Of the Snowmen and the snow

We've had a good week of snowfall and frost. Good fun, of course, but even amateur snowologists know that around the world that not snow is a snow is a snow. Illustrated also by the popular story that Eskimo's have some enormous number of words for snow.

To the continuous children's 'requests'* to make a snowman the reply was that this snow just wasn't good (nor enough) for making a snowman. A few days into this opa and dad painfully crafted a minor snowmanlet, in a temporarily successful attempt to reduce the requests (see photo in blogpost below).

But St Nicholas had one great present in store for us on 'pakjesavond': sticky snow! Suitable for rolling enormous balls, the essential raw material for a snowman!

And, lo and behold, our snowman turns out to be a socceroo fan!

* think: "are we there yet?"

Sinterklaas comes to school!

In the weeks leading up to Sint Nick's birthday (present giving night "pakjesavond"), the kids are madly tidying up their autumn work pieces at school and getting busy with all their Sinterklaas things.............making steamboats, decorating shoes (that go near the fireplace for maybe a present) and  colouring in Zwarte Piets.

The last day of school before "pakjesavond", Sinterklaas comes to the school.  (I think he visits every primary school in the Netherlands.)  The whole school went on a trip through the village and the snow (this year) to pick up Saint Nick and his helpers.

Lining up at school to get Saint Nick

Zwarte Piets have been found but where is Saint Nick?

Finn's class singing for Saint Nick

Then back at school the morning is filled with singing and games all for Saint Nick.  The kids had a ball of course!

Mara wasn't too keen on Saint Nick

Winter in Maasland

You know it's cold when your water bottle freezes in your car and the snow from your boots doesn't melt in your car!  No complaints though, even with 7 degrees under zero.  Though I'm sure if you asked me after months of this weather we'd have a different answer............who knows!

Here are a couple of winter pics!  Kirsten and Finn couldn't wait to get rugged up in the ski gear to go and play in the snow.

Finn in Maasland on our way to the hairdressers (after 5 months!)

Kirsten and Finn dragged Papa and Opa outside to build their first snowman (little snowman as the snow wasn't quite right for snowman building.........little do I know)

In the middle of Maasland, the school went to pick up Sinterklaas through the village (see next blog).

Mara loves the snow too!  "Wow" she says.

Saint Nicholas (Sinterklaas) in the Netherlands

Only 11 sleeps til Sinterklaas (Saint Nicholas) comes to most dutch homes to bring the kids their presents!

Sinterklaas and all his zwarte Piets (black piets/helpers) arrived in the Netherlands on November 13 on his steamboat from Spain.  Unfortunately we didn't make it to see the big arrival as Kirsten and Finn were getting their Dutch citizenship from the Mayor in Delft.  But we did see it on National Television afterwards.

It is a "big" event in every dutch child's calendar.  Once Sinterklaas is in town all the kids leave a shoe at the fireplace or end of their bed in case a zwarte Piet visits at night to bring lollies and peppernoten (spiced cookies)  or if they are extra good they might even get a present.  The tradition is to celebrate Saint Nicholas's birthday on December 6.  He was born in 271 AD in Myra and was known for helping the poor. Legend has it that he could calm raging seas and save children etc.

Last Saturday, November 20, Sinterklaas came to Maasland.  He was greeted by the Mayor and all the zwarte Piet's gave the kids lollies and cookies.  The party continued with lots of singing and dancing to some "upbeat" Sinterklaas songs!

Kirsten and Finn brought their friend, Dalcosh, along and the 3 of them went as zwarte Piet's!  Luckily I didn't put too much black face paint on.........it proved to be difficult to remove!

Now it's back to the count down until December 5................... more to come!

Our school- De Schutse

After much deliberation we ended up not sending the kids to the Montessori school about 10 minutes drive away but to a school which is literally 200m from home.  The kids love it!

