Our 9th Wedding Anniversary

It was this past Tuesday, 5 February, when we babysat Hailey, so this post will also be about Hailey...and how we were able to weave her into our 2019 anniversary celebration. You'll see.

First, let's start with the 9 yellow roses Astrid gave me on Monday

(knowing we'd be busy with babysitting on Tuesday).

Bless her, Astrid is number specific each year with yellow roses.

It was a rainy day on Tuesday and because Hailey has been under the weather,

we knew there would be no walk outside.

In fact, besides feeding her pear, she did little else but sleep.
[She's now had carrots, pumpkin, pear, banana, zucchini and green beans!]

The last two hours before Papa came home, I held her asleep in my arms.

Before I show you the next video, here's one Mama sent us last Saturday.
This little pip-squeak is finding her voice!
[Sorry this is so big; I don't know how to make it smaller.]


Remember, this is 3 days later and she's still not feeling well.
You hardly know if she will laugh or cry...or cough or poot!  HA!
How can you not just eat her up!

♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

Okay.  That was Tuesday, when we were the scheduled ones to babysit.  So we waited till Wednesday, yesterday, to celebrate our anniversary.

As a rule, Astrid and I do not buy material gifts for each other on special occasions because...well, because we have everything we need.  We prefer to spend our money on travel or experiences.  Which we did!

I had seen this experience on Facebook a couple months ago and pursued it,

not really knowing if it would interest Astrid.  When she got excited about it, too, 

we booked our tickets for yesterday's 2:30 afternoon performance in Rotterdam.

O M G

It was a rainy day but nothing rained on our parade, as you already know about us.

We decided to eat our anniversary meal at the nearby Hotel New York, just 3 blocks away.

Rotterdam's "Swan" bridge was, yes, right there.

The fun thing about the big meal at noon is that you get a lot for usually cheaper than at night.  

When you live on a budget, that's important, even for a special occasion.

Astrid was ecstatic about her pasta with seafood, as was I about my lamb shank.

And because there was so much left over, we'll have it again tomorrow!

We knew there would be gratis wine later at the Shen Yun intermission, 

so we opted for our next big favorite, latte macchiato.

Hotel New York in Rotterdam is a landmark because it's based in the former 

building of Holland American Lines (cruise ships).

"It was used as temporary accommodation for European emigres

in the late 19th and early 20th centuries."

Sometimes you just have to taste the history!

With plenty of time to spare, we walked back to the New Luxor Theater.

Our 24-page program whetted our appetite.

Absolutely no photos/videos by camera or mobile phone were allowed!
My guess it that it's not only because of copyright protection but because
many of the dance routines, some from 5,000 years ago, are not allowed in China.

At the intermission we had our glass of wine...and even a bottle of water.
Everything was so well-organized.

Happy anniversary to us!  We'll never forget it.

And now let me bring wee Hailey back into the mix.
Two years ago her mama and papa went to China, walked the Great Wall,
and continued on to Tibet.  They want to go back!
Guess who will probably get to tag along???
(No, not us, silly!)

Nicholas in The Netherlands, 2018 Review

After our time in Atlanta for Nicholas' high school graduation (last post), we flew back to Amsterdam, bringing Nicholas back with us as our graduation gift to him.

You may remember that he was here for 2 weeks back in 2015, when he turned 15.  How 3 years can make such a difference is beyond me, but at his age, that's 1/6th of his life.  HA!

So, for those of you who have watched him grow up, here you go:

Our first full day after arriving was Monday Market day.

Astrid began this stay by making a Dutchman out of him, eating herring the Dutch way.

More Dutch you cannot get.  [Even I have not done that!]

To be honest, this time we didn't try to cram everything in, going all over tarnation.

But we DID do something almost every day, even it it was just a citadel walk.

One goal was to find the 27 Memory Bricks that are hidden around Gorinchem since his last trip.

 Nicholas helped us find 25 of the bricks over several days.  

[Astrid and I are still hoping to find the other two.]

On his last Saturday, Astrid and Nicholas climbed the church tower of our nearby Grote Kerk.

I stayed below to capture them once they reached the top.

