Amsterdamse Bos

I went for a bike ride on Wednesday morning ... was a beautiful day out.  The sun was shining and it was already at 15C at 9:30 when I left!

I headed out through the center and old part of Amstelveen towards the Amsterdamse Bos.  This is a wooded parkland area, quite large, since I biked for two hours in a totally different part then I saw with Matt & Karen last fall!  I didn't take too many pictures, since I was biking.  That's something I haven't been able to figure out just yet! :) I'm not so good at the one handed biking anymore! I used to be able to do it really well when I was a kid, but sadly I'm not longer a kid! :)  My body tells me this all the time too, especially when I got off the bike after two hours!!!!

Here is the link to the rest of the pictures.  These ones are alllll the way at the bottom.  I'll start a new album the next time I do an update.

Residence Card!

Yea! They are letting me stay! :)  

I got my residence card this morning for the Netherlands.  

So now I can live in Canada, the United States, and in The Netherlands! :)  

Too many cards in my wallet these days! :)

Wijk aan Zee

Friday dawned a beautiful bright day.  A few clouds in the sky, but the forecast was for mostly sunny and a high of 21C {70F}.  A friend from church had asked me the week before if I would like to go to the beach with them if it was nice weather.  I of course said yes! :)

The beach was pretty empty when we got there around 11am, but it filled in nicely as the day went on.  Before I knew it, it was 4pm already and time for us to be leaving.  Which in hindsight was a good thing, since I was starting to glow a little bit more then I like!  Thankfully the burn doesn't hurt, just the perpetual itch that I get from the sun, even though it is quite red/pink in spots!

I didn't take too many pictures, I was too busy lounging on the beach chair, trying to avert my eyes from the one thing I forgot about European beaches ... the topless women.  Thankfully there were only one or two, and they were spotted as we walked back from the little lunch bistro, and weren't within our eyesight!

The tractor that randomly went down the beach

Becky and the boys heading down to collect shells from the waters edge

what a vast majority of the beach was made up of, when you were close to the water

Click here if you want to see all the pictures I've taken, other then Keukenhoff, since we've been in the Netherlands.

Zeeland, The Netherlands

My parents got back into Amstelveen on Friday, to spend the weekend with us again, before they headed back to Canada today {Tuesday May 3rd}.

Saturday was Koninginnedag {Queens Day} so we decided to leave the city and hopefully avoid the major crowds.  We headed south to the province of Zeeland.  We started off in Middelburg where they were having a "ring ride" along with the festivities for the Koninginnedag.  They had some beautiful horses there, all with some sort of adornment in either the tail or the mane.

From there we headed to a little town called Vrouwenpolder, and had lunch at a little cafe there.

We also met up with this inquisitive little goat.

From there we headed to the Deltaworks, a large dike system to hold back the water from the North Sea.  We stopped along the edge of the North Sea to see all the wind surfers!  There were lots!

We then checked out the little town of Zierikzee.  Check out the "Photoshop Things" tab to see a picture of my Dad playing soccer there!

Aaron & I had a really great time visiting with my parents, and being able to travel around the Netherlands, and see things through my Dad's eyes.  He has a lot of knowledge of different parts of the Netherlands, and loves to share it.  We will really miss my parents now that they have gone back to Canada.

under reconstruction

Hi there ...

I'm in the process of redesigning the blog .. please excuse the mess and mismatched header and pages!

Thanks!