This vacation made possible by........

After 8 years with the same company, I made a move early last year to a software company that was setting up their European HQ in Amsterdam. It's been a crazy ride so far, and amazing to me that before the appt was made for the first interview, I'd never heard of the product, technology or really even the possibility to do what my current company does.


On Mom's recent visit, she didn't even have to bring her laptop...and without using webmail or any of the usual(crappy)travel applications, she was able to have full access to her computer and check up on mails, do invoicing, and leave work notes for my dad every other day, on average, during her visit.


So, without naming names, here's a shout out to the cool company I get to work for, and for helping to make it possible for my mom to get away from her own business for two weeks to come visit me and Little Man...without having a two week backlog when she came home!


Scary stuff, technology....even Mom gets how to use this!!.... Where do I work? Well, I call this photo LogMomIn. You figure it out from there ;-)

Flower Auction and Artis Zoo

One of the highlights of the first week of 'Oma & Vivi's visit' was our Wednesday trip to the Dutch Flower Auction in Aalsmeer followed by a visit to the Amsterdam Zoo, Artis.

We got up at 4.30 on Wednesday morning to be at the flower auction by 6am. Supposedly, wedensday is a 'slow' day for the auction, meaning that there is a lower quantity of flowers to be auctioned that day, but what we saw was still incredible! Rows and Rows of flowers. It takes a couple of hours to stroll around even the main areas though, according the website of the city of Aalsmeer :

'Every day Bloemenveiling Aalsmeer sets the world price for flowers and plants. Each day, 19 million flowers and two million plants are sold through 13 clocks at 'Bloemenveiling Aalsmeer'. It takes place within an area of almost one million m2 -This means that Bloemenveiling Aalsmeer has the largest trade building in the entire world! You can view the city of Aalsmeer website here: http://www.aalsmeer.nl/00004.asp

By 8am we had seen several of the auction clocks, walked a fair distance overall, and needed some caffenine to think about what to do with the rest of the day, which was really only just getting started!

From Aalsmeer, we drove an indoor route to Amsterdam, where I bought a public transport card. We parked at my office in Amsterdam, so we could catch the tram to the Amsterdam zoo. Kevin protested heaviliy when we arrived at the two after only 2 stops - he wanted to stay and ride the tram rather than visit the zoo. With the the promise of seeing the big turtle, we started the walk to the zoo entrance.

I've posted about Artis before, so this time I'll just stick to the photo highlights of the visit.

A special mention on the photo of Mommy and Oma - this one taken by Little Man on 'his' camera that he got for his birthday!

How We Spent Our Summer Vacation

For Kevin, this is the last week of summer vacation. School starts here the 16th, and the last two weeks we had our 'vacation'. I took off the full two weeks (Love, Love, LOVE European vacation allowances!) while my mother and Vivan were here.

The next posts will be all about the things we've seen and done in the past weeks...Visiting castles, amusement parks, riding bikes and taking public transport (always a hit for the little ones, not so much for control/planning freak me), lots of together time on the patio on the water, and above all, being a family and making the new house a home.

Posts and Pics to follow, but for now.....yes, we're still here!