Watching Planes

I'm not sure that many people would call it an advantage, but we live pretty near to Schiphol Airport outside of Amsterdam (it's actually located in its own city/municipality of Schiphol, but I digress).

Living near an airport wouldn't be my first choice, but they way it's done here I hardly ever notice it in the daily routine.

Of course, when you do have to travel, it is awfully convenient to live 15-20 minutes away from an international airport, and it makes day trips around Europe more feasible (or it did before there was a Little Man).

One big advantage of living near an airport is the fact that on Sundays (especially rainy ones), when all the shops are closed, you always have something to do.

At Schiphol, there is a panaroma deck and a large restaurant and kids play area. We can go there, watch planes, wander around the deck (weather permitting) eat a pancake, visit the only Starbucks in the Netherlands open to the public, and pay a ton of money for short term parking.

Still, with a mother who loves to travel and a father who is a few lessons away from a pilots license, it would be hard to say Kevin comes by his love of planes any way but honestly.

Adventures with Winnie & Lars

Mark it on the calendar - a timely post! :-)

Last night was St. Maarten, which I wrote about last year here, so I won't bore everyone with the details and background again.


This year (like last year) we went with Winnie and Lars with our lanterns. Lars is 6 weeks older than Kevin, so they get along great (most of the time).

Here are my thoughts on last night along with a few of the best pics....

1) This year was better - Kevin sang loudly, knew the song, and enjoyed it this year to my eye way more than last year.

2) we got lucky with the weather - it was cold but dry for the full hour we were out last night. For a house recovering from flu, that gets a big 'yipee'!

3) It's more fun in groups - doing this in a group of 4 children made it a more fun evening for the adults that tag along, too.

For anyone (that might be named "Oma" ) who can't get enough of the little man, the whole photo album can be found here: http://flickr.com/photos/kevindanielfels/sets/72157608939618781/

And finally, a pic of Little Man enjoying the spoils...

Two weeks ago, we met up with Winnie and Lars (who Kev calls WinnieLars, as if they are one unit) at a large indoor play castle.

There is three stories of climbing, a 40 foot slide, motorized cycles around a track where you control the speed and the steering, a huge bouncy castle, and even an outdoor play area. It was cold but clear (and everything was wet), but worth it for Lars and Kev to enjoy what might be one of the last nice days of this year.

Back inside, Flat Stanley came along and cheered Kevin on at the Air-Hockey table.

It was a great day, they had sooo much fun together. The full photo album is here:
http://flickr.com/photos/kevindanielfels/sets/72157608953634715/

Fall Photos

The clocks went back here last weekend, and all at once, it's fall.
In summer, I love the long days from being this far north, but in winter....

We recently took advantage of once of the last few nice days to visit the Dutch/American Air Force base in Soesterburg. Kevin loves looking at planes, and on Sundays the mueseum is open free of charge.

The other places Kevin loves to visit are Schiphol Airport - the panaroma deck to see all the 747's - and the children's farm and petting zoo that most Dutch towns have. These are typical weekend activities.

There is also a large indoor playground (they call it a castle) in nearby Hoofddorp. For the price of admission kids can play on all kinds of equipment, the parents get a free drink voucher and you can order simple fare like grilled cheese sandwiches. There are also motorcycles and a small indoor track that you have to pay to use. Kevin loves riding the motorcycles! He can already weave in-between parked cycles, and puts his foot as far to the floor as he can.

I can't believe how fast everything seems to go now. He's growing by leaps and bounds, really he is.


This photo says "mom, enough already with the pictures!"

Where Did The Weekend Go?

This was a weekend that just went by too fast......I woke up this morning (Monday) sure that I'd been shorted a free day. Kevin was protesting, too, tell me "it can't be a day care day, I still need a mommy day! I get two mommy days!" (we break up the week as follows: 2 day care days, 1 school day, 2 day care days, 2 mommy days).
I explained that we'd had our 2 mommy days already - we talked about all the things we did this weekend, and he agreed that he'd indeed has his two mommy days. Then he promptly asked for one more mommy day. I wish........

I don't know why it went by so fast. Saturday we went shoe shopping. He's pretty much reached the age where I think he can have the occasional say in what he wears and puts on his feet. So, we measured his feet, and I made a selection of the shoes I was willing to pay for (no Nikes, no way) and he made the final selection. The winners were Spiderman shoes ( hiking boot style, but then with velcro) and lime green galoshes for rainy days and trips to the children's farm.

