Our Birthday Girl

Rachel is 4 years old today! We decorated the house last night and she was so excited to wake up to a decorated house. She loves the streamers and balloons. So easy to please! Here are some facts about Rachel at 4 years old:

• 27 pounds and 38 1/2 inches tall.
  
• Really good about playing and helping out with her little sister.
• Loves to go to the park.
• Loves to talk on the phone.
• One of her favorite things is to help out in the kitchen.
• Can write her name all by herself.
• Has become quite independent recently.
• Is always asking for mom to "leave her" at her friends' houses.
• Still takes a 2-hour nap most days.
• Enjoys flipping through books and telling her own version of the story.
• Currently is obsessed with rice cakes - she has to be limited to 2 per day.
• One of her favorite activities is to help her daddy shine his shoes.
• Enjoys playing on pbskids.org.
• Can be quite the perfectionist at times, but is getting really good about trying again.
• Loves to sing and dance.
  

Mother Dear

Rachel sang at church for the first time today. She did a fabulous job! Such a great job that I had to have her sing again at home this afternoon. :)

Our 13 Euro Day

Queen's Day was last week, April 30th. It's a day of heavy drinking, wearing orange, and the Dutch-version of garage sales. Since we don't drink and we don't have much orange, we decided to try out the garage sale part of Queen's Day. Let's just say the Dutch-version of garage sales isn't much different than the U.S.-version. Although to me it seemed like they had more junk than you usually see in the U.S. There was one family that was trying to sell VHS tapes. Who still has a VHS player??? Anyhow, kind of humorous. We actually attempted selling some pretty good items. That may be why we didn't have much success. I wasn't willing to sell the 100 euro humidifier for 5 euros. Sorry folks! Anyhow, we spent about an hour on the morning of Queen's Day trying to sell some of our things, and we ended up making a whooping 13 euros. We sold 4 items. Not the biggest money-making day, but we made something on things we probably would have just thrown away.

Another use for the double stroller - hauling stuff over to town center:

About halfway through our selling adventure:
We by far had the least amount of items. Some people just pulled up with trailers and unloaded all of their junk. Supposedly this goes on all day. But I wasn't willing to sit around all day. Thirteen euros in one hour, isn't too bad... Anyhow, if you're interested in knowing exactly what the Queen's Day holiday is, click here.

Joy School Graduation

Monday, April 26th, was Rachel's Joy School Graduation. We've sped up the second semester by having Joy School 3 days a week instead of 2. We needed to end a bit earlier because of travel and moving plans. It was nice to get together and honor the girls in their accomplishments this school year.

The cake and Joy School puppets:

Rachel receiving her certificate, report card, and bouquet of tulips:

Hannah, Ashley, and Rachel hanging out on the couch:Our graduate:
All 3 of the graduates:

It has been a fun year working with Lisa and Ruth while teaching Hannah, Ashley, and Rachel. It is a time consuming effort when it's your week to teach, but it has been worth it. It's been fun to teach and play with the girls. It has been even more rewarding to see each of them grow and progress throughout the year. Rachel is definitely going to miss her Joy School classmates and I'm going to miss the friends I worked with.

Rachel, we love you and are so happy you love school so much. We hope your desire to learn continues through the years. It's only the beginning of many graduation ceremonies to come!

Flower Parade

It's a tradition here in Holland to have a Flower Parade the last Saturday in April. The parade goes through quite a few towns on Saturday, Saturday night they are all put on display all lit up, and then Sunday you can go see the floats during the day. Once again, we headed out to see the parade on Saturday. You can find the parade route online and with your handy GPS it's easy to find a spot to stop and watch. The girls enjoy the parade. Well, Audrey enjoys just being wiggly outdoors and Rachel enjoys watching the parade and listening to the music. We hit the parade right around noon. So, we had a little picnic on the side of the road while we watched the parade roll by.

Audrey found herself a little seat (although a few minutes after taking this photo she fell backwards and was stuck between the foot rest and her stroller, luckily she didn't get too upset!):About halfway through the parade Audrey thought it was hilarious to just walk in circles. She was cracking herself up! Here are a few shots of some of the floats:
I really liked the biker one:
After the parade we then headed to the beach. It was too nice of a day to pass up! We ended up spending about 2 hours at the beach. The girls were so content to just play in the sand (especially when their daddy is so much fun!). After the beach we went searching for some tulips (since we really hadn't seen any the previous Saturday) and we lucked out!
Here's a shot of a field when we stopped by a little stand to buy some tulips to take home:
Another fun Saturday outing! It's really going to be a bummer when we are going to have responsibilities on Saturday once again, like yard work...

Our Biking Adventure

A few Saturdays ago we decided to rent some bikes and go searching for flower fields. We ended up biking a lot more than we had planned. Once we got home Andy mapped out the route we took and estimated we biked about 16 miles. Surprisingly the only thing sore was our rear ends, from the super-comfortable bike seats! :) But my legs survived. Amazing! Maybe I'm in better shape than I think I am...

