I almost ran over three pigeons today…

…with my bike…yeah. But that has nothing to do with the post really.

I went to the market today. It’s a facinating place, extremely busy and full of people, too many sometimes in fact. You can buy just about anything you can think of. It’s cheap too, but you always gotta know that you get what you pay for.

Now most of what’s there are things you’d expect like,

cheese (yum…), and almost any other kind of food or spice you can think of. All of it is fresh and inexpensive too. Last time I was here I bought the best pinapple from the market…and proceded to eat the entire thing in one night. Let’s just say my tongue really hurt!

tulips and many other beautiful flowers and plants,

cheap, but usually nice looking jewelry,

shoes and clothes…the only problem is there’s no real place to try them on usually,

There’s also bras, underwear, socks, and toiletries. Like I said, most of what you’d expect but there are always a few surpises. Take this for example:

Now seriously, who is honestly going to buy their wedding dress at a market like this? Oh well, it may come in really handy I guess.

I also went out shopping again. I love this underground walkway with all sorts of shops, it’s fun.

It’s even more fun when there are sales!

Then I hit the jackpot! An oliebollen kram that was still open!!!

Just look at that powdered sugary goodness…mmmmmmm…

That made my day. Usually oliebollen are just for New Years and most of the carts are already closed so this was a really good treat. *smile*

Second Girls Day

Here is the second installment in the wonderful world of Abigail and Caroline. *warning* tons of pictures!

It was a much prettier day out so we decided to take the train to Den Haag. Robbert dressed Caroline this morning and had her put on a shirt that used to belong to Timo. Now, and I know you just can’t believe this but, Caroline is very particular about what she wears and she really didn’t want to wear that shirt. Robbert told her she had to wear it anyway and aside from a few tears she complied. As we were leaving though, I told her to get her shoes on and came back to find her with her pink sandles on. Her reasoning was that since she was wearing a boy’s shirt she had to wear these pretty, pink shoes, otherwise people wouldn’t know that she was a girl, lol! Obviously, she had to put real shoes on but we put her hair in pony tails so that there would be no question as to whether she was a girl or not. *wink*

I could hardly believe it but Ineke was right, Centraal Station is waaay messier than when I was here last! Notice however the beautiful blue sky. It was really nice, just a little chilly but not too bad.

We caught a train easily and were off.

She wanted me to take a picture showing how big she is, she can reach both arm rests! lol.

A half hour later we were in Den Haag. I love Den Haag, it’s one of my favorite cities in The Netherlands.

Since it was still rather chilly we decided to stop at the library. I love the bright colors they use inside.

Here she is just looking out the window…what a sweetie…

Caroline got very excited about the Miffy stuffed animal (here they call her Nijntje).

She also liked the train she could play in there.

After the library we walked around the city some more. I had nothing in mind really, we just stopped in stores that we thought were nice and ended up getting her some really cute sunglasses. They’re pink too so she felt much more girly, hehe.

After that we were both really hungry so we had lunch and then got some ice cream (highlight of her day, haha)

When we finished the ice cream we were both pretty worn out so we headed back home. We got home and not too much later it was time to pick the boys up from school. It was still nice out so I let them play at the school park until Caroline totally wiped out in a big puddle. She was soaking wet, pretty much from head to toe although thankfully not hurt but it was windy so we couldn’t stay any longer. I took her home to change and teased her that she fell in the puddle just so she didn’t have to wear the boy’s shirt anymore…I don’t know but she was much happier afterwards. Bit of a 60′s chick isn’t she?

And so ends our two full days together. It was so great, and luckily I have two whole more weeks with all of them. Caroline is counting down the days until my birthday (it’s down to five) but I have a suspision it’s mostly because after that we’re going to Disneyland, haha. That’s ok, I can’t wait either!

First Girls Day

Today was Caroline and my first whole day together with just the two of us. We had so much fun, I’ll let the pictures tell the story:

It was yucky outside and so in hopes of it getting better we stayed in the first part of the day, but that didn’t mean we didn’t have fun *wink* I played with her hair,

We danced to K3,

and were just silly in general.

The weather wasn’t getting any better so we decided to eat lunch and then go out anyways.

On the way there there were people moving into a house. This is how they get things into these high, narrow houses:

Notice, that’s a Mercedes moving truck! That’s what they use over here I guess, lol.

