Joseph en Roodkapje

Het was superleuk afgelopen zondag… het culturele rondje Utrecht. Met een kind dat helemaal opgaat in alles wat met theater, toneel, circus (en goochelen) te maken heeft is het ook een inkoppertje natuurlijk. En dat terwijl hij tegelijkertijd ook een soort ‘theatervrees’ heeft want er waren jaren dat hij met een handdoek over z’n hoofd in Gert zijn pretpark naar Plop zat te kijken. Nu hij zeven is lijken deze tijden steeds meer achter ons en gaat hij er meer van genieten.

Dit was ‘mini’ van alles dus dat was mooi, een klein beetje Woezel&Pip, Roodkapje, Hans & Grietje en dan natuurlijk Joseph. Mama en oma waren er in april al geweest dus hij was er wel nieuwsgierig naar. Het leuke was dat het Beatrixtheater (we kregen een rondleiding van meneer de directeur himself) alles in een kinder(kleuren)jas had gegoten dus ook Joseph. Het kinderkoor was er en Joseph #3 (Matthijs) om 2 liedjes te zingen. Lang genoeg om de aandacht vast te houden… mam, ik zou eigenlijk de hele musical wel willen zien. Daar denken we nog even over na…

   Woezel en Pip, wel jammer dat er geen ‘preview’ van hun show was!

Mattijs (Joseph III) en het kinderkoor. 

En als je vijf bent ga je je soms ook vervelen en moet je je even uitleven!

Joseph!!

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Originally uploaded by Karen Kool

Today we visited the Beatrix Theater in town, it was open to the public and we had a look behind the scenes! Also there were parts of musicals and since I have already seen Joseph the musical I loved this!!

Over 3 years of blogging…

Today I have the house all to myself… woohoo! There’s only half an hour left of it and don’t ask my why but I decided to write my blog in this last half hour. I looked back at the posts I wrote earlier and I realized I started this blog in April 2006! What I love about it most that it is really a timeline… how the boys have grown!! They both go back to school next week but I remember so well when I first took the oldest to school, after the summer in 2006! Now he’s going to 4th grade! And my little baby will start in 2nd grade next week!

These are 2 of my fav pictures of the summer of 2009… Last month we were on the island on Crete and both of the pictures were taken in the Star Beach waterpark. The boys love the waterpark (the kids part :) and it is not very far from where we usually stay… I say usually because that’s what it looks like now, it was already our 3rd stay in Malia (and my 4th)!

From next week everything will be back to ‘normal’ again… school, swimmingclasses, work… we will look forward to our next trips (Belgium and of course Florida!), to Sinterklaas, Christmas, New Year… We will not so much look forward to fall and wintertime! But every season has it’s charm so we will get there in the end!

Back from Greece… our new ‘baby’…

Yes we are back in town…! We have had 11 wonderful days on the island of Crete, in Malia.

Even though we always preferred to travel to different places each year I visited this village for the 4th time! Ten years ago I first visited Malia in the fall with my friend Petrina, where we had a blast with the ex-Orange soccer players. We met them there because they had to play  against the former Greek national team back then. Later when Mauro was just under one we returned to Malia and then last year when we also had a blog about our trip.

This year we didn’t have a lot planned for the summer… we already had our superb trip to Florida (blog here) and we already booked to go back to Floriday in May 2010. So we had no plans to spend a lot on an expensive vacation abroad but when we saw the offer on Lastminute and we still had the discount of the flight tax from our last trip… we booked Meropi again, just like last year! We left Schiphol Airport on July 23rd at 5.00 am sharp with the Transavia airplane. Here’s a photo impression of our trip!

Now we have been back almost a week and still had time off work and school but from tomorrow I will be back to work … the boys still have 2 weeks of their summer break left.

Speaking about work… my new ‘baby’ is here! I picked up our new (company) car last Friday morning and I LOVE it….

 

Although the QQ is quite common on the streets here, I rarely spotted the QQ+2 (7 seater)… It’s so comfortable to drive that I can’t wait to get some miles on these wheels!!

That’s all for now, have a great week!!

Karen

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Birthday boy and guess what… new layout!

