A Beautiful Day at Scheveningen Beach...

It was a beautiful afternoon in late September when Jimmy and I headed to Scheveningen Beach for lunch and to see the International Kite Festival. As you can see, there weren’t a lot of kites...

...but there were a couple of cools ones once we got to the other side of the Pier, which you’ll see in my next posts. Here you can see how great the Pier looks since it was renovated a few years ago. 

I just can’t walk past the Ferris wheel without photographing it. 

Loved how it looked like this guy was running away from the wheel’s shadow.

It wasn’t warm enough for sunbathing, but that didn’t stop a lot of folks from hitting the beach. 

Spotting Bikes in Leiden...

It was surprising to see the wide variety of bridges that were covered in bikes; these bikes were especially colorful. 

While everything from this side looks normal...

...this close-up shows a particularly interesting parking job on the opposite side.

The first time I tried cycling over the Rembrandt Bridge, I didn’t have enough power to make it up and over, and had to stop after I started rolling backwards.

Bridges in Leiden...

It was cool going under so many of the bridges that we would have ran or cycled over during our many years of exploring Leiden.

The weekly market is held on either side of this bridge.

This is the Rembrandt Bridge, named for the infamous artist who was born nearby in 1606.

Leiden Canals...

We never knew quite what to expect around the next corner. Definitely wasn’t expecting a kiddie slide into the water.

We also saw some lovely old Dutch houses...

...and this sign of the keys to the city.

While there were dark clouds threatening, we stayed relatively dry for the entire journey.

Boating in Leiden...

Ironically, it wasn’t until after we moved that our former neighbors invited us to go boating with them.

We had a wonderful afternoon with Kees and Marinka enjoying the lovely canals of Leiden. 

Surprisingly, much of our journey was through smaller canals that we had never been on before. Along the way we saw lots of houseboats including this one with an outdoor rocking horse...

...and this one with a wacky garden growing in an attached boat.

We had a lot of the canals entirely to ourselves.

Celebrating Ann’s Birthday...

Due to unusually hot weather, Ann’s official birthday party was postponed until Labor Day when it was to be slightly cooler. In the meantime, we had a family-only party on her actual birthday.

The following day, Robin and Alex had to leave early, but I had a great time with Mike, Leigh and a bunch of Ann and Dad’s friends.

It was fun chatting with their neighbors; poor Tarni had broken her ankle and was getting around with the help of a very fancy scooter.

Tarni has a fun sense of humor and bought Ann lots of gag gifts including these goofy glasses; luckily Ann and Dad also have a good sense of humor.

In addition to neighbors, there were several old friends along for the wonderful garden party. It was a great ending of my trip as I flew home the following day.

Final Year in School...

For the second time that summer, Ashlynn was happy to find Kati waiting for her at the airport. I’m sure she was also happy to see Jimmy.

It brought tears to my eyes when I realized that I would miss seeing Ashlynn leave for the first day of school for the final time, so I really appreciated that Jimmy sent me a photo. Hard to believe that our baby is already in Year 13 (a Senior). With only three classes this year—Biology, Geography and Math—she’ll have a lot of free periods during the day to study and is even allowed to come home early once or twice per week.