Sunday we went to Schiphol Airport. He loves to look at planes, and they have at Schiphol a 'Panaroma Deck' and restaurant. He ate a dutch pancake with powdered sugar in the shape of an airplane, then we went to watch the planes.
As an avid fan of "Diego' he's all about binoculars right now, and at Schiphol they have them all around the deck....the kind you have to pay 50 cents for 2 minutes use. This weekend I put a coin in for the first time so he could actually see something, and then of course he wanted to have a coin for each of the approx. 20 viewfinders on the deck. What was Mommy thinking?!

After the walk around, it was time to pay for the parking (the only downside to this excursion - 2 hours cost 9 euros in parking!) and then we went to the children's farm.

Kev was brave enough to pet the cow this time, where he normally doesn't venture too close to, and he even tried feeding the geese and chickens, but he really didn't like how agressive they were taking seed from his hand. From there we went in to the rabbit pen in the barn, and at the end of the trip of course all the playground equipment has to be tried out and approved......

It was really an enjoyable weeeknd, with some of (possibly) last nice days this year, and somehow it just wasn't long enough, on that Little Man and I totally agree!

Kleine Aapje

Kev's new nickname these days is Kleine Aapje (Little Ape). At 3 1/2 it seems he's all about repeating everything that catches his ear. A lot of the time, I'm not so sure how I feel about the 3 year old stage.....It has it's hard days, for sure, but in between there are periods of incredible insight into how a little mind works, and for better or for worse you see a lot of your own behaviors, sayings, gestures, facial expesssions and more mimiced back at you with no-holds barred honesty.

I've aslo noticed that he seems drawn to the sayings I wish I heard less of...After our vacation (watching Dora in English) he's picked up on saying 'Oh Man' after everything!!

Sometimes it's cute, sometimes embarassing (usually because of the venue) and occasionally it makes you sit back and re-evalute if you're doing the right thing.

I think, with Little Man, 3 will be the year I'll remember as 'Monkey See, Monkey Do'.

What Lazy Days of Summer?

With Mom's new job demanding something like 5 million percent of my time lately, Kevin hasn't had much of a lazy summer...for that matter, neither has his mommy!


We did manage to squeeze in some play time between all the crazyness that was July. This post is all about WB Movie Park Germany.


They have a whole NickLand with Dora, Spongebob, etc...all Little Man's favorite characters at the moment. It was a great day, and I found out that all 101 centimeters of my son are pure adrenaline junkie!


He rode a roller coaster 3 times in a row that made kids of 10 or 11 look a little wary. He was by far the littlest in line, and in this video, the only way you can make him out is to look for the one pair of feet you can't see!



The weather wasn't great, but we had a chance to do 2 roller coasters (a total of 5 times), see a shrek 4-d show, the ice age boat trip, the obligatory get soaking wet stunt (Spongebob), see a stunt show and still do all the 'normal' kiddie rides.


We also saw Spongebob, Dora, Diego and Shrek characters during our day.






As a side note/gripe, can someone explain to me why Dora the explorer is only for girls and therefore must be merchandized exclusively in pink and purple?

He LOVES anyhting Dora, but mom has had to veto pink cups, lunch boxes, backpacks, t-shirts and most recently, clogs that had Dora on them becuase I draw the line at buying fushia shoes for Kevin.

Diego is a poor cousin compared to Dora in Kev's book (and I must agree......the whole 'I speak animal' thing gets a bit much)....Anyway, this mommy is wondering, Dora for boys, is this too much to ask for?

The same week, we also went to the zoo in Amsterdam. Next up...one week of sunshine in Aruba!

Snapshot Update

I don't have a lot of stories to tell this post, just some cute pictures to share.....

This last weekend Holland was playing in quarterfinal match of the Euro Cup Football (Soccer) Championships. Like all Dutchies, Kev needed something "oranje' (orange) to be festive for the football match - even though as the game started at 8.45 in the evening, he was already in bed!

The final score is known - we lost 1-3 to Russia in double overtime, but the hat is still loved. By the time the next Oranje event rolls around, i'm sure the hat will be no more, but he looked so cute I had to take a picture (or three)!