There were also times of meeting up with friends and family close to home, 

where Nicholas could share in the life we live here.

He said those times were some of his favorites.

We DID go out-n-about, of course, even to Germany,
giving him another country-notch on his belt, like Belgium the last time.

We drove to Monschau, Germany, 218 km southeast of Gorinchem.

OMG!  Half-timbered houses, a castle and a river running through it all.

This was actually a birthday gift to me from Astrid!  Can you see why?!

So many wonderful memories in that idyllic tourist town.

I even collected a few weathervanes while there!

We then drove to Düren for an overnight before driving to Cologne, Germany, the next day.

We wanted Nicholas to see a HUGE European cathedral!

It doesn't get much bigger or better than the Cologne Cathedral...

and it's neighboring promenade along the Rhine river and it's bridge of love padlocks.

A shorter trip to nearby De Haar castle in Utrecht gave Nicholas another castle experience.

We took him last time to the Loevestein castle (from 1368) across the Merwede river from us.

De Haar is from 1892 and hosted many movie actors over time because of the Rothschild family

who funded the rebuilding of the castle that had gone to ruin over the years.

Then it was my 73rd birthday on June 13 and Astrid took us to the Rotterdam shipping port

for a 75-minute cruise of the 3rd largest shipping port behind Shanghai and Singapore.

Guess what!  On your birthday you get the cruise for free.  Lucky me.

Seeing monstrosities like this gives new meaning to the word 'shipping.'

Rotterdam is one of the cities destroyed during WWII

whose rise from the ashes gave new meaning to quirky architecture.  We love it.

We then drove 30 km west to the world's largest lock/storm barrier in nearby Hoek van Holland.

The Maeslantkering is part of the Dutch Delta Works and closes when flooding is a threat.

You know me.  I have to play around.
The top of this hill was our vantage point for seeing the storm barrier.

And because we were so close to the North Sea, we continued on to the beach.

Just had to touch the water...and eat an ice cream!

One last trip was to nearby Wijk bij Duurstede, 53 km from home.

Can't believe we didn't take him last time to the only drive-through windmill in the world!

The castle isn't available for inside viewing apart from event venues.

I bet you can imagine getting married there, right?!  

We even picked up fresh cherries along the way.

It's one of our favorite short-trip visits.

And like the Memory Bricks in Gorinchem, Nicholas helped us find the windmill tiles in the road.

They must be new since our last time because it was our first time seeing them. 

That was our last outing before taking Nicholas back to Amsterdam on June 17.

Two delightful weeks of just BEING together before he goes off to Oregon in the fall.

Nicholas Joseph Grannan.  Class of  2018.

We're still pinching ourselves because we feel so lucky to be his g'mas!

Grandson Nicholas in the Netherlands: Week Two

As I write this, Nicholas has been gone less than 24 hours.  How is that possible?  Tears in my eyes this time but with so many happy memories from the second week of his 2-week visit to see G'ma here in the Netherlands.

Day 8, Friday, 24 July:  War Bunker and the Lindeborg Happy Hour

It so happens that every Friday afternoon I play Rummikub in our senior-center's recreation hall.  We all decided that I'd still do it this particular Friday so that Nicholas could experience our Happy Hour afterwards.

So, while I played Rummikub, Astrid took Nicholas to this WWII Bunker 599 from 1940.

We had seen it before in September 2013 when Chris and Chad were visiting from England.

It's been split in half so you can see what it was like inside.

When they came back, it was time to join me for our Borreltje (Happy Hour) after Rummikub.

Nicholas had the chance to sample the hapjes...bite-sized, deep-fried goodies.

The lady at bottom-left just turned 100, so the photo-op was a must.

100, 70, 15:  That's about the size of it.

Day 9, Saturday, 25 July:  Rotterdam

Unbenownst to us at the time, this day ended up having the most severe storm weather in Dutch recorded history for July since 1901. 

So guess what we did?!  

We took the Waterbus from Papendrecht to Rotterdam on the Nieuwe Maas river, a 45 min. ride.

Besides visiting the Maritime Museum, we walked around the area to see the crazy architecture.

