The Netherlands and Keukenhof

Spring Break!!!  It's one step closer to summer vacation ;)

Our original plans for spring break were to go on a dream vacation to Italy, but the military had other plans for us.  They decided to send Joe to language training, instead of next month, which was THEIR original plan.  The military is the best.

Coincidentally one of my friends had the same problem, so we decided to take our kids on a spring break trip together to the Netherlands, and it was awesome!

She went a day earlier than me to go to Amsterdam, and specifically to the Van Gogh museum, and they invited Cora to go with them because they knew how much she wanted to see that museum (After Joe and I went last year, she was really bummed that she didn't get to go).  I'm really glad she had that opportunity.

Let me just say two things.  1) I would like to live in the Netherlands for a while.  2) This post will be overloaded with pictures of flowers.

We left early in the morning, and 5 hours later we met up with our friends at Keukenhof, known as the Garden of Europe.  It is one of the largest and most beautiful spring gardens in the world, and it is in the town of Lisse.  More than 7 Million tulips, daffodils, hyacinths, and a few other flowers, filling over 79 acres. We walked around for hours and only saw about a 1/4 of it.  The Keukenhof castle garden that forms the basis of the park was designed in 1857, but wasn't opened to the public until 1950, and it quickly became world famous.  The weather was perfect while we were there!  Now for the flower pictures....and then some other stuff.

After the Keukenhof we went to Kinderdijk, a windmill complex and a UNESCO World Heritage site.  The 19 windmills, built in 1740, are the largest group of old windmills in the Netherlands.  When we got there it was still sunny, and most of us had taken off our jackets.  We booked tickets for a little canal cruise, and as soon as we got on the boat the sun went behind the clouds and it got very cold very quickly.  We still really enjoyed seeing the windmills, and we really lucked out because it didn't start raining until right as we were driving away.  Now for windmill pictures.

From there we went to check into the Eurocamp that we were staying in at Duinrell.  This is the first time we've stayed at a Eurocamp, but we've heard great things about them.  This particular one was like a trailer home park.

This was ours.

It had three bedrooms (4 single beds and 1 double), kitchen/living area (fridge, stove, and microwave, plus dishes and pots and pans), and bathroom with shower.  It was clean and comfortable.  Like hostels, you have to either bring your own linens and bedding, or rent them there (we brought our own).  Duinrell is great because included in the price of your lodging (which was about 80 Euro for 2 nights this time of year) you get free admission to an amusement park they have, and it was a pretty good one.  The weather was good to us again the second day, so that's where we spent most of the day.

When we'd had our fill of rides, we decided to drive around and look at all the tulip and flower fields which were EVERYWHERE.  Driving through the farm areas, or even on the high ways, you could roll down your window and it smelled like a flower shop.  Seriously awesome.

Of course, being that we were in the Netherlands, there are bike trails literally everywhere, including through all the tulip fields.  I think that would have been a great way to see them all, but driving is nice too.  The Netherlands is so beautiful.

 In this picture above there is a waking trail to the right of the rode, and a biking AND a horse trail to the right of the road.

 Lots of canals in the Netherlands, so sometimes you stop for this.  And below, I had to take a picture of an intersection, because I love how all the poles at every intersection are black and white striped, and Joseph liked the oval shape of their traffic lights.

After our drive, my friend and I left the kids and walked around the centrum (town center) looking for freshly made Stroopwaffle (like Joe and I got last time), but alas, it is only made in the bigger cities, and only on the weekends.  That night, the kids and I spent some time in our trailer playing a board game I had brought along.  Joseph was named Lord Dinky, and it became the running inside joke.  We were seriously laughing so hard.

Our third and final day was rainy, but that was okay because we took advantage of Duinrell's large indoor water park!  I didn't take any pictures, but I was surprised by how much they had there - wave pool, lazy river, a LOT of slides, including ones for inner tubes, hot tub, and an area for the littles.  We stayed for two hours that went by way faster than anticipated, and then it was time to drive the 5 hours back home.

A few things worthy of mentioning.  The food.  We tried a few new things that are very common to the country, one of which is Broodje Haring.

A sandwich with raw herring, onions, and relish.  Surprisingly, it didn't taste too bad, and Joseph and Alex gobbled down the one we bought after we had all tried a bite.  It wasn't my favorite thing though.  Just like with sashimi or cevichi, or any other raw fish dish, although I usually can appreciate the taste, I can NOT stand the TEXTURE!  I just can't get past it.  It totally ruins it for me.  Anyway, Joe and I saw this last year in Amsterdam (a TON of street vendors), but had no intention of trying it.  This time we were brave, and it wasn't a total failure.  We also tried Poffertijes, which are similar in taste to a crepe - really yummy.

We also had Croquettes, which were these breaded and fried rolls that have any number of fillings, but ours was kind of like a meaty gravy.  It was really quite good.

And finally, we tried Hagelslag, which are basically sprinkles like you would put on ice cream, only in the Netherlands, they put them on toast with butter and eat it for breakfast.  

It was....okay....but not really my thing.  And I don't think my kids were too impressed either.  

I have to say, I fell in love with the Netherlands all over again.  I seriously want to live there - not permanently, but for a couple of years.  I was so sad that Joe was not with us on the vacation.  I know he would have loved it too.  I don't know if we'll ever get back, but I sure hope so.

Grown Up....But Not All the Way

I forgot to post about Cora's birthday in February, but that's because she didn't really celebrate it, but that's because she was REALLY busy that month, and that's because she was in the high school musical (not to be confused with the movie).

This year's production was the Broadway version of The Little Mermaid.

She didn't have a leading part, but she had a lot of parts.  She was one of the seagulls...which, in my humble opinion, was the best part ;)

She was a dragonfly.

 If you zoom in on the picture below, you can see a girl by Cora (on the left) wearing a duck headpiece - I made that, and another one ;)

A chef.

And various other fish/sea creatures.

 King Triton's abs are NOT stage makeup.

Little Mermaid is probably not the best choice for a high school musical, and having a high school band do the accompaniment for a high school musical is a much less wise choice than a piano (a lot harder for the performers to sing to), and double casting almost the entire production is just a bad idea, HOWEVER, they did a decent job, the Ursula and Sebastian we saw were perfectly cast, and they were sold out almost every night for TEN shows.  Cora put so much work into this (they all did), and she really improved so much with acting, singing, and dancing.  We were SO proud of her!

So now she's 15.  And only yesterday she was this cute little punk.

 Looking at her baby pictures makes my heart melt, but even though she was the perfect baby, she keeps getting better with age.

Looking at pictures of her now makes my heart melt too ;)