Happy New Year!

It was strange celebrating the holidays without Jimmy, but we were happy to be able to spend them with friends. Darlene had us over for a tradi-
tional Christmas dinner, then we slept over at Sally and John’s for New Year’s Eve. Things weren’t quite as wild in Heemstede as in Leiden, but we had a great time lighting off some sparklers and watching fireworks at midnight.
Then we took a nice long walk on New Years through the near-by woods. Was quite surprised when we happened upon this Scottish cow wandering loose with several of his buddies.

Blue About Not Being Green...

I really try to be green. I use public transport to get the girls to school and for travel all around Holland. I ride my bike to the grocery store. After I fly, I purchase carbon offsets from Greenseat. So it was with great trepidation that I purchased a fake Xmas tree this year. As I look at it with our favorite ornaments that I brought from North Carolina and the cute Thalys train set around the bottom, I feel guilty. Guilty that my tree came out of a box from Thailand (at least it wasn’t China). Guilty that it never gave off any oxygen or sweet pine fragrances. Guilty that eventually it’ll end up in a landfill for at least a few hundred years. At least it makes two sweet girls smile, so I don’t feel entirely guilty (although I do feel guilty that I forgot to take a picture of them in front of it).

Frozen Canals...

We were very excited to see the canals in the area frozen for the first time in the 2 years we’ve lived here. We stopped to talk to some skaters, then walked on the canal ourselves. The guess was that the ice was about 2 inches thick, but it’s still disconcerting when you hear noises as it settles on the water. Sadly, we’re now having record warmth and lots of rain.

An Early Freeze...

We could tell that winter arrived early this year as the field next door froze for the first time since we’ve lived here (it was flooded with water around the 1st of December). On the first day of winter, it opened for the weekend as an outdoor ice skating rink. Luckily, Veronica’s skates still fit and she enjoyed going skating twice while Ashlynn followed her around wearing snow boots.

“C” is for Celebrating ....

It seems like a long time since the days when Ashlynn couldn’t swim or ride a bike, and we had to walk 25 minutes to the pool for her lessons in the shallow pool. It’s been very exciting to watch her progress in a fairly short time from only being able to dog paddle to being able to complete her “C”diploma which included 4 laps dressed in trousers, long-sleeved top and windbreaker, diving, a 27-foot underwater swim through a hoop plus 10+ laps of mixed strokes along with an occasional somersault or obstacle, as shown above. She’s now in the highest group at swimming lessons during PE at school and is the first in her class to earn all of the beginner diplomas. Next up, she’ll join Veronica’s snorkel classes--yeah, they’ll finally have lessons at the same time!

Victorian Day...

Each year group at school gets to have a dress-up day once a year. Veronica’s this year was during her studies of the Victorian Times in England from 1837 to 1901. She dressed up as a posh student, proudly wearing her Auntie Leigh’s old Granny Sax dress. She had a great time seeing what it was like to go to school over 100 years ago.

Valuable Lessons Learned - Part 9

* Don’t use the shower to judge if the water in the house is still turned off unless everyone in the house knows the difference between on and off. After deciding we didn’t want to stay in a house without water, we had a rude awakening when we returned the next day from Darlene’s. The first hint that something was wrong was water on the kitchen counter. Then I noticed the sound of water running. Turns out the shower was on full power at 100 degrees for over 12 hours! Our 2nd floor was like an indoor sauna. Thank God for Darlene--she stayed with me and helped squeegee the walls and ceiling for 2 hours.
* Don’t try making homemade soup when you’re already stressed out. After spending the afternoon cleaning the water off the 2nd floor, I got to clean tomato soup off the kitchen walls when I put too much in the blender and couldn’t hold the top on. Next time I’ll buy pureed tomatoes in a can.