Kevin's Blog (as posted by Mommy)

Big Boy Football

2011-10-24T17:22:00.000+02:00

Last spring, after Kevin turned 6, the one thing he really wanted to do was play on a football team (soccer). He started in the youngest age group "trapturfjes'' - which, the closest translation I can come up with is something like the 'small grass kickers', that only meets on Saturday mornings for a combination of training and mini games.

The time was decent - 10 to 10.45 - and it was a good intro for him on playing with a team as opposed to just kicking the ball around with dad in nice weather.....
After the summer break, Kev was old enough to move to the next level, where they train once in the week and then on the weekends, play in teams of 4 on 4 and play 3 sets of 12 minute games against one team. They play in the ''champions league'' and adopt the shirts of the teams they mimic. Kev is part of FC Porto (Portugal) and his number this season is 6.

He´s having a blast, and consistently scores during the games (his team is ranked 2nd right now in the league of 8 teams). It´s wonderful to watch him have fun and have a budding talent develop!

For now, I only have a few pics (I know....how is this possible?!) because I find myself cheering rather than taking pics....and I have yet to master cheering, anticipating the right moment to shoot before a goal and hold everything steady....I´m working on it! :-)

Summer of ´11 - Extended Edition

2011-10-15T17:10:00.001+02:00

This summer has really flown by! - and I´m using summer in the sense of the normal season plus our stretch October..... Technically, Summer vacation for the kids is already way shorter (6 weeks compared to 3 months stateside) but this summer (from end June to end September) has gone down in the history books for bad weather - like the third worst/wettest summer ever - that´s quite an accomplishment for a country known for it´s rain!

There was no possibility this year for a vacation in the sun (decided lack of both time and money), but towards the end of the school vacation in August, mom finally got a break and decided to book a long weekend and take Kev somewhere new.

Decision criteria:
1) Mom couldn't handle another(!)amusement park
2) Kev loves to travel by train, bus...anything other than the usual car
3) a city that had enough to hold mom's attention and still be interesting for little man

I was leaning towards London at first....right up until the time of the riots. Then it didn't seem like such a good idea. Also, London is always expensive. Even the roach motels go for 5 star prices in other cities. In eastern Europe, there were some good possibilities, but the travel time was sooo long, and the getaway budget didn't stretch to cover flights. We were down to car or train (or slow boat) when I saw an offer for 3 nights in Berlin for the price of 2.

In my years here in The Netherlands, I've been to quite a few cities in Germany, but not yet to Berlin. I was in Junior High when the Wall came down, and I remember the news footage from that time quite vividly. I'd also heard from almost anyone who had ever been how beautiful it was. While the historical significance of the city might be lost on Kev this time around, there is a beautiful zoo and many other sights that I knew he would appreciate after our trip to Paris earlier this year - 6 is NOT too young for culture!

So in the last lazy days of August, before football (soccer) and swimming lessons and school started back up, we headed off to have an adventure........

We went to the famous zoo, toured around the city for 2 days in an open top, hop on hop off bus with 15 stops around the city, ate in the 200 plus meter high tower and watched the sun go down, took our first border crossing 7 plus hour train trip (complete with iPad movies and lots of hands of Uno!), visited the the areas where the wall used to be and the remnants preserved today.....and had a great time!

The Swimming Journey

2011-08-10T20:30:00.000+02:00

As almost everyone knows by now.....Kevin has been in swimming lessons since February of 2010. Every week, 45 minutes - except for 6 weeks in summer - for almost 1.5 years.

I´m trying, really trying to remember how I learned to swim. I know there was some kind of test, maybe through the local YMCA...but it didn´t make much of an impression on me mostly because it wasn´t a rite of passage, costly and time consuming process like it is here.

With so much time and money invested - In October 2010, we even added an extra week in the fall vacation, 2 hours per day for 3 days - and since February 2011 he´s had 2 lessons a week. My back of the napkin calculations show that to date, we´re at 75 hours of lessons - at a cost of nearly 900 euros!

Both Kevin´s dad I were cautiously hopeful that Kevin would be able to swim for his first exam and diploma before the 6 week summer vacation coming up at the end of July, that the extra lessons would pay off and free up his schedule - come fall he´ll already have football practice each week and games every Saturday - and perhaps even more importantly, no more floaties (water wings) when going to the swimming pool!

One week before the end of June, we got some great news - Kev was invited to take the exam for his A Diploma the following week! He had one last lesson on Tuesday, and then on Wednesday June 29th, he did the exam for his diploma.

As you might imagine after 1 1/2 years of lessons, they take the exam seriously here too. The exam took just over an hour to complete and looked like: (this is all the information that is on the back of the certificate):

Clothing Requirements

* Swimwear
* T-shirt, shirt or blouse with short sleeves, shorts or pants
* Shoes (plastic, leather and sports shoes are allowed)

DRESSED SWIMMING
1.1 From the starting block or 1-meter springboard leap into the water(completely submerged), then after surfacing
1.2 15 seconds treading water using arms and legs, followed by
1.3 12.5 meters breaststroke, on a line followed by a ½ turn to the longitudinal axis
1.4 12.5 meters backstroke, complete with test
1.5 Independently climb out of the water from the side of the pool.

