Is my blog still live?

Or did blogger take it offline due to inactivity… LOL!!

We had a very busy month with our trip to Florida but this time it was very nice to be so busy…:) You can read (if you can read Dutch) all about our trip here, if you don’t master Dutch you can still take a look at the pictures! I will post a few here too so that you get an impression of our trip.

Discovery Cove

 

Animal Kingdom

Magic Kingdom

Hollywood Studios

 

Seaworld

 

and shopping and other stuff:

 

Anyway, I think you get the point… we had such a fantastic trip (and the boys were handling the 20 hour trip great as well)… we now have this Florida Virus… We want to come BACK! Hopefully next April!

All for now, we have been back in school and to work for a week/week and a half and next week we will have a few days off because of a holiday… :) :). We will go to the zoo next Saturday and hopefully the weather will get a bit warmer, we were sooo used to sunny Florida!

Have a great weekend!

Aftellen: 10 dagen nog en dan Florida!

 

Jaaa!! Over 10 dagen vertrekken we naar Florida en zijn we heerlijk 10 dagen in de warmte. Nu hebben we hier vandaag niet te klagen natuurlijk (zeker niet voor april) maar toch he… daar is ‘t tóch ff anders!

Als voorproefje zijn we afgelopen maandag naar Oud Valkeveen geweest! Nee, natuurlijk niet te vergelijken met welk pretpark dan ook maar ik zocht gewoon even een bruggetje om jullie even de foto’s te laten zien, haha! Alle foto’s staan hier, en hier komt nog een kleine selectie:

Het was een heerlijke dag en het weer was natuurlijk ook prima, deze Paasdagen… kan me nog goed de sneeuw van vorig jaar herinneren (waaronder we de eieren verstopten):

2e paasdag, 2008

We gaan verder met aftellen, en onze voorbereidingen kun je zelf ook volgen: www.usinorlando2009.blogspot.com.

Fijne dag!

(Sorry for our English readers… forgot to write in English, lol… next post will be readable again ;)

Dip or Dap? Trip to Volendam.

This is our new pet! Not sure whether it’s called Dip or Dap but it’s one of those names! Last Saturday I took our youngest to the theater nearby to see Dip and Dap at the Circus. You can read about Dip & Dap in English here. Anyway… it was a trip for me and my youngest and he had been excited about this for weeks!! So Saturday the day was finally there, he was over the moon when he saw these little stuffed animals at the theater and of course I could not resist buying him one! Today Dip had to come to school so that the teacher could hear the story too!

Then Sunday came and we went to Volendam. This is a village north from Amsterdam where a lot of tourists go when they visit The Netherlands. It is famous as a fisherman’s village but also a lot of Dutch singers/performers come from that village. When tourists come there they mainly visit the little shops and they make pictures in traditional Volendam costumes. Today we planned to get the second picture of the boys in costumes but the youngest refused! So there’s only one on the photo!

I took my own camera too and tried my new 28-300 lens:

Volledig album bekijken

That’s all for now!

Karen

Swimming certificate A

Today was a day that was feared for by our little boy, he had to swim for his first swimming 'diploma' or certificate. He started over a year ago with swimming lessons and today was the 'exam'. Since a lot of children get nervous on such a day, it is not the real exam, they prove that they can swim during the lessons they take and two weeks ago they already 'passed' this exam. Which was a good thing because he didn't go to his last lesson on Wednesday because he had been sick.

We invited his grandparents over and it was very crowded on the 'tribune' of the pool because 45 children were doing this test today (and 200 over this one weekend, in this pool only!!).

In the end he was one happy boy! He didn't seem to have difficulties at all with all the different exercises and it was over before he knew it. He got flowers from his little brother, a basketball ring from his grandparents and tickets to the Efteling (a well known themepark here) from us. We got Chinese food later on and the grandparents stayed for dinner... I think our little boy is happy with his 'diploma A'! Now from Wednesday he's taking the next class, for the 'diploma B'!!

Jump in the water (wearing clothes) like a pencil"

"1 lap with clothes on"

"Floating like a starfish"

Waiting for the results

"Yes!!! Passed the tests!"
"Flowers"

Have a great week!

From Antwerp to Ambulance...

It was one of those weeks!


St. Nicholas gave us vouchers for a hotel last December and grandma would babysit the kids that weekend so last weekend we finally went to the hotel! It was about an hour south of where we live and we were happy to finally spend some time together again and not to worry about the kids. Friday we went shopping in Eindhoven and had dinner at the casino, Saturday we went to Antwerp, Belgium and in the evening we had a surprise dinner at a very good restaurant De Helvoirtse Hoeve (offer from Restaurantweek).