Not only did I snap him in his orange football hat, I also got him wearing my rhinestone sunglasses - future blackmail material for sure :-)

The next pic is from this week, near Dad's house...a local snackbar had a bouncy castle set up that he really enjoyed. This is after his play session at the end of evening:

And then, after such a hard night's playing, kev woke up at 4am and wanted a "mommy snuggle'. Around 6am, I made the mistake of getting up to use the bathroom, and when i came back, Little Man had claimed the bed! Someone 3 feet tall should be able to take over an entire Queen size bed, but somehow he did:

He's sooooo lucky his Mommy Loves Him!!!

Big Shoes to Fill

A (Small!) Memory of Kevin's first trip to Amsterdam.

We ate pizza and french fries, hopped a tram to central station, walked from Central Station to behind Dam Square and then hopped another tram line. We stopped near one of the canals, watched boats and then walked back towards Leidseplein before calling it a day.

The sun was shining, and it was the perfect ending to a late spring day.

Mother's Day

Here is a post I had ready in May, but for some reason I never linked the pictures to it and posted it. Here it is, better late than never......

I've just had my 4th Mother's Day from the Mommy perspective, and this year was really the best so far. The first ever Mother's day was of course special, but this was the first year that I think that Kevin knew there was something going on and could reconcile the gifts he'd made with the day to give them to mommy.

I received a wonderful plaque with his hand prints and kisses (in lipstick even!) on paper with an acrylic cover and a little poem in Dutch. This he made (and wrapped) at the kindergarten he goes to on Wednesday mornings. The poem went:

De liefste mama, dat ben jij

Jij zorgt altijd goed voor mij

Een mooi cadeau, een dikke kus

en mijn liefste lach
Op deze Moederdag

Which, translated, is (more or less):

You are the sweetest Mother

You always take good care of me

A nice gift , a big kiss

and my sweetest laugh(smile)

on this Mother's Day.

At Anky's, he made a huge magnteic paperclip (pink) with a foam heart and all kinds of 'jewels' on it. It will look wonderful on the fridge in the New House!

3rd B-day - Disneyland Paris

Disneyland Paris is celebrating it's 15th year through the rest of 2008. I was there for the first time during the summer of 1997, during the 5th year celebration (the 15th year celebration has been going on since early 2007 - how do the French tell time?!) Somewhere in between, I was there again, (this time with the High Speed train to take my sister, Andrea) and last year, I stayed at one of the hotels in the park without ever aucutally getting to the park itself.

Since Kevin loves Winnie the Pooh, Remy the rat and Mickey Mouse so much, I thought a great b-day present would be to take him to Disneyland. While there is alot he can't do yet ride wise, I thought there would be enough for a few days fun. Before he's 3, he has free admittance to the park (for a 2 day ticket, that's 85 euros). I traded in my Spain week for points, booked a resort with a free shuttle to the park, and we were all set!

I didn't want to manage Kevin and a big park with just the two of us, I wanted Kevin to be able to expereince the park with other children he knew. Since I had booked a two bedroom apartment for 3 nights, it seemed a shame to let all that space 'go to waste' so I asked his Gastouder, Anky, if she and her family would like to come with us. They accepted, so it was 6 of us - Bas, Valerie, Anky, Gertjan, Kevin and myself for two days fun.

We drove on Thursday night, which seemed like a good plan when I was still unemployed, but made for a very long day after working a full day, driving home, packing the car, putting Kevin in the car and then hitting the road at the tail end of traffic jams at 7pm. 533 kilometeres or 5 1/2 hours later, we arrived at the resort outside of Paris, on the Disneyland golf course.

We all settled for the night around 2am, set the alarms for 7.15, and got a few hours precious sleep before waking up the next morning to start the Disneyland tour. We packed a lot into the first day...but there were long lines, and we had less than ideal sleep to get us through the day. we called it quites around 6pm and headed for dinner at the Rainforest cafe. Kev feel asleep in the buggy he never sleeps in, and didn't wake up until rain blew in his face when we got off the shuttle bus back at the resort.

The next day, we started off at Walt Disney Studios. Anky and co went off to ride Crush's coaster (from Finding Nemo)and Kevin and I went in search of characters to have our photo taken with. Remy the Rat was the only one we waited in line for, but we also saw Mickey Mouse, and Minnie and Chicken Little.