It is a public school, which all schools mostly are in the Netherlands, they each choose which stream they follow.  In our village of about 6000 we have three primary schools.  All within 2 minutes walk from our place.  There is a catholic school, where Simone's boys go, a Christian School and the school where Kirsten and Finn which follows the Dalton style.  Which no is not a religion but rather a style of teaching and is very similar to Montessori.

Their school has about 120 students from pre-prep to grade 7, with about 15 in Finn's class and 19 in Kirsten's. Like most European schools the size of the school fits into about 1/4 of the size of Railway Estate school and the playarea is paved with a sandpit and couple of monkey bar things.

The kids start school at 8.45am and go till 11.45am, then are home for lunch and back in school at 1.15pm til 3.15pm.  On Wednesdays all classes finish at 12pm..........we then head off to ski lessons.

It's nice having the kids home for lunch but means you can't travel far from home and if you do work then they have some volunteers that look after the kids for a small fee during the lunch hour.

One thing which really tops the "assemblies" we are used to and love so much......not!  Is that they have every three or so weeks on a Friday afternoon like a recap session.  All the classes including the littlies gather together.  Each class then puts on a short presentation.......like Finn's class was learning about their bodies so they sang a song.  The grade 7's ran the show, taking off funny TV ads and little skits and they also shared any important information.........like money raised or events etc or even when someone's cat has kittens!  Kirsten's class has done skits from playing mirrors, music and emotions and singing.  I think it's a fantastic idea and makes it fun for the school to come together and share important news.  I wish we had something like this  back home!

It was good that the kids started school at the beginning of the school year here in August.  I think that made the world of difference with making new friends.  Both Kirsten and Finn have regular playdates and seem to have fitted in really well.  It's been great for their language skills and Kirsten proudly told us she read a story out aloud for her class the other day.  I  know the kids (& me) will really miss our school here, but at least the kids will have had a wonderful experience!

Brrrr.......Autumn in Maasland.....winter is on it's way!

The central heating is on!  So now it's the test, what do we think of the cold, real cold that is and it's not even winter yet!  Funny because when it was 10 degrees before the holidays and now when it's 10 degrees it's still colder, like that ice cold.

Photo taken 8 July 2010

Photo taken 4 Oct 2010

The streets are filling with leaves, no chance of using a leaf blower here.  And Finn is helping fill the "Autumn" table at school, with leaves, nuts and berries.  Our house is full of chestnuts.........I'm sure Simone will still be finding nuts hidden behind furniture this time next year!  The kids favourite thing now is at any chance they have to ride to their favourite chestnut tree and find chestnuts.  I think Finn has discovered every tree within a 1km radius of home.

Here's a pick of Just and Finn making their chestnut animals with toothpicks........a pastime from Just's childhood.

The trees are really pretty too, you forget how strong the colours can be.  This pick was taken on our recent holiday in Herisson, France.

We've been back from our holiday for 4 days and even though Just is still sick I haven't ventured further than the supermarket on the bike with Mara..........I'm still trying to work out how many layers of clothes she needs and I need to buy a pair of closed in shoes!   (Shoes that I will probably never get to wear in Townsville!)

And with the cooler with coming on it's nice to make lots of soups and stews...........hmmmmmm and to forget about the ice-cream until we get home.  

Autumn Holiday

Back again!  How did the months/weeks between blogs go so fast???

We just got back from a 2 week holiday.  The kids had a 1 week school holiday (autumn break) and we took off a week earlier.  In the Netherlands you need to ask permission from the school if you want to take any time off outside of the official school holidays...........so the day before we left we filled in the form........oops a bit late!