Nicholas and I giggled all day because it was so blustery.

Day 10, Sunday, 26 July:  Scheveningen Pier and Den Haag

Grabbing good weather, we drove to the North Sea after all that stormy craziness,

to walk the Scheveningen Pier and beach.

Look what Astrid found.  A wee little star fish (zee ster).

And yes, that's Nicholas' voice saying "they regenerate."

Just as we left the beach, it started to rain,
but we still drove to the Peace Palace in nearby Den Haag (The Hague).
We told Nicholas that if Hitler were still alive when the United Nations was founded in 1946,
he would have been one of the war criminals tried here.

Day 11, Monday, 27 July:  All Day at HOME

About this time into the second week, we all started needing HOME time and made the decision to do nothing.   In fact, about every other day Nicholas was able to sleep in till noon, which gave us all some "me" time.

Astrid decided to make her home-made macaroni specialty for Nicholas for supper.

Yum Yum Yum Yum.  I think he had 3 helpings?!

During the afternoon he finished his 1,000 dot-to-dot drawing of Amsterdam.

In fact, we both did since I had made a copy for him from the Cityscapes book I had just purchased.

(Thank you, Anne, for the great idea!)

Amsterdam was the first of 20 cities in the book, which made a good souvenir from our trip on Day 6.

Day 12, Tuesday, 28 July:  Brussels, Belgium

Okay, so this isn't the Netherlands, but because we can drive to Belgium within 30 minutes and to Brussels within 1.5 hours (80 miles), it made sense to make an extra-special trip to Brussels, the seat of the European Union, just to say we did it...and to give Nicholas another country-notch in his belt.

 We first drove to Mini-Europe on the north side of the city where we parked for the day.

On-n-off rain did not hamper us at all.

We told Nicholas he saw all of Europe in 1.5 hours.  HA!

From that point we all got Metro day passes and took the train to the European Parliament.

I told Nicholas this was like going to the Capitol in Washington, D.C., where he visited with G'pa Bill.

It was Astrid's and my first time to see it, too, so a real sight for sore eyes.

Then it was back on the train to the Grand Place in city center.

Mussels in Brussels was a must for Astrid and Nicholas,

followed by a real Belgian waffle and hand-picked chocolates by Nicholas.

BTW, at the start of the day Nicholas wondered if anyone would recognize his shirt's logo.
I told him that I bet at least one person would!  And indeed, one guy said "GO DUCKS."
Nicholas wants to go to Oregon once he graduates from high school!

Day 13, Wednesday, 29 July:  All Day at HOME (again)

It was laundry day and Nicholas got to sleep in again.

This is how we do it...in our main living area where some clothes hang to dry,

and the rest goes to the community commercial-sized dryer.

See Nicholas' bed for the 2 weeks?  Yup.  The couch.

And once he was up, he had the entire afternoon to "game" on his laptop.

Day 14, Thursday 30 July:  Zuiderzee Museum in Enkhuizen

Our last full day together was perfect weather-wise, NE of Amsterdam.

I don't think we could have had a better last day together!

There was enough interactive Dutch experience to last a lifetime.

And because Nicholas bought a family plaque with his "Grannan" name there (now on order,

 see the handshake?), he said it was a "clutch gift" right at the end of his trip.

We'll take it to him when we visit Atlanta in October.

Day 15, Friday, 31 July:  Back to Schiphol Airport for the Trip Home

The last meal we had before taking Nicholas back to the Amsterdam airport was erwtensoep,

which reminded me to show the Dutch food experiences he had while here.

As I said on Facebook, he tried everything Dutch we offered him:

 uitsmijter (fried eggs on cheese, ham and toast), erwtensoep (split pea soup), hapjes (bite-sized goodies), appeltaart (Astrid's specialty), patat friet (fried potatoes in a cone), pannenkoeken (pancakes), zoethout (licorice root), beenham (hot baked ham) sandwich, gerookte haring (smoked herring), suikerbrood (sugar bread from Friesland)...
and many ijsjes (ice creams). 

He was such a good sport!

 After lunch, as we left for the airport, I already had a sob in my throat.

In fact, as I've written this post today, the sob has returned.