Walt Disney Studios had a lot less to offer than Disneyland, but on saturday were were winding down, the lines for all the popular rides were insane, and event fast pass were for 8pm by 1pm in the afternoon. Not a whole lot of options, really, so went off to the playground near the Pirates of the Caribbean to let the kids run off energy and enjoy the break in the weather. That afternoon we didn't do anymore rides - the lines were just too long. We talked about staying in the oark for the evening parade, but the little ones were also done for the day, and the adults too by this point. So, rather than stay until tempers frayed completely, it seemed best to call it a day and head back to the villa.

That evening, we did Pizza in the oven back at the apartment. We were all pretty worn out. it's a lot to cram into two days, and Sunday we needed to wake up and drive back up to the Netherlands. Sunday morning we managed to extend the check out till 11am, and Anky took the three kids swimming. That was almost as exciting as the whole 2 days of Disneyland - getting to swim in a hotel pool!

Last week was a week of Parties - Party at Anky's on Tuesday, Party at school on Wednesday, lots of singing and presents....This year he's had some trouble understanding his birthday is really 'just' one day, but at least he's stopped asking about Christmas?!

Maybe Easter will divert the attention from his Birthday...but then what will save me?

He's doing so well, and growing up before my eyes....it's just amazing to me how he's blossomed into this little person in the space of a few short months. The ideas about time and age and 'being the boss' are real things to him now that were meaningless just a short time ago. What a great time to be a Mommy!

Off to a Busy Start in 2008

I've missed the boat I think; to create a post about our trip to the US to visit Oma and Opa at Christmas.....here we are, more than halfway through February!

So, this is a catch up post...no pictures or a real theme this time....just an update and hello to everyone.

Like it always seems to be these days, life has been pretty busy. Kevin has finally gotten over his fear of baths and showers, and now asks to shower almost every day before I get the chance to offer one. Once in the shower, he even makes his own hair wet, and now it's getting the showers to be over with that takes mommy's best negotiating skills.

Since we came back from the US, I've had the chance to spend 'quality time' almost every day with my son.....to wake up with him, play games, build wooden train track obstacle courses through the living room, watch Dora the Explorer or the Backyardigans, eat breakfast together, have tickle fests, feed the ducks....the everyday simple things are made magical when experienced together with this happy Little Man. I've tried not to change his routine too much by taking him of out of daycare altogether, but we did shorten his days considerably in January and the first half of February so that I could again have the opportunity of being a mommy.

As seems to usually happen, My Mom was right, and 2008 is indeed shaping up to be a year of big changes. Coming back to the Netherlands was probably never as difficult as it was at the beginning of the New Year with the uncertainty of how I was going to find a new job and ensure I could support myself and Kevin.

At the end of last year, the job prospects looked pretty dim....and early January was also going slowly. Somewhere around the end of the second week though, my resume finally started getting noticed, I was getting calls, asked to attend interviews...and I had hope that maybe by the end of March or the beginning of April I would have a new position somewhere.

The first week of February, I said my goodbyes to Quest.....turned in the last of the company things, signed the paperwork for my final payment, etc. That same day I got a call from a headhunter about a company that was starting up its European HQ in Amsterdam and was looking for someone to do Marketing for UK, or Scandinavia and the Benelux. The next day I had a 2.5 hour face to face interview, and after that initial conversation I was given 24 hours to prepare a presentation dealing with my impressions of the website, the local cultural considerations, the competitive landscape, what marketing actions I would recommend and what my first 30 days would look like if I was hired!

That presentation I had to present via conference call to the VP of Marketing in the US, and that was my second, 1 hour long interview on Thursday. Friday I got a call asking if I would come back to Amsterdam to meet with the VP of Sales for Europe for the next interview on Monday.

After that interview (again close to 2 hours) I was told there were still other candidates that needed to complete the presentation process and that I would hear if there would be a final interview by the end of the week. Later that same day though, I was offered a contract, and after a very short negotiation, I agreed to come on board and was asked to come back to the office the next day to sign the contract.

The first Interview to the signing took exactly one week. Talk about a whirlwind! I'm so happy to have a new opportunity in front of me. I guess Mom does know best when she says 'Things Happen for a Reason'. Most of all, I hope one day my predictions for Kevin will be this accurate....Is that an inherit mom superpower, I wonder?