We Love Santa...

Working at the AWC Holiday Bazaar is always a lot of fun. As usual, Terri and I worked the payment table together. 

And, as usual, I took a lot of photos and even posed with Santa.

Bob is such a cheerful Santa. Jimmy couldn’t resist having a photo, too.

Our 9th Anniversary...

November 22, 2014 was our 9th anniversary in the Netherlands. It was also the day that Sinterklaas arrived in our little village. The girls could have cared less, but Jimmy and I took Kati for a walk so we could see Sinterklaas arrive on a boat.

Check out this cute little girl with her Sinterklaas doll and flag.

Sinterklaas went from his boat to a horse-drawn carriage. Apparently he paraded through the village, but we didn’t follow along.

That evening we headed to Scheveningen. Rather than go straight to La Lanterna, the Italian restaurant where we have our traditional anniversary dinner, we started with drinks at the Boulevard Hotel, where we first stayed when we arrived nine years ago. Then we went to the beach so Veronica and Jimmy could take this cool shot of steel wool set on fire.

You Can Dress Them Up...

...but you can’t take them out.

Marine Corps Ball...

This year’s Marine Corps Ball wasn’t in The Hague as usual. Rather it was at a posh hotel on the beach in Noordwijk (the same posh hotel in fact that President Obama and other world leaders stayed during the big Nuclear Security Conference) where we were also staying the night.

Terri and Chris weren’t there, but I got my usual photo with Jan...

and with Jimmy, of course.

The men all looked dashing in their penguin suits.

Roberta joined us when we posed with some of the Marines.

School Pics...

Veronica had her last BSN school photo taken in November.

Why is it that school photographers like to make Ashlynn tilt her head?

Back in January 2007, the girls had their only sibling photo taken while they were both at the junior school.

In November 2014, they had finally had a chance to have another sibling photo taken. Luckily Ashlynn had front teeth this time around.

Working with Other Models...

An extra cool aspect of this first Dutch shoot was that Ashlynn got to work with two other models: Daan, a 21-year-old full-time model, and Mara, a 17-year-old student who plans to model full-time after finishing high school.

I love these two shots!

Ashlynn learned an interesting lesson: in this industry there’s always another younger girl waiting to take your place. In this case she was that younger girl and her last-minute addition to the shoot impacted how much the other two girls were featured.

Duran Lantink Lookbook...

Justine captured this photo as Duran was helping Ashlynn get dressed. I left shortly afterwards and couldn’t wait to see the photos to see what other outfits she wore.

This was definitely the most unusual outfit in the collection.

The make-up was very simple. I thought Ashlynn looked amazing!

I got back around 4 p.m. and got to watch the last bits. It was a long day, especially considering this was an unpaid job, but Ashlynn really had a great time.