Sunday morning I called my mom and she told me she picked up the oldest from school sick, high fever and headache... our youngest wasn't fit either but no fever (yet). We decided to pick them up a little earlier than planned.

Our poor boys' fever was really high (39.7 C) but when I wanted to get him ready to go home he didn't respond to me anymore! So we called the emergency post, they asked us some questions and within 5 mins there was an ambulance in front of mom's house! In the five minutes that it took to get there he got really angry because we wanted to give him paracetamol but at least we got a reaction from him. We talked with the ambulance ladies for a while but they saw no need to take him to the hospital so they left again and we went home.

The next morning our 6 year old woke up and asked if he could go to school! No way! Since it was only 2 days of school for him this week - Monday and Tuesday - he didn't go all week. On Wednesday we had to go to the hospital for something else, Thursday and Friday the school was closed. Today is Friday and the youngest is recovering now... also had high fever, stomach ache and for now his mouth aches most so he can't eat much... I decided to stay home with them today - so they don't have to go to daycare - Later this afternoon we will take a short trip to the library and run some errands, the weather looks really nice so it will be good to get a bit of fresh air!

Have a great weekend!

New layout!

Hi!

No, it's not that I am on a roll with layouts but I did think it's time for a new layout of my blog! Hyves-readers cannot see it unless they take a look at my 'real' blog here. I still have to adjust some bits and pieces but all and all my blog is ready for Spring 2009!

Today we had a bit of a Spring feeling! First of all, it's March 1st! Second, the weather was quite good today, so good that the boys played outside for most of the day and so did their friends. I love it when they walk in and out and enjoy themselves on the playground just around the corner. I just hope this is the start of a good season!

I also bought some plants for the garden this weekend. I LOOOOVE some Spring colors in the garden and in the house! I have to take some pictures of the new colors! I buy them straight from the greenhouse where it looks like this:


I always enjoy taking one (or both) of the boys there because they really like picking the ones with the nicest flowers.

A busy week ahead of us with two teacher-parent meetings, one business meeting in the evening, swimming lesson (where Mauro will her if he can swim his 'exam' to get his diploma) and on Friday we will go to Brabant for the weekend and the kids will stay with their grandparents... Looking forward to that!!!

Have a great week!

No more layouts?

I have been so bad at making layouts this year, it is almost March and the total number of layouts I made (drums.....) is ..... 1!!!

I do like this layout, the photo is from Carnival at school 2 weeks ago. My little boy was wearing this cute suit with a hat (and he wore it all day!).


What else has been happening here since there are no layouts. Not much really, my energy level just seems a bit low (as I usually have around this time of year, still winter but longing for Spring, just not enough hours of light I guess). Well, since I came back from Aruba we have been celebrating the 5th birthday of Milan on Feb.5th and a couple of days later we had this Carnival party at the school of our boys. Then they had Spring Break for a week but we both had to work so there weren't a lot of special events for them! Only last weekend we went to the lights parade in Cothen, where my mom lives... they really enjoyed watching that Carnivals Parade and it's extra special to see all the little lights! I will put the photos on my Flickr page soon!

Tuesdaynight we went to see a gig of two Dutch singers Nick & Simon, I had bought the tickets in an impulse and it was better than I expected. The only thing is that I felt soooo old, there were lots of kids and teenage girls to watch them too! You know when I felt old?? When they did More than Words and the Wham Medley!! I knew every word of the lyrics!

Here's a video I found on youtube from their tour:

And now this week they are back in school again and we are counting down the days until we go to Florida!! It's 58 days from today.

Of course I had to think about our flight when I saw the horrible news about the plane crash in Amsterdam yesterday but I know flying is the safest way of transportation so I don't want to worry about it too much.

Well, just one more day until the weekend, my mom turns 65 on Saturday but she doesn't have time to celebrate so we will in October when we go on a short break to Belgium!

Have a great weekend!

Disney countdown 2 months 2 weeks...

One more night...party!

Hi,

Only 1 more night on the count down calendar! I can't believe it has been 5 years since I gave birth to my youngest... It was quite a story and I often tell people around this time of year that he was born 1 hour later than he was supposed to be born! On Feb 3rd I heard that Milan would be born by a scheduled c-section on Thursday (Feb 5th). It feels a bit weird to know that your baby will be in your arms the day after tomorrow but well... it was how I wanted it (for good reasons).

Anyway we had to get to the hospital really early in the morning and I would be the first in to deliver the baby. So I was all ready for it (and far more nervous than I was for the (emergency) c-section I had 19 months earlier)! But there was no doctor to do the surgery! Turned out they had forgotten to give her the planning for that day and she was still at home and in bed!

Luckily the doctor on ward had time to deliver our baby but by that time it was an hour later than planned!







And can you believe this is my almost 5 year old now??