Where did we go?  Distance wise it was sort of like driving to Rockhampton, Mt Isa and back to Townsville.........scenery wise you can imagine a little different :-)

Our first stop was Just's Aunty Margreet's place.  She lives with her German partner, Gunter, in a gorgeous little village in the Black Forest.  About 6 hours drive away.  We were only there 2 nights, as they both have to work during the week.  The village is called Kappelrodeck and is in a wine region.  This link shows a great picture of the village. http://kappelrodeck.de/

On the Sunday we headed into the mountains, and were lucky enough to be there for an annual market.  Where they sold lots of yummy german food and lots of craft things.  They were selling gorgeous woollen and felt slippers/shoes etc, but knowing what happens to wool in the tropics I used my willpower and kept my money in my purse. The pony ride was the big hit for the kids at the market.  The drive through the area was very picturesque, lots of autumn leaves, typical german houses, vineyards and stunning views.  And loads and loads of houses with solar power systems.

Gunter and Margreet took us to a secret little restaurant in the hills, we would never have found it on our own.  They made traditional german food and sold the new wine for the season (very sweet, cloudy and yummy!).

We had such a great time with Gunter and Margreet, and Finn didn't want to leave.  Unfortunately though we had to get to our next stop..........6 hours drive further at Just's cousins place, Herisson,  in the Auvergne in the middle of France.

Just's cousin, Ruud, and his wife Pierette, have a holiday house (gite) on their property.  They converted the old barn into their own home for themselves and their two daughters, Hannah (10) and Amy (8), and now rent out their old house to holidaymakers.  The pictures don't do justice as to how beautiful it is there, especially with the river running along the back, the fruit orchard and the typical French buildings.  We were lucky enough to have really nice sunny (but cold) autumn weather, so we even ventured out in Ruud's canoe.

Again the kids thought it was great.  They had 2 new playmates and at every opportunity the four of them played together, despite not speaking each others languages. Amazing really, how kids overcome the language barrier.  Finn played frisbee with a little friend of theirs, Finn spoke dutch and Jaimee spoke french, but they seemed to work it out and have a ball!!!

We caught up with Just's uncle and aunt, Jan and Thea (Ruud's parents), when the usual Monday pizza wagon   visited the village and were treated to some delicious french food from Pierette during our stay.  Which ended up being a day longer..................

After the first day in Herisson, I woke the next day with serious sinusitis......off to the doctor.......it seemed to be that the sinusitis was followed by a mild flu, which of course, Just came down with 2 days later and still after nearly 2 weeks can't shake off.  Needless to say this is when our trip took a turn!

We had booked an apartment in a villa 2 hours south of Herisson in a place called St Nectaire.  The region is an old volcanic area, which after our visit, I imagine is flooded with tourists in the summer.  It was quite a spectacular drive through the valley to our stop.  The villa looks like something out of Wuthering Heights.  With me not quite 100% and Just barely able to move we spent most of the 4 days in our tiny appartment, with my morning ritual being the trip to the bakers on the corner to get our croissants and french stick.  The kids were fabulous considering, and when they worked up the courage they put on all their clothes and ventured out to the garden in the freezing cold to shake some more chestnuts out of the chestnut tree.

We did manage to leave the apartment twice and took the scenic routes through the farms, along the gorges and even to the ski area!  Which to my delight on my birthday it snowed!  The kids thought it was great of course.

Who knows maybe one day we will get back to St Nectaire and experience all the region has to offer, skiing, hiking and cuisine. St Nectaire cheese is, apparently, world famous.

Our last stop half way between home and St Nectaire was a surprise for the kids, until they saw the direction signs with Mickey Mouse pointing to Paris Disney.  Now that we are back all you hear about from the holiday was Disneyland!  In the short time we were there they had a ball.  And Mara thought it was great too!  "More more" she said on the Cars spinning ride.  She was lucky enough to go on more rides than I think otherwise, as the full day we had there Just was bedridden (couldn't walk), so it was me and the kids and I couldn't leave Mara on the side to watch! That night Kirsten took sick too, but fortunately within 48 hours recovered, phew.  I was really dreading how we would get back from Paris with Just and Kirsten sick and a 6 hour drive ahead of us.

