Those Happy Kids...

Veronica started with smiles and ended with smiles.

Her time was 44:12, which was just under 9 minutes per miles.

We were all very proud of all four kids!

That Quick Girl...

Less than two minutes later, we spotted Ashlynn coming across the stadium track.

Love this series...check out the lady in orange who was originally behind Ashlynn at the corner, but quickly got ahead of her.

Here they are neck-in-neck.

And here that girl with the big stride pulls out in front.

Love this photo as Ashlynn flew into the finish line with a fantastic time of 33:15 as the 6th woman and 69th runner out of 4,335. She beat her time from last year by over four minutes!

Those Quick Boys...

Of course, I knew that David was fast, but it was still a shock to see that he was the first runner to enter the stadium. Normally I behave and don’t swear in front of Sally, but I couldn’t hold back and screamed, “Holy S**t!” Guess I’ll need to be bleeped on their video.

Was very exciting watching David come in 1st and thrilled that I managed to capture the moment that he crossed the line with a time of 26:29.

Andrew’s also getting faster and didn’t even notice all those cheerleaders cheering him on.

He came in 36th with an impressive time of 31:25.

Amsterdam 8K...

This year Veronica decided to join Ashlynn, David and Andrew and run the Amsterdam 8K, which is part of the Amsterdam Marathon. We arrived quite early with plenty of time to walk around the runner’s exhibition.

Ashlynn agreed that starting at the very back wasn’t the best strategy, but she refused to start at the very front with David and Andrew. Luckily, she was able to stretch out into a run near the start.

Since Veronica hadn’t run this race before, she had to start in the last section. This smile shows that she didn’t mind.

AWC Dinner Club...

A new activity added at the AWC this fall was a dinner club. The idea is that we’ll meet several times per year with different couples hosting each time. This first time, we were hosted by Rebecca, who’s Dutch-American, and Urvan, who’s from Aruba. Jimmy volunteered to make the appetizer, which was apple and goat cheese wrapped in phyllo dough.

We were really impressed with the lovely meal that they served and had a great time chatting with Roberta and Ernst as well. The evening would have been perfect except that we got completely soaked on the 15K cycle ride home.

Finally Went Apple Picking...

While Sally had taken the girls to Olmenhorst near Lisse to go apple picking last fall, Jimmy and I had never been. So when Jan suggested that we join her and Bob one Saturday in October, we were happy to go along. There was an organic store and an organic fair on the grounds that weekend. We picked up a bottle of wine along with some cheese and crackers for a small picnic.

It didn’t take long to fill a bag with apples. It also didn’t take long to fill our mouths with some fine samples straight from the trees. I don’t usually eat red apples, but these Elstars were delicious.

October 3 Parade in Leiden...

Every year there’s a parade on October 3 to celebrate the liberation of Leiden from the Spanish in 1574. The weather was amazing; it was the warmest October 3 on record. Jan drove over with her bike in the back, so we could cycle together from my house. We joined up with Johanna and Pamela, who was visiting from Houston. We grabbed some food from a Turkish doner place and beer from a booth on the street, and claimed our spots for viewing. The theme of the parade was Luck. Guessing this entry must have been bad luck as the eggs were all broken.

This must have also been bad luck as Big Bird has turned blue and has a hurt arm.

I’ve seen cycling musicians before, but not like this.

I’m not quite sure how this Ecuadorian group fit in, but these guys were lucky it was so warm.

Tour of BBC...

 

We couldn’t sleep in Sunday morning because we had a reservation for a tour of the BBC Broadcasting House. While we were waiting, we couldn’t resist taking a photo with the TARDIS, the time machine used in Dr. Who from 2005 to 2010. Our first stop was a viewpoint over the newsroom, which was really impressive. The BBC would like to claim its newsroom is the largest in the world, but it’s possible that China might have a secret one that is larger.

When the guide asked for volunteers to present the news, the girls’ hands quickly shot up.

It was very cool seeing their smiling faces on multiple screens.

The rest of our tour group must have been pretty shy, because all four of us ended up sucked into performing in the mock radio show. Definitely a fun way to spend the morning!

Afterwards, we headed to Old Spitalfields Market, which was just around the corner from the apartment we rented, for browsing and a late lunch. Our last stop was Tesco to stock up on groceries (mostly cheddar cheese and teas) before our ferry ride home. We managed to squeeze in a lot of fun in such a short visit.

More Fun with a Camera in London...

Big Ben...

Even though we only had one evening together in London, we opted to split up. While Ashlynn and I went shopping and had dinner in a very cute pub, Veronica and Jimmy were on a photo safari and ate at a street fair.

Meeting Up with a Friend in London...

Jimmy and Ashlynn met up with us the next morning at the university fair. We especially enjoyed visiting the Wellesley table. Afterwards, we met up with Veronica’s buddy Miguel, whose family moved to London over the summer.

Miguel suggested that we have lunch at the café at Kensington Palace (not nearly as posh as it sounds), followed by a walk through the antique market on Portobello Road.

Tour of University of East Anglia...

I pulled Veronica out of school on the last Friday in September because I thought we’d be going to a US University Fair in London. It turned out we decided to attend the fair on Saturday instead so Jimmy and Ashlynn could join us, so we needed to find a university to tour. At this point, Veronica’s undecided if she’ll study in the US or the UK, so we need to look at schools in both countries. Since we didn’t want to travel too far from London, I chose to visit University of East Anglia. I’d never heard of it, but its Environmental Science department is highly rated. We arrived at the campus in Norwich just in time for our scheduled campus tour.

After the tour, we popped into the Environmental Science building. We explained to the receptionist that Veronica’s request to arrange a tour of the building wasn’t answered. We were surprised when a professor overheard us and offered to walk us around. Our first stop was the mass spectrometry lab; Veronica was incredibly impressed as she had just learned about this process at school.

We also visited one of the wet labs, where a professor was preparing a mix of sludge from the pond on campus for the students to examine. We were really impressed with what we saw and that a professor would take an hour out of his day to tell and show us what UEA has to offer.

We took a walk around afterwards. This is one of the dorms with single rooms split into groups that share bathrooms and a kitchen. There were a lot of bikes on campus, which Veronica was very happy to see, and an amazing new sports facility.

We had a few hours to wander around Norwich, ranked as one of the safest cities in England, before catching our train back to London. We really liked the shopping district in the historic city center. Looks like Veronica’s found her first school to apply to in the UK.

Peace Run...

To celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Peace Palace, there was a special Peace Run 5K which both girls decided to run. Luckily, it was a beautiful fall day.

Jimmy managed to capture this smiling runner with a time of 26:17, but missed her little sister with a time of 20:50 (5th woman). Looks like I’ll take back the role of photographer for future races.

We stopped by the Peace Palace for a photo on the way back to the tram. There was a lot of commotion as a large stage was being set up for a big concert that evening.