In our 10 years in North Carolina, we never managed to make it to the Blue Ridge Mountains in the fall for the changing of the leaves. During our recent October half term break, we were excited to get to the mountains in time to see the fall colors. Can you guess where we went?
I still remember when I heard DJs Jeff & Jer say that about cows on the radio in San Diego. I was pulling out of my driveway in a very urban area and I thought they were crazy. That is until I turned my head and saw a wooden cow planter on my neighbor's porch. Ever since, I have seen a cow almost every day. Of course, my odds of seeing a live cow increased greatly since moving to Holland since there are 1.2 million of them here. When we first arrived, the cows were in the winter barns, but since spring we see them regularly on our school commute and on bike rides. It's especially lovely since there's few fences with the irrigation canals acting as barriers. Keep your eyes open and see how many cows you see this week.
Gotta love a restaurant called The Big Beer (that is if you ignore the fact that "beer" is actually Dutch for "bear"). There's no doubt that the Dutch love beer:
It was a shock to see the quick transform- ation of our quaint town into a carnival site. All the main roads of the centrum were closed and filled with rides, games and food. Jimmy and the girls especially enjoyed the view from the ferris wheel.
222 years before America's Founding Father's were celebrating liberation from England, Leiden was celebrating liberation from Spain on October 3, 1574. The city had been besieged by the Spaniards for many years. The Prince of Orange finally decided to cut the dikes to flood out the Spaniards: "Better a drowned land than a lost land." Wikipedia doesn't mention how many Dutch drowned, but the strategy worked and the Spaniards fled. Since 1575 a celebration of Thanksgiving has been held on every October 3rd with a memorial service, market, parade and carnival.
Ashlynn was very excited when she found out that I'd signed up her grandparents to be guest readers in her 1st grade class. Grandma was very professional in her reading of a story of how a princess invented pizza. Grandpa, on the other hand, was a total ham while reading "The True Story of the 3 Little Pigs." He quickly took on the persona of Alexander T Wolf in this 1st person narrative--"You can call me Al. In fact you can call me anything, just don't call me late for dinner." By the end of the story he'd worked the kids up into a frenzy and Mrs. Cross was quite cross. She had to threaten to cancel all future guest readers to calm the kids back down. Dad was excited that he'd be remembered as the grandpa who nearly started a riot.
We were very excited when Grandma arrived after visiting family in England, although she seemed to have brought the rain. We saved much of the cultural sightseeing for when she joined us--the Anne Frank House (a very powerful experience), the Mauritshuis (an amazing art museum in Den Haag that specializes in Dutch masters), the Van Gogh Museum (Ashlynn enjoyed playing tour guide since she studied the artist at school) and a candlelight tour of a 17th century castle in a neighboring town. We also saved Veronica's 9th birthday party so she could help us celebrate with our friends. She was a good sport about everything we put her through. We were especially impressed when she climbed into the girls bunk beds to read to them (design note: we didn't pick out the lovely drapes and the Kerry - Edwards sticker was already on the used bunk beds).
