Sunday, February 15, 2026

Our 16th Anniversary and Valentine's Day

 
Our wedding date was February 5, 1010.  Valentine's Day, of course, is February 14th, 9 days later, every year.  So, lately, we've been celebrating both occasions together on Valentine's Day, because our favorite restaurant, Metropole, a 7-minute walk from home, has a special meal each year now, in spite of the fact that the Dutch as a whole do NOT celebrate the occasion.  It's an American celebration that is slowly jumping The Big Pond.

So, sense and sensibility!

And that was last evening!

Here's the menu (which I'll translate as we go along).

But first, we always love starting with a latte macchiato, just because!
Metropole is one of the few places where they give you the heated milk and foam
and YOU pour in the coffee.  We love the ethos of it!

It was a four-course meal, starting with:

CREAM OF THE CROP
Salad with salmon fritter, cucumber
crudites and sweet and sour carrot

Followed by:

ROSES AND MOONSHINE
Celeriac rose infused with hot beetroot broth

How cleaver is THAT!  
The broth opened up the celeriac rose before our very eyes.

Then came the main course:

YIN AND YANG
Mini pheasant and duck roll with cranberry jus
pearls of turnip and kohlrabi
and crispy potato heart

Then it was dessert:

HEART MELT
White chocolate heart
with raspberry mousse and hot blackberry sauce

O M G
The taste alone was worth it but...

just look at the visual, (thanks to Astrid)!

We topped it all off with a decaf cappuccino, of course:

The recap:

And then we just sat there, relaxing, until we were one of the last couples to leave.

This memory has become a tradition for us now, just like when we celebrate Christmas Eve there with Jaap each year.  Remember?  These are the pegs of the year upon which we hang our special celebrations and memories.  Lest we forget!

Friday, February 13, 2026

Terschuur's Old Crafts & Toys Museum

 
After 16 years of living here in the Netherlands, guess what!  We found another best-kept secret of this country, this time through our housemaster, Mark, here where we live in our senior-living community.

It's called the Oude Ambachten & Speelgoed Museum (Old Crafts & Toys Museum), located in Terschuur, NL, located 68 km/42 miles northeast of us.

We immediately knew it would be a photographer's paradise, and it was, as you can see from our visit this past Saturday, February 7!

[credit here]

Just strap on your seatbelt and let the photos do the talking:


Most of the photos I'm showing are more or less in theme groupings.
Just use your imagination!


This is Astrid's video.  Don't you love it!!!


The top photo is of miniatures; the bottom is life-sized.


All 4 of these were miniatures, less than a foot tall.











Talk about being short of eyes (one of my favorite Dutch expressions)!
This isn't even the half of it, but you surely get the gist.

So, a big shout-out to another best-kept secret here in the Netherlands.  If you're ever in the area and need a good photo-op or a WOW-experience, we highly recommend it.

Sunday, January 04, 2026

HAPPY NEW YEAR 2026

 
Actually, let's start with a MERRY CHRISTMAS EVE dinner with Astrid's ex, Jaap, at our nearby Metropole restaurant...our 3rd year in a row!  It's a tradition now that keeps on giving, filling all 3 of us with joy:


Plus a meal to die for:  
Venison carpaccio, hare's-leg bitterballs, wild-duck rollade, and dessert.
All for the record, as I say!

Now to HAPPY NEW YEAR!

It started with daughter Amy's arrival at Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam, from Atlanta, on Monday, December 29.  It's a longer story than this but the flight had been planned long before any of us knew g'son Nicholas would move to Phoenix, AZ, to help open a new J Alexander's restaurant.  Amy changed things up to be with him for Christmas AND with us, with only 24 hours in between flights.  Like I said, a longer story than this.

But Amy's visit, however long/short (Monday to Friday, instead of Saturday to Friday), was an unexpected Christmas gift for us...and New Year's, all wrapped up in one.

After a day to settle in, doing nothing but BEING with each other (eating, catching up, and playing Five Crowns), we spent 10 hours on New Year's Eve, Wednesday, with our nearby dear friends, Jeannette and Femke (J&F), eating, catching up, playing Sjoelen, eating again, toasting in the new year...

and ending with an hour's worth of fireworks.

[video credit:  Astrid]
It was Amy's first experience with how Europe celebrates the New Year vs America.
(Our American fireworks happen country-wide on July 4th.)

The very next day, Thursday, on January 1st, we spent the afternoon at Jaap's with our immediate family here, including all 3 children from Jeroen (Hailey 7) and Marissa (Sem 7) and together (Nova, now 6 months).

In no particular order, let the photos speak for themselves!


[photo credit:  Jaap]

Speaking of Jaap, he's the best Opa ever!

[photo credit:  Jaap]

It was my first time to see Amy holding a baby since her son (Nicholas) was born 25+ years ago!
Talk about warming the cockles of my heart!


[photo credit:  Jeroen]

The very next morning, Friday, at 6:45 am, we drove Amy back to Schiphol for her 10:45 flight back to Atlanta.  

We had a thin layer of snow that Friday morning (top image),
followed by more snow a day later (bottom image) and more snow today, Sunday.

And just like that we've entered the new year, 2026!  Who knows what this year will bring (with the noise of Venezuela, Epstein, Ukraine, Epstein, Greenland, Epstein, and, and, and...ringing in our ears)!  Who knows, indeed!

And yet we all repeat, from the depths of our hearts and souls....

HAPPY NEW YEAR


Our 16th Anniversary and Valentine's Day

  Our wedding date was February 5, 1010.  Valentine's Day, of course, is February 14th, 9 days later, every year.  So, lately, we've...