here so this is the chance to see everything. Here you see some highlights:














The house where Gorbatsjov and Reagan met.









As you see it was quite windy at the Waterfalls.

The last day we spent in Reykjavik itself. In the morning we walked to the famous church of Reykjavik > Later we went to the Flea market. IN the afternoon we met up with Bragi, our friendly Iceland friend who took us all around Reykjavik. He showed us a birdrefuge, the Perlan, a 3D map of Iceland in the TownHall, the best fishrestaurant in Reykjavik and some other highlights.