The only good news about that is it'll be 2.5 fast months before we'll see him again,

on our annual trip to Atlanta.

I guess the other good news is that we fell in love with him all over again.

Though it's always good to get back to "normalcy," we both miss him like the dickens.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, G'ma.  HAPPY BIRTHDAY, Nicholas.

Now it's time to make the photo book...full of second blessings as we review them.

A Series of Very Fortunate Events!

Summer Vacation!

I don't know about you but I had never seen anything like this in my life until Astrid pointed it out to me. When a kid graduates from high school here in The Netherlands (not grade school and not college), this is what happens: the student's backpack is hung from the house with balloons and Holland flag and whatever. Anyone who sees it knows what has just happened.

The day of this picture was Saturday, June 19, when Astrid and I took the Fast Ferry to Rotterdam to meet up with 2 of our Shutterchance bloggers. On that street alone we saw 4 such packs hanging out the front of the house...and I imagined them as buddies having grown up going to school with each other. I hope they were all good friends.

Anyway, that day in Rotterdam was fun. While we waited for Nadiuska and Cherise to arrive, there on the riverfront a wedding shoot was taking place. With my 300 mm lens I was able to stay far enough away to not be obstrusive but to still get several fun shots.

This is the 'Cig Bity,' as my mom would say. Things like this happen there.

We weren't meeting up specifically for a photo hunt ourselves, we 4 gals, but how can you NOT hunt for photo ops everywhere you go when you're not in your neck of the woods! Once the two gals arrived, we started walking and talking and walking, across Rotterdam's famous Erasmus Bridge (lovingly referred to as The Swan by the locals) on our way to the New York Hotel where Astrid wanted us to eat lunch.

In this collage the bluish gray bridge is The Swan. See how tall and graceful she stands!
The river is the Nieuwe Maas on which is Europe's largest port, Rotterdam (where my truckpacks were shipped last year, if you remember), with images on both sides of the river. If you squint (or click to enlarge and then click the image again), the huge cruise ship in the bottom left-hand and right-hand corners is the world's 2nd largest cruise ship: the Norwegian Epic. It so happened to be in port that day, lucky us. At 4100 passengers, it's almost as big as the town I grew up in! (Astrid and I have decided to choose a smaller river-cruise ship, when the day comes....)

We moseyed on over to the New York Hotel (also in that bottom right-hand corner above), ate lunch and then went back outside to take more pictures. There sitting as pretty as you please was this Excalibur, just begging for a photo shoot. What a model for all of us.

We had so much fun acting like we were big-time photographers.
There you see Nadiuska (25) and Cherise (23). I could be their grandma. :)

We walked back over the Erasmus Bridge...the pretty swan...said our good-byes to the gals and hopped back on the Fast Ferry towards home. When it dawned on us that our Granny Towanda was parked within a few kilometers of Kinderdijk, home of 19 windmills in one spot, we decided to drive over and say HI.

We had last visited Kinderdijk two years previously, almost to the day. If you've paid attention, this is now the image I'm using as my blog's header. And yes, if you count, here are 13 of the 19 windmills. Talk about soulful!

**********


Some of you know that the World Cup soccer competition has been going on in South Africa now for about a month. Holland has won their first 4 games and today plays Brazil in the quarter-finals.
HUP HOLLAND.
It's a mad house these days in this neck of the woods.

**********

But tomorrow our focus totally changes as we begin a week's vacation in France, thanks again to Granny Towanda. That gal sure is getting around! We have Dutch friends who now live in SW France just north of Toulouse. Yes, we'll drive right by Paris and will wave for all you fans who won't believe we aren't stopping there for one minute. We've both been there at least twice and for now have other apples to pick....

We'll have a B&B night farther south before arriving at our friends' house on Sunday afternoon. On Wednesday morning we plan to head for home the long way, via Bordeaux and eventually the vicinity of Mont St. Michel and the Normandy beaches for 2 days before driving home on Saturday.

Miles to go before we sleep...but are we excited or what! I still can't believe France is basically in our backyard like this. It will be like driving to the family cottage in Michigan every summer and taking a week to do it.