The drive home went really well, considering, and thank god there weren't any major traffic jams and that we found petrol (Petrol stations in France were running out of fuel due to a workers dispute), no fuel was the last thing we needed!

We have heaps of photos from our trip and despite being sick got to spend time with family and see some new parts of Europe where we'd not spent much time previously.

Kids' Skiing lesson

While it's still the height of summer here, complete with temperatures in the high 10s, and occasionally consecutive hours of sunshine, we've found our refuge in Snowworld. At least for the little while that Kirsten and Finn had their first ever skiing lesson.

Snowworld is the Netherlands' own Dubai-esque indoor skiing wunderland, snow and all. It's a 30 minute drive from where we live. It's got three pistes, and five lifts, and is -5 Celsius. Not quite Austria yet, but certainly a big hit with our tropical offspring.

Kirsten was lucky enough to be the only one in her class, so her instructor guided her up and down the hill, trying out a real skiing skill or two. Finn's class was twice as big, and both boys ended up jumping, throwing balls, and giving high-fives to their instructor, all the while staying upright and going down the baby hill.

What impressed Kirsten most that day was that she crashed into a snowboarder. What did Finn like most about skiing? The sled ride at the end!

Milestone!

Or actually the first of many many milestones. Today Finn decided it was time for his trainerwheels to come off! So now he's racing around after his sister through the carfree area on our block. Kirsten found out the hard way that the leaves that had blown down over the past two rainy days are too slippery to ride on, but at the same time she showed Finn how to get back on the horse, even if it still hurts. A good and timely lesson: he needed it less than five minutes after.



So we hit the biketracks straight away.



Ironically we spent the first weeks over here in NL madly chasing enough suitable bike child seats to get our family around in. Now we're finally more or less sorted for that, we have two kids with absolutely no intention whatsoever of ever jumping in one of those again. But then again, let's just wait until we get some headwind one day, surely they'll be back hiding behind mom and dad's backs ;-)

Whichever way, we'll be on our bikes passing many more milestones.

Farm life in France

Last week we were lucky to enjoy a relaxing week at Just's Uncle & Aunt's farm in the middle of France, the Auvergne. Jan and Thea rear piglets, they have downsized the number of sows in their retirement to about 24. But have sheep, chooks and loads of veges and fruit to keep us all busy. And all the animals needed to be fed!

The daily program was so:
Kirsten and Finn were up early every morning, before Jan and Thea usually, ready to feed the pigs (or ride the quad!), then it was time to herd the sheep to the next paddock, feed the dogs, cats and rabbits.
Next coffee time!
Then off to the vege garden to pick some for dinner and some to preserve or freeze. In the meantime they stole apples, strawberries and plums. (What a treat!).

In french style, time for an appertif before lunch.
After lunch, chill time (you need that after the appertif) and before you finish preparing the veges/fruit.
Not long after chill time is it coffee time before it's time to feed the pigs again, bring in the sheep and collect the eggs.
Then dinner and another appertif! (I'm sure there was another appertif before dinner too????)


All in all, we all had a fantastic time.















There was heaps for the little farmers to do, after they'd done their farm duties. Jan and Thea have 10 grandchildren under 10 who are regular visitors, plus all the relatives that visit from Holland. Perfect for our 3 munchkins, and Just and I!

We drove to the farm, about 800kms, which even on the freeways still took about 10 hours there and 11 hours back. The french had just started their summer vacations and on the way back there was 650kms of traffic jams!!! Can you imagine? A bit like a bumper to bumper trip from Townsville to Rockhampton but then 3 lanes wide!!!! Fortunately the Parisians were heading south and we were heading north.....phew.

Varend Corso flower boat parade

A couple of weekends ago, the regional area we live in, called the "Westland and Midden-Delftland" celebrated a boat parade, "Varend Corso". The largest industry in this part of the Netherlands is the greenhouses and the flowers and vegetables they produce. Each year, 49 boats this year, are decorated from local businesses using local produce and they parade through a series of canal systems in the area.

