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!