While living here in Holland we ruled out the expense of purchasing bikes for a number of reasons. I guess we would have had a more "Dutch" experience if we had... But no regrets, I honestly don't think I would have used a bike enough to justify the expense. It was fun to rent a bike and see a little bit of what it would have been like. Anyhow, here's some pictures from our adventure.

After biking about an hour we stopped for a picnic by this flower field: An early bloomer:
These girls have to keep up with each other, if one has a hat on, the other one has to, too:
As we biked around we discovered that a lot of the flowers still hadn't bloomed, especially the tulips. But we were still able to enjoy the day and see plenty of flowers.
Our final stop before turning around and biking back to the bike rental shop:
As we made our way back through Haarlem, we spotted a park. So, we took a little pit stop and the kids had fun playing and eating some snacks:
After we turned our bikes in, we decided to head to the beach for a quick visit. Audrey loved sliding down this little dune: And then having Bailee help her back up... :)
Rachel loves the beach!
Definitely a fun Saturday spent with family and friends!

Spaghetti Fun

Shawna's Visit

Who would have thought that almost 12 years ago I would meet and get to live with a wonderful girl named Shawna in my first BYU apartment? And then who would have thought that about 10 years later I'm living in the Netherlands and Shawna's living next door in Germany? What a small world this world can be! Finally after being somewhat near each other for 18 months we got to see each other. Shawna and her cute family were coming to Holland for vacation. They took the time one evening to come over for dinner and I got to spend a day in Amsterdam with them as well. It was so much fun to see Shawna, to catch up (it's been years), and to meet her beautiful family. Thank you Shawna, for making the time to see me. It was so much fun and I hope it's not another 9 years before it happens again... :)

I wasn't very good about taking pictures of our adventures in Amsterdam. But it was a very nice day. We walked quite a bit in Amsterdam checking out some of the usual shops and Dam Square. We explored the Rijksmuseum and Audrey slept through much of that. Yes! :) We also hung out in the Museumplein area and let the children play at the park. It was very busy in Amsterdam that day. April's a busy month because of all the tourists coming to see the tulips. We had some fun trying to get 2 double strollers on the tram a few times, but it worked. We also did a canal boat tour and ate at a pancake house for dinner.

There's a special place in my heart for my freshman roommates. To some degree, we have kept in touch over the years through blogs, emails, facebook, and occasional reunions. Shawna and Jamie knew each other, but the rest of us just got put together. I was very fortunate the 3 years I did roommates. But I have to say, my freshman year roommates were the best. I have wonderful memories of that year. We were all out on our own for the first time and that led to quite a few adventures. Good times... :)

Marken & Volendam

Saturday, April 10th, we did a little day outing right here in Holland. The main purpose for this outing was to get pictures of the girls taken in traditional Dutch clothes. So, we first went to Marken, which we had never been there before. It's a little Dutch village, just like Volendam, that promises you'll see the locals wearing traditional dress. Well, we did see one lady in traditional dress, but she was leading a tour group! :) We had lunch at a little cafe along the waterfront and enjoyed walking through the village of Marken. In Marken I had my first uitsmijter. Pretty pathetic it took me this long to try something so yummy. I requested an English menu, Andy ordered from the Dutch menu, and after the waiter took our orders we realized we had ordered the same thing. I guess Andy has uitsmijter quite often for lunch at the cafeteria. Anyhow, I'm now a fan!

Here's our pictures in Marken:

I took this picture of Audrey and then did a 180 and took the next picture of Andy and Rachel:

Rachel insisted I take a picture of this particular yard since it had a "mini" house:

We could have taken a ferry to Volendam, but we decided to save ourselves the ferry fare and just drive. It gave Audrey the opportunity to take a 20-minute snoozer... In Volendam our first stop was one of the many photo studios.

Audrey wondering what the lady's putting on her head:

You can have this back: Rachel all dolled up and ready for her photo shoot:The final result:

While we were waiting for the pictures to be printed I purchases some Dutch souvenirs to take home. We really haven't bought much here, thinking we'd always have plenty of time. While, now the time has come to start buying. Andy took the girls outside to get the wiggles out and I shopped away.

Here are the pictures Andy took of the girls outside:

After the pictures were completed we walked around Volendam a bit. We ran into an outdoor market that we browsed through. Once we got our fill, we headed back to the car. I couldn't resist taking a picture of all the houses along the street as we walked back to the car:

There are definitely a lot of things we are going to miss about Holland. I'm going to definitely miss the quaint, little villages. Marken and Volendam turned out to be a fun Saturday outing.

Easter Monday

The girls were not forgotten on Easter Sunday. The Easter bunny did find them in Berlin and left a small treat and gift for each of them. However, the Easter bunny left the rest of the stuff at our home. So, once we got home the Monday after Easter, the girls were able to see their gifts and hunt for eggs. Although Rachel was really the only one interested in searching for eggs. Audrey was quite content starting in on her candy. So, we celebrated Easter a day late, but the girls didn't seem to mind... And what's more fun than after a long ride getting to come home to surprises??? :)