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.