Adopting a Seal...

Check out those huge eyes

Too cute!

We paid for a partial adoption to help fund a portion of a seal’s rehabilitation. Ashlynn picked out this seal named Morning to help. It was a long journey home (and a bit stressful after the hourly bus passed us by), but worth it.

Loving the Seal Center...

Ashlynn thinks she’d like to be a marine biologist and loved every minute that we spent at the seal center. We started by watching a movie that explained the history and mission of the center. Then we walked around and saw the seals in the quarantine area and the general pools. The center had to put up temporary housing for the 350 seals that they are nursing back to health.

The Seal Nursery...

Many of the seals in quarantine have lung worms

One of the many pools of young seals

It was raining, so we didn’t spend much time outside

The seal cafeteria

Our real purpose for being in the north of the country was to visit the Seal Rehabilitation and Research Centre in the small village of Pieterburen. While we have never seen a seal in Scheveningen, apparently there quite a lot that live off the northern outlying islands. Due to heavy storms this winter, a record number of baby grey seals were separated from their moms and eventually washed ashore. Specially trained rescue teams patrol the beaches and bring seals they find to this center, where they are nursed back to health and eventually returned to the wild.

A Night in Groningen...

Our first trip of 2012 was an overnight trip to Groningen in the north of the Netherlands. We visited the above museum, which was as unusual on the inside as on the outside. We especially enjoyed the exhibit of giant everyday objects, including this sparkly globe.

We also did some geocaching; this was the best of the hiding places that we found. After dinner, we headed back to the hotel and watched back-to-back episodes of the BBC show Merlin, which the girls love.

A Cold Morning for a 5K...

Check out that long stride!

The first race of 2012 was on a crisp Sunday morning in Leiden with temps barely above freezing. Ashlynn’s time suffered as she had a tough time breathing, but she still flew into the finish.

Jimmy also ran the 5K, but regretted it afterwards as he pushed it a bit too hard. Check out the stop-motion video that Veronica made, which features David and Andrew as well.

High Tea on New Year’s Day...

After showering at home, we dashed back out for a New Year’s surprise that Jimmy had arranged: high tea at Hotel Des Indes in The Hague. Since I don’t drink tea, it’s never dawned on me to go to a high tea. I thought that the portions would be rather small, but this was actually an amazing four-course meal with two courses of savory and two of sweet. Definitely a nice surprise and unique way to start the New Year.

New Year’s Dive...

Jimmy thought I was crazy, but this year I wanted us to do the New Year’s Dive into the North Sea in Scheveningen. It meant getting up early and heading to the beach in hopes of getting tickets to participate with 10,000 other crazy people. After getting tickets, we spent over an hour on the beach warming up by dancing; several of our friends were also there, but we never found them among the crowds. About 11:45 a.m. we dropped our clothes and got in position to make the run down to the water.

At noon we started running down to the water, which was much further than we realized. We were very lucky that it was an unseasonably warm day with air temps of 52F/11C and water temps of 46F/8C. Even so, the water still felt like icy needles against my legs. Silly Jimmy actually dove under the water, but us girls only went in to our thighs. He enjoyed it so much that he’s already talking about what to do differently for next year.

Jimmy shared the video he shot with his GoPro with a local news station. We were surprised that they posted one entire segment on their website. You might also be interested in a slideshow recapping 2011 that Veronica made with photos from this blog. If you weren’t in it, you need to be sure to visit us in 2012.

Ringing in the New Year...

How fun to ring in the New Year with close friends! After watching the bonfire for awhile, we went back to their house to shoot off some more fireworks and watch the midnight show from London.

We swung back by the bonfire on the way home and it was burning low and very hot. When we went by the next day,  there wasn’t a sign left that there was ever a fire.

The Midnight Bonfire...

Just before midnight, we walked over to where a bonfire was set up.

 Like a moth to a flame, Jimmy is drawn to fire.

We kept the kids at a safer distance.

New Year’s Eve...

New Year’s Eve got off to a rough start. We’d planned on going to Pamela’s party and spending the night. We arrived at the tram stop just in time to watch the tram leave without us. We waited almost an hour and neither tram nor bus ever came. We considered renting a Green Wheels car, but first called Sally and John to see if they had plans after just returning from England. They didn’t, so we invited ourselves over. We packed up some bubbly and a bunch of fireworks, which the kids and dads had a blast lighting off.

More Geocaching in Dusseldorf...

Several of the caches lead us off Dusseldorf’s beaten path and into the brush.

This was another clever hiding place within a sculpture.

We got a laugh out of this sign next to the scuplture, which means: Money doesn’t grow on trees.

Geocaching in Dusseldorf...

We did a little bit more shopping on our last day in Dusseldorf, but spent most of the day geocaching. This was a clever cache, hidden in a small box behind a modern sculpture in the front yard of this house.

More Christmas Markets in Cologne..

It took just a little over an hour  the next day to get to Cologne to check out their many Christmas Markets.

I preferred the markets in Cologne to those in Dusseldorf. They were especially lovely at night. I was happy to find a sterling silver ring made out of an antique spoon.

On a cold winter’s day, it was nice that there were many options of warm drinks. Each market had its own mug; we paid a deposit that was refunded when we returned the mug. At one, we had warm egg nog, which was very strange. This burning drink was wine, rum and sugar, which was pretty, but not as tasty as mulled wine itself. The strangest thing we saw was definitely this manger scene.

Glassblowing in Dusseldorf...

Jimmy was especially fascinated by the market that had craftsman at work including this glassblower who uses a cell phone while molding hot glass.

A professional photographer spotted Ashlynn and Jimmy watching the glassblower and asked for permission to photograph them.

Here’s the final photo. I’m not crazy about their expressions, but it would still be cool if it were included in next year’s promotional materials for the market.

Dusseldorf Christmas Market...

Since we weren’t going on a big trip over Christmas break, we decided to go to some Christmas Markets in Germany. I found a really good deal at a hotel in Dusseldorf, so we hopped some trains and stayed two nights. We spent the first afternoon wandering through the multiple markets.

Not Your Average Gingerbread House...

It took several days, but the girls had a great time making a homemade gingerbread house. Rather than just make a standard house, they designed a chateau.

It turned out awesome! I was especially impressed with the candy windows and clock.

Getting into the Holiday Spirit...

As usual, our family celebrates multiple holidays in December. I thought the girls had outgrown having Sinterklaas visit, but Ashlynn said they’d never outgrow wanting chocolate letters in their wooden clogs. Luckily they also haven’t outgrown enjoying decorating the tree. We celebrated the first night of Hanukkah by having Sally and family over for dinner.

Speech and Acting Tournament in Brussels...

While we were in Tallinn, the girls had their own adventures. Ashlynn went to see Wicked in Dutch for a friend’s birthday, then spent the rest of the weekend at Sally’s. Meanwhile, Veronica spent two nights in Brussels to participate in NESDA, the New European Speech, Debate and Acting Tournament. She was thrilled to be among the ten students chosen from our school to participate. They took the train down after school and split up to stay at students’ homes from the host school, International School of Brussels. She participated in three disciplines: duet acting (a British comedy bit--this is the original starting at 4:30), original oratory (she wrote a speech about the Shakespeare Conspiracy) and oral interpretation (she read a passage from Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close). She and Maaike made it into the finals for their duet, but didn’t come home with an award. All-in-all, a great experience and she’s already hoping to do it again next year.

Our School Team