Finally, summertime has been hitting the Netherlands for the last few weeks!!! Yay, we are loving it! More social outings, catching up with friends, being able to step outside without needing to wrap up warmly. It is great! The summer school holidays have started here last week so life turns always a bit slower when that happens as lots of people go on holiday. Hopefully it also means less traffic jams for Jeroen when he travels to and from work over the next few weeks.
We have been seeing some friends for bbq's, lunches and dinners and had our first visitor from NZ staying for a few days. It was great to have Campbell around. We went to Kijkduin (the beach of The Hague) and saw a few leftovers from the glass art exhibition on the boulevard. They were clearing it away, which was a shame as what we saw was really cool.
Playtime, social get togethers and gardening (the new lawn was put down in the heat of the summer days, we had to water like mad, were pleased we don't have water restrictions here).
"Swim"time in our garden
First Friends (the international playgroup Mascha & Sophie attend) picnic in the park in Sassenheim. Sophie and Mascha had a play on the "bakfiets", a bike with a cart on the front. Sophie loved it! It's a pretty common bike that people use for carting kids and groceries around. You see them especially in cities. It has two benches with straps opposite each other that can either be used for two kids each or stowed away so you can fill it with groceries.
First Friends picnic in Warmond to close off the year/as start of the summer holidays. It was Sophie's first swim in open water. She was quite impressed with it all and loved it a lot.
Food food glorius food! We had some yummy dinners out for Mascha's mum's birthday and when Campbell visited us. (And a home brewed coffee.)
And then it was wedding time! My brother Joost and his fiancee Nienke got married last Thursday on their 10th anniversary! It was a great celebration held at De Olmenhorst, an apple and pear orchard . A beautiful setting for a beautiful bride and groom followed by a great BBQ party!!! We had fun (and so had they).
From baking the cake to putting it all together and cutting it up! I was very pleased with the result! Bottom layer was chocolate cake with banana filling, the top two layers were vanilla buttercake with cherrie filling. Yum yum yum!
Getting ready for the big event
The wedding!
Another new thing is that Mascha has taken up running. Would have been unimaginable until recently, but in need of losing the last few baby kilos and not doing any exercise for a long time it was time to make a change. Always hated running with a vengeance, she has figured out that it was caused by the fact that she was always trying to run too fast! Now with slowing down and a great programme downloaded from the internet (C25K, or from couch potato to 5 km runner in 9 weeks), she is pounding the pavement 3 times a week while being cheered on by her personal trainer on a podcast and even loving it!!!! It still looks like an ambitious plan, but the aim is to reach it. Watch that pace! Jeroen is still training for the Dam to Dam run in September, so between the two of us we create a lot of extra washing!!!! (Just what Mascha wanted.)
Sophie continues to be a very happy girl and is talking more, pointing to stuff, wanting to know what it is and has started to walk last week. Her current maximum amount of steps is 14 before she falls down again. Yay Sophie!!!! We also took her to Bubble Jungle (an indoor playground) on Sunday. It was our first time to a place like this and both we and Sophie liked it a lot!
We still miss NZ and would love to come and visit the new babies born over the last few months. On the other hand we are happy to be here too so we can visit and support our friend Esther who is in hospital being treated for leukemia. It made Mascha think of the Relay for Life walk she did while living in Palmie. This week we have found out that the Dutch cancer foundation is also organising them here, so we have decided that we will put a team together for next year and do the 24 hour walk! It was loads of fun and the fundraising goes to a good cause, so let's start up a new tradition here in The Netherlands!!!!
That's it for now. Hope everyone is well! See ya.
Cheers,
Jeroen, Mascha & Sophie
