King Tut Visits Holland...

During our Easter break, we went to Amsterdam with Sally, David and Andrew to see the travelling exhibit of King Tut (who lived from 1341 to 1323 BC). Everything we saw was replicas as the real relics are too fragile or expensive to move from Egypt. The exhibit included an audio guide and started with an informative multimedia show. This is the doors of the tomb discovered in 1922 deep under a mountain in the Valley of the Kings.

The artistry on the jewelry was amazing as was this 3,300-year-old inner sarcophagus.

Ashlynn begged to borrow my camera. It’s amazing how shooting over 100 photos can reduce a teen’s boredom (and create a lot of extra photo management for a mother).

Afterwards, we headed into the center of Amsterdam to eat lunch. We settled on a British pie shop, where I had a delicious fish pie. It was a bit windy, but the skies were clear, so we took a long walk into the Jordaan to see this street where David was born.

In Search of a Pet...

After spending weeks researching ferrets, Ashlynn made a compelling plea for us to get her two ferrets as she desperately wanted a pet. In fact she did such a good job trying to convince us that we finally broke down and agreed to get her a dog. She then drove me crazy showing me every cute dog available for adoption anywhere in the Netherlands.

We finally agreed to go meet Kati, a dog rescued off the streets of Romania by a foundation called Dogs Adoptions Nederland, who was living on a farm with a foster family. The above photo was taken on August 23, 2012, when Kati was first rescued. This photo was taken by her foster family on January 22.

Christa picked us up at the train station and brought us to her farm to meet Kati. She was skittish at first, but quickly warmed up to Ashlynn. Even Christa was surprised how Kati was naturally drawn to Ashlynn. While we were a bit nervous about adopting a rescue dog, we were happy that our search for a dog was over.

Another Sunday, Another Race...

We rented a Greenwheels car to take Ashlynn to a race since Sally, who usually takes her along with Andrew, was out of town. This circuit race was originally scheduled to be held in January, but was rescheduled due to potential ice. Ironically, there were snow flurries while we were driving to the race on March 31, but luckily it stopped and the sun came out as the race started.

For the first time, Ashlynn beat her Daddy. Perhaps she was extra speedy because she knew that Hannah was waiting for her at the finish line. Despite an untied shoe, she managed to come in 1st girl under 16 (the girl that usually beats her by several minutes must have been ill) and 4th woman for the 5.3K with a 22:03 (6:42 minutes per mile).

Baby, Remember My Name...

Once again the girls needed to come up with a plan for a performance for the school’s International Festival. Veronica suggested that they sing and dance to the theme song from the movie Fame.

I was impressed that Veronica opted to give the solos to Natalia and Lili because she thought their voices worked better with the song. She originally hoped to just voice project, but her mean mom insisted she needed to use a microphone so the audience could be sure to hear her over the backing track.

Lauren was again in charge of choreographing the dance with Ashlynn’s assistance. 

 
The entire show was really good this year with ten countries performing. Jimmy once again enjoyed playing professional photographer. Afterwards, we stuffed ourselves as we tried food and drinks from twenty countries.

Anger Management...

As part of Veronica’s Year 11 (10th grade) GCSE Drama exam, she had to act in a ten-minute scripted production. She and Sophie’s duet scene was of Lindsay Price’s Anger Mangement: Life in the afterworld sucks for Juliet and Ophelia. And they’re not afraid to tell you where to shove your decorative potholder.

It was funny hearing Veronica as Juliet say that she shouldn’t have killed herself for Romeo since he dumped her eons ago, “Loved him enough to knife myself in the stomach. Now, not so much. Now, I’d like to take his insides and pull them outside his body.” Unfortunately, Veronica had no luck uploading the video of their performance to YouTube, then her hard drive crashed, so you’ll just have to believe me that they did a great job. 

Making Chocolate...

While I avoid taking cooking classes, I decided to take a chance and go to a chocolate making class with the AWC. A large group of us gathered at a chocolate shop in Delft. Don’t we look cute in our aprons and blue caps?

I was a bit disappointed to learn that this place doesn’t actually make their own chocolate, but rather they just melt Belgian chocolate chips and add their own fillings or toppings. Of course, that didn’t stop me from enjoying plenty of samples. Jan, who planned the workshop, was a natural at making her chocolates into recognizable shapes such as circles, bunnies and ducks.

My chocolates, on the other hand, looked like they were made by a 4-year=old. The good news is that chocolate still tastes like chocolate even if it’s ugly.

My bon-bons looked a bit more normal as the bottoms were provided for us. I worked with a partner to make the ganache filling, made from butter, cream, chocolate and liqueur, in this case Frangelico made from hazelnuts. The top is then more melted chocolate. Yum! This was one class that my whole family benefited from.

Earth Hour...

After the International Festival, we had Sally, John, David and Andrew over for Earth Hour, a worldwide effort led by the WWF to encourage businesses and households to turn off non-essential lights at 8:30 p.m. on March 23. Veronica was very disappointed that we couldn’t make it to the Dutch celebration in Tilburg, so decided to host our own version.

The kids were funny because they weren’t sure what to do for the hour. They eventually started playing a game, which they enjoyed so much that they played by candlelight for two hours.

We also celebrated Sally and Jimmy’s birthdays, which are just one day apart. Ashlynn and Veronica made a delicious carrot cake with lemon frosting.