Some of the displays are amazing. The theme this year was "strange bird/s", which you can see in a couple of the photos.

Fortunately the good weather held up for us, and we could view the parade at the waters edge in Oom Carel's boat moored in front of his house. The kids had a ball and Mara even enjoyed a dance!

We have heaps of pics.......here are a few!

One month!

Who'd believe it's one month already! We are still adjusting to the long daylight hours, kids going to bed around 9pm, Mara included. Though we don't rise till at least 8, so not so bad I guess. Although it does mean we are up till midnight, getting some child free time (blog time in this case).

Two more weeks of school holidays and then it'll be settling into a new routine.

This last week, we've been to Tante (Aunty) Letty's 70th birthday and Oom (Uncle) Jan's 60th birthday. Fortunately nice weather and we enjoyed a typical dutch dinner- chicken satay and lots of mayonaise type salads. It seemed like there were more bikes there than people! This pic I took at around 7pm, so bright still.

And of course, the biggest news! Mara has taken her first steps! Though she still prefers the hands and feet method of getting around. We are on our way! The film clip I've added is the first'ish steps and we missed the 3 big steps to her big sister! ........see how adding the film goes............


We've been spending some time with Jens and Nils (the kids' cousins), both at their place, at ours and at an indoor playcentre......just like Maze Mania (my favourite!).

Fortunately the weather has cooled a bit and us tropical bodies now have a jacket/scarf on to ride our bikes. What will we be like in Winter? It's good to get a bit of bike riding in now that we have all the bike seats organised. It's about a 5km ride to De Lier, to see Piet and Rieki and a little less to Sito and Jo's place.

There is a big water flowerboat parade on this weekend through the canals in the Westland here. That is in the villages between Delft and Maasland and De Lier etc. Lots of boats get all decorated, so we will be finding a pos at Oom Carel's place where they pass. Then it is party week in De Lier, with lots of activities and a mini show in the village. Hopefully we'll get to see some when we get back from Just's Oom Jan's farm in France where we are heading this Monday. An 8 hour drive- not looking forward to that.

Will report more when we are back from France!

Duinwandeling / Hiking in the dunes

Vandaag zijn we een paar uur wezen wandelen in de duinen in Hoek van Holland. Natuurcafé en klimaatcentrum De Zeetoren organiseerde een duinstruintocht voor kinderen van 6-12. Flink rondje wandelen en de gids liet steeds van alles zien over de natuur in het duin: van schelpen en slakkenhuizen tot St Janskruid en zijn rupsen. Maar het allerleukste was natuurlijk praten over- en bestuderen van konijnenpoep! Lekker met een vergrootglas naar konijnenkeutels kijken.

Finn wilde van de gids weten of er daar ook slangen waren. Nee hoor, Finn, al zijn er elders in Nederland wel adders en brilslangen. En Kirsten zag warempel nog een konijntje uit de struiken komen.

Gauw terug voor limonade.

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Today we went hiking in the dunes of Hoek van Holland for a few hours. Cafe and climate extension centre De Zeetoren (Dutch website here) organised a walk for 6-12yo. It was quite a hike and the guide pointed out lots of interesting nature facts about the dunes, from the shells and snails to the St John's wort plants and their catepillars. Of course the best bit was studying the rabbit poo! Wow, you should see it through the magnifying glass!

Finn asked the guide if there were any snakes. Nope, Finn, not here, but there are elsewhere in the Netherlands, Adders and Glasses snakes (sort of cobra ones). And Kirsten was sure she saw another rabbit coming out of the grass!

Soon enough we were back for a cup of cordial.

Blog started.

Not-so-early adopter, I know, but with a recent number of small personal revelations, including the iPod touch in the home wifi network, I'm now re-attaching to the modern world. Having said that: part of me still feels somewhat like Dylan Moran as he expresses at the start of this interview.

So to write down (and share) some of what we see, do and find on our travels, this blog.