We had lots of things to celebrate so that’s what we did most of June… PARTY! First of all the kids were really happy that their grandparents are camping again on the campsite half an hour driving from here… They love to spend the weekends there (mostly in turns to keep it ‘nice’). The weather has been quite good too but if not, the pool is where they spend most of their time anyway! And there’s the first ‘bridge’ to one of the things to celebrate…one day before our oldest turned 7 he got his “B-diploma”. 

 

This is the second swimming certificate. There is a C too but perhaps he will get that later, we don’t think he would be strong enough now.

 

 

And then there was his 7th birthday, we postponed all the parties for this because swimming exam and birthday don’t go well together … but last weekend it was party time. On Friday we took him and 5 of his friends from school and had lunch in our backyard. We had small cakes (tompouce ) and he unwrapped all the gifts.

 

Then we went to the bowling center to do some real Jungle Bowling! I was amazed by some of the talent :)

 

On Saturday we had the big family party for his birthday and we celebrated again with family and friends in our backyard, the weather has been beautiful so around 5.00 pm we got the BBQ out and cooked dinner for everyone! The birthday boy himself was invited back to the campsite with his grandparents so we filled his bag again, of course with some of the favorite gifts and off he went! We picked him up on Sunday afternoon and he had been in the different pools (indoor and outdoor) almost all day with his little friends Gaby and Corrie.

And now the last week of school has begun! Only 3 more days of REAL school until a 6 week Summer Break! The boys will get their school reports tomorrow but they are both going to the next grade.

Finally… I did something today that I hadn’t done in months… tonight I scrapped!!! Here’s the result!

You can find the credits in the gallery at DST (image is clickable).

That’s all for now!

Karen

We did it again... Orlando here we come!

It shouldn't remind me of this Britney Spears Song (Oops I did it again) but in a way it does... we did it again! We booked the flights to Orlando, this time with Martinair because they will be flying nonstop to Orlando next year again! To our surprise the grandparents will come along too!

So we will be in Orlando again from May 1 until May 15 next year and I am trying to find a good house for us... I have already made a shortlist of communities this house should be on (Bella Vida, Terra Verde, Windsor Hills or Windsor Palms). This time not a townhome but a 'real' villa with a 'real' pool and no splashpool. We would love to rent from Storytime again but it's a little (little?) over our budget to rent a villa from them... if not we would definitely rent from them again! Who wouldn't love this house:





Oh well, we will find something we like, it will be so great to be back!

Twitter

I put my twitter updates on my blog… Not that I am an addictive Twitterer but I like the news on there every now and then and I wish more of my friends would be more active on Twitter. It would be fun to see what they are doing on an average day (is any day in life ‘average’?).

Anyway… I can’t believe we have been home for almost a month! Florida is still on my mind a lot and I can’t seem to shake off this Florida Virus. It doesn’t help me that I check the Florida-Forum on a very frequent (I would say daily but it is  more than that) basis. I read the blogs of people who are there now (like Teleton, he’s a great writer, too bad for most of you it is in Dutch). I was VERY annoyed by the fact that his laptop was stolen (amongst other things) from the condo they were staying at in Florida. Things like this shouldn’t happen, especially NOT on a vacation. Anyway, I think you get the point, we want to go back next year (sooner, but that’s not in our cards)… and I am busy looking at villas and checking flights! Great thing is that the May break for the kids next year is longer so we will have more days, yeah!!

For now I just have to get back to the real life here, the bankholidays are now all over, Whitsunday was the last until Christmas! I have to focus on my oldest 7th birthday party (end of this month) and we got him this bike:

He knows he will get it (he’s really getting to small for it).

But you know what he would really like?? A chinese juggling plate!

Of course I will try to order it somewhere from the internet, these things are only a few bucks… Yesterday he practiced again at the local playground and he became pretty good at it…it’s so much fun to see him practice!

Then there is the kids party to be organized. My son wishes to go bowling so we will go to the bowling center with a couple of his friends. First we started with the tradition that he can pick as many friends as his new age is but I think it’s not going to work this time as our car isn’t big enough. Then today I heard we might have our new company car in time for the party! Our Nissan Qashqai+2 might be here at the end of this month! It’s a 7-seater!

Well this is all the news I have now… have a great day!

Karen

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!