Marja's Birthday Party

My sister Marja decided to celebrate her birthday differently than usual.She invited the whole family at the pancake restaurant.That was a nice party and our kids did not mind it of course. . .

Diplomas

Maaike and Patrick have been busy this last week in their sports.
Patrick has gotten the white belt with Judo last monday. He had to do some grips and some excercises. Gosia was there to see him receive the diploma.

After some difficulties with parts of the training Maaike managed to get with schoolswimming the diploma Winter survival!

Both are very proud and we too of course.

First day of the year in the Rotterdam Zoo

Today we went to Blijdorp, the Zoo of Rotterdam.
http://www.rotterdamzoo.nl/

We had managed to get free tickets due to an internet action of a big insurance company that gave away free tickets for 12 Zoo's in the Netherlands.

It was bit cold and windy at first but it was dry and later we even had some sunshine.
Especially the Oceanium is spectacular.
You walk through a special tunnel underneath the water and there you can see the sharks and turtles swimming above you. Really a great sight.

Later we made a walk to the other parts of the Zoo and saw among other a baby hippopotamus. Really cute for the kids.
The butterfly garden was also pretty impressive with these colourful animals flying around you.

There we also met our friends from our town who had arrived later with their kids. And we even met our old neighbours that had moved to a different town years ago.

It was a good beginning of the new year.