Tempting the Gods...

May 5 was the 75th Anniversary of the Liberation of the Netherlands. Sadly, all the special celebrations had to be cancelled due to the coronavirus, but Veronica and Brett joined me and Jimmy in running another virtual hash (without a trail) in honor of Liberation Day. 

Afterwards, we dared to tempt fate by drinking Corona beers to start our Cinco de Mayo celebration. 

Ashlynn and Bjarne made margaritas along with quite an incredible Mexican fiesta. 

To appease the Gods, there were several initiatives around town to try to cheer folks up. A friend let us know that people were encouraged to place teddy bears in their windows to give little kids a fun activity to try to find the bears all over town. Ashlynn happened to have received a giant bear for her 18th birthday, so he sat proudly in our front window for months. 

Another sweet initiative was for folks to paint rocks, often with words of encouragement, sometimes even in English. 

It really made us smile as we saw the line of rocks continue to grow over the days, although long gone now.

I’m always excited when I spot a stork, especially since it doesn’t happen very often in our neighborhood.
 

More Commune Hashing...

On April 19, it was Ashlynn’s turn to hare (her first time without one of her parents along) and devirginize Bjarne (as a hare for the first time, of course) for an Amsterdam H3 Virtual Hash. 

We started in a small park around the corner from our house, which was the perfect spot for some group photos.

It was nice that they had prelaid the trail so they could run with us. 

I was thoroughly impressed that they managed to not only find spots in Voorschoten that we hadn’t already hashed through, but spots that we’d never been to in the 7+ years that we’ve lived here including this wooded spot for the beer break. 

On May 3, Opee laid yet another Amsterdam H3 Virtual Hash. This time our beer break was in a parking lot behind an industrial area with a nice view of a canal and farm. 

I captured this group shot in a sideview mirror of a classic car. 

On May 7, Opee laid a FILTH H3 trail from our house towards De Vink train station. Along the way, the kids all tried the zipline. Bjarne and Ashlynn managed to stay dry, even though they were clearly over the weight limit, but Brett ended up dragging his feet through the water. 

We were quite excited when the Dutch government announced it was relaxing the “shelter-in-place” guidelines to include only those who were feeling ill starting on May 11. We decided to tempt fate four days early by meeting up with Reinhardt and Inga near the station for a beer break. Clearly this isn’t a usual pose for us; I think we were pretending to grab the full moon. 

The trail ended at our house, where we did a quick circle and then Reinhardt and Inga ran the first part of trail before continuing back to their house. It was so great they could join us.

 

Our Private Disco...

Eventually Jimmy converted our living room into a disco complete with a light show projected onto our drapes for dancing until the wee hours...

…and making shadow figures. 

Even Kati got into the act.

Of course, DJ Ash was in charge of the music, but opted to dance instead of mixing. 

At one point it looked like we were in a giant aquarium.

I don’t usually post smoochy pics, but just loved how the graphics appeared in this one. 

After sleeping away half of the 27th, Opee live laid a Brabant H3 Virtual Hash around our neighborhood that Veronica and Brett joined me for while Ashlynn and Bjarne took Kati on a slow walk. We forgot to take a group shot on trail, but here we are in front of our house. 

As you can see, we weren’t the only house flying a Dutch flag. 

 

 

King’s Night...

Every year we look forward to the two biggest parties of the year in the Netherlands: King’s Night in The Hague on the evening of April 26 and King’s Day in Amsterdam on April 27, a national holiday to celebrate King Willem-Alexander’s birthday with the entire country typically turning orange. Clearly this year was like no other. That afternoon we received our first visitors since lockdown when Reinhardt and Inga popped in during a long run for a quick socially-distanced beer in our backyard.

After a delicious dinner of crepes, we changed into our party clothes (luckily we had extra orange shirts that the boys could wear). 

Next we moved onto board games and cocktails.

It wasn’t long before the general goofiness...

…and dancing began. 

 

Isolation Outdoor Movie Night...

To celebrate an unseasonably warm night in April, Veronica set up an old projector so we could have an isolation outside movie night on our terrace. 

When Jimmy volunteered to make pizza on the grill, he forgot about one important factor: how would we carry those hot pizzas up our windy Dutch staircase? So he got creative and rigged up a chain and pulley system to convert his paella pan into an ad-hoc dumbwaiter. 

The rest of us prepped pizzas and watched silly cartoons until he could join us for the feature film. 

Veronica did an excellent job safely transporting each hot pizza to our movie theater. 

Eventually Jimmy was done cooking and we all could bundle up to watch A Knight’s Tale. 

Like many good intentions during the pandemic, we never set up the pizza rig again and only ended up watching one other movie outdoors: Point Break. Most nights we chose movies by picking out titles that we had each written down at the start of lockdown as a way to really mix up what we watched.
 

Family Dinners...

If you asked me to name the number one thing I miss since The White House Commune closed, it would be that I miss our family dinners. Before lockdown, dinner for two usually consisted of simple stir fries, stews and soups. With four additional mouths to feed (including two remorseless eating machines), grocery shopping and meal planning changed significantly, especially since we were trying to limit our trips to the stores. More than once I got surprised looks at the farmer’s market by the sheer volume of veggies I bought weekly for our 120+ vegan dinners. I was fortunate that I could share the cooking duties with Veronica and Ashlynn, our Vegan Princesses, who enjoyed teaching the boys to cook. And the boys were extremely helpful with doing dishes. 

One of our favorite themed dinners was sushi night, of which we had three. 

Jimmy also pitched in by making some of his classics: paella (shown here), chili, pizza, crepes and tagine. 

The girls enjoyed experimenting, including making homemade gnocchi...

…and savory rolls along with their traditional cinnamon rolls for Easter brunch. 

Some of their other specialties included: shwarma, tacos, poke bowls, savory pancakes and pineapple sorbet. They surprised us later by putting together a Quarantine Cookbook. 

Dinner was often a long, relaxed event that often included some adult beverages and childish goofiness.