It was sooo windy I literally had to carry Caroline half the way. It was honestly practically blowing me over, much less little Caroline. It was halarious, the first couple times a really hard gust of wind pushed her she turned sharply and yelled “Hey! Wind, don’t push! That’s not nice!” LOL! Then she would turn to me and “tattle” on the wind “Abigail, the wind pushed me!” I could’ve died laughing if I wasn’t concetrating so hard on staying on my own feet. We did finally make it to get her all important cookie from Subway. They make the best chocolate cookies there.

Notice the now messy hair from the wind, rain and her hood.

I decided that we certainly couldn’t walk home with the weather being like it was so we took the bus. Again, notice the wet hair and pink noses, it was really windy!

We picked the boys up from school and just played around the house for awhile, the boys played Candyland. Caroline doesn’t like to play it with her brothers anymore because she hates to lose! lol.

Then they decided to play hide and go seek: 

Caroine counting,

Morten “hiding” (good hard spot, huh?).

She found him!

After that Ineke came home and they got in the tub and we ate dinner and did our normal evening stuff. What we do tomorrow depends on the weather but you can expect many fun pictures from that too *smile*

Wednesday

Today I had the day off since Ineke has Wednesdays off. It was really rainy today so, in hopes of it clearing up, I stayed in and relaxed half the day. When it was clear that it wasn’t going to stop raining I decided to go out anyway. If you can’t stand getting wet from a little rain, don’t go to The Netherlands, trust me, lol.

 I rode my bike downtown and did a little window shopping and stuff. I was planning on taking pictures but it was too rainy and I didn’t want to get my camera wet so I didn’t take many. I did find this store though, which is new since I was here last:

Thought you’d like that, Love, it made me think of you. *smile*

It was fun seeing everything again and I felt right at home. A few things have changed, there are some stores where there weren’t before and things like that but mostly it’s just the same. Also, all the stores are having sales which is awesome…or not depending on how you look at it, haha. I will try not to go too crazy *wink*

Oh! Guess what?! For the weekend after my birthday, Robbert and Ineke decided that we’re going to Disneyland Paris!!! I was so excited after they told me last night I could hardly sleep, hehe. Seriously, I’m just a big kid. I’m hoping the weather will be nice but either way I know it’s going to be sooo great!

That’s all for today, until tomorrow! *smile*

Kids grow up too fast…

I’m having so much fun. The kids are way cute. The boys especially try and speak English so much which is surprising because they hardly wanted to at all a year ago when I was here. It’s so funny too because when Morten is trying to speak English, he mixes English words with Dutch words, naturally since he doesn’t know all the English words, but he says the Dutch words like they’re English. It makes sense because many Dutch words are very simular to English ones but it’s halarious to hear and a lot of times makes it almost impossible to understand what he’s trying to say to me. If he’s explaining anything complicated to me I almost have to tell him to only speak Dutch so that I know what in the world he’s talking about! lol. It’s awesome that they’re speaking so much English though.

They’re so grown up in so many ways, it’s crazy. Caroline and Timo are both in swimming and Morten is done already! Caroline is so funny too because she’s a bit afraid of the water and so when they’re doing any of the exercises she will only do them on the steps. “The water is too deep” she says, but it only goes up to her waist in the deepest part, haha. She’ll get the hang of it and she’s doing really well considering when I’d take her swimming it took her forever not to cling to me in terror. Timo on the other hand is doing great. He’s already on the last level that he needs to be in order to get his certificate.

Here are some pictures from today and yesterday:

Morten doing a “wheelie” with the scooter at the school playground.

Morten running on the wall on the way home from school. What a stuntie, hé?

Not to be outdone, Timo’s got to show off too.

“Mirror, Mirror on the wall, who’s the fairest one of all?”

“I am!!!”

The cats, Sam, Puck and Tara (but don’t ask me which one is which, lol)…not getting into trouble at the moment, hehe.

They sure do love their cats, a little too much sometimes! lol

Tomorrow I’m free so I’m not sure exactly what I’m going to do. I’ll probably go downtown since I haven’t been yet. Then Thursday and Friday, I think, Caroline gets to stay home from school with me! yay! I’m not sure exactly what we’re going to do yet but I’m sure shopping will be involved, maybe we’ll even go somewhere with the train…who knows! Whatever we do it’ll be great to spend time with my girl *smile*