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.