Orange Confetti...

I don’t know if it was a new thing or just a new thing to us, but we experienced several confetti canons which turned the sky orange.

Check out this guy’s suit.

Pieter carried Norah in a high-tech backpack...

...complete with a sunshade (visible behind Jimmy).

Orange Canals...

The canals were overflowing with boats...

...and lots of orange, the official color of the country.

If you look closely, you’ll find a fellow sitting in a window looking down at all the merriment.

What a great view he must have had in the window from this house built in 1656.

Another King’s Day in Amsterdam...

The Blacks in Orange

We started our day by heading over to Bob and Lisa’s house, which is conveniently located on the Brouwersgracht, one of the main canals.

The view from their living room window shows that many of their neighbors set up tables to sell their old junk on the one day of the year that yard sales are allowed nationwide.

One of their neighbor’s flew a two-story tall Dutch flag.

Many of the boats were so crowded they were standing-room only. 

Another Invasion by the Blacks...

Melissa and Pieter didn’t want to miss the chance to experience King’s Day before moving back to the US, so they brought Norah back up for another weekend of fun and debauchery. Friday night we celebrated Koninginnenacht (the night before the King’s birthday) in The Hague.

Little Norah looked adorable in her oversized ear protection.

The rest of us looked pretty blurry by this point in the evening.

Year 13 Awards Ceremony...

We were so proud to see Ashlynn receive a Pastoral Award: Ashlynn has shone through fundraising for charity. Her work with the ECO Committee is particularly impressive. (For those that aren’t familiar with the word pastoral, it is used frequently at our school in reference to the head teacher’s responsibility for the general well-being of students.)

Sophie received a Leadership Award for her role on the Student Council. 

From Warmond to Leiden...

It was strange when we entered the restaurant, found it entirely empty—and it remained empty—and was told we couldn’t sit on the waterfront side of the room because of Kati. I offered to sit separately so everyone else could enjoy the view, but they thought that was silly.

When we got to this spot, I recognized it as where we held a FILTH H3 circle in the dark after one of Celine and Richard’s hashes.

Several of the ladies caught a bus from Warmond back to the station, while the rest of us decided to continue walking to Leiden. Along the way we saw Oud Poelgeest, a castle in Oestgeest built in 1668 which is now used as a conference center.

Our path also crossed another park we’ve hashed through several times: Leidse Hout.

I took this photo when I got home to show that the leaves had finally returned to the giant tree in our front garden, but we were surprised that they grew in red rather than the usual green.

Walkie Talkies in Warmond...

Once again I joined the AWC Walkie Talkies group for one of their walks further afield. This time we took the train to Sassenheim, where we caught our only glimpse of the tulip fields on the way to Warmond.

Terri and I wore our boots and backpacks as we treated this as another training walk.

I brought Kati along, who did a great job impressing the ladies with her good behavior.

Along the way she roamed through a gnome village in the park...

...complete with this technologically-advanced gnome.