Then, they take off the outerwear, and in just their swimsuits, they have to:

SWIMWEAR
2.1 From the side of the pool or starting block or enter the water with a jump (a shallow dive preferred), immediately followed by
2.2 orientate yourself underwater and swim underwater through a hole in a cloth hanging vertically in the water that is 3 meters from the start position and, after surfacing
2.3 Finishing the test with 50 meters breaststroke and
2.4 50 meters backstroke single(without using arms).

3.1 Optionally enter the water from the side or from in the water somersault off the wall, immediately followed by
3.2 10 seconds swimming under water, followed by a few meters breaststroke, and
3.3 5 seconds floating on your stomach, then a few meters breaststroke.

4.1 Pushing off the wall swimming under water for 10 seconds, then
4.2 Few meters backstroke, 10 seconds then floating on their backs, finishing with a few more meters backstroke.

5.1 From the starting block or side of the pool, enter the water with a jump or shallow dive, followed by 8 meters beginner front crawl.

6.1 From in the water, somersault off the wall, then 8 meters beginner backstroke.

7.1 Get into the pool from the side with a jump of choice, followed by
7.2 60 Seconds treading water using both arms and legs, including a full turn around in the water and repeating the action.

For all the test elements, the candidate must swim the named distances without interruption and without the candidate touching or searching for the pool bottom, wall or any supporting objects.

He passed, and we were all very proud of this accomplishment! After the summer break, he´s going to go for the ´´B´´ diploma, which should take only a couple of months of lessons. Fingers Crossed!

Happy Birthday Oma!

2011-04-04T18:06:00.007+02:00

Just in time for birthday number 55, a seranade for the Birthday Oma from Kevin Daniel! We made sure the first song was in English :-)

We love you Whole Big Bunches!

What a Difference a Hair Cut Makes.....

2011-03-31T19:04:00.002+02:00

I don´t know why it is, but every time we give Kev a haircut, I feel like he looks Older. Like, goes from a cutie to Little Man in a few minutes. Why does a trim make such a difference in the way he looks? Is it just me?

For about a year now, we´ve been using a ´thuiskapper´, someone who has a kind of mobile salon and comes to your house, during the week on evening or even on Saturday. I started using the service because it saved me a fortune compared to the salon prices for a color and trim, and then I discovered the hidden benefit of Kev not freaking out when it was time to get his hair cut.

This is no small thing. I mean, since his first hair cut just before his second birthday, and every subsequent time since, walking into a hair salon-barber shop-supercuts type establishment caused a meltdown. We even tried it once in the states, with the same result. He didn´t inherit mom´s curls, so when his hair gets longish, it just hangs....except for the place where he did inherit his dad´s cowlick.

So, imagine my relief when we discovered that when covered with a mickey mouse safari cape while perched on our step stool in the kitchen, all signs of trauma just melted away. It makes having to sweep and vacuum up afterwards yourself more than worth it, and just look at the results! Of course, by the Official Mommy Code, I have to declare him a handsome little boy, but feel free to agree! :-)

First Football (soccer) Practice

2011-03-29T18:29:00.001+02:00

Part of the rite of passage of being 6 in the Netherlands seems to be the joining of sport teams. It starts as early as age 4, but by age 6 here, there are more organized options, real teams and plenty of options. For Kevin, it's been all about football for at least a year. We put it off due to my crazy schedule at my former employer - trying to manage swimming lessons was already enough!

This winter though, the new job and more flexibility meant there was time for something else. We started in the winter with skiing lessons on Wednesdays, and when those finished we stepped up the swimming lessons to 2x per week in hopes of getting his swim diploma this year. Now in addition to swimming, he plays in his first soccer team every Saturday. Since the season was already running, he will be until the summer vacation playing and practicing on Saturdays with the 4-6 year olds. After the summer, He'll move up to the 6+ and have in addition to practice, weekly games.

So when we found a team where he could join right away, and two weeks ago he had his very first Saturday practice. We had soccer shoes thanks to Aunt Vivi (and Oma for shipping them over so they were waiting and ready to use!) and I wanted to wait until Little Man had had at least 2 practices before signing on and making the investment in a warm up suit and all the kit needed for an future football superstar.

On Saturday, we had to be at the field by 10am, practice goes for approx 50 mins. Luckily it was cool but clear on the day, and the sun was shining so mom could stand on the sidelines and take pictures!

I wasn't sure what to expect, but they line up all the kids, have them run lines and then they work in groups of 5-6 kids, doing exercises kicking goals, dribbling the ball with your feet between cones, kicking the ball to the goalie and then running a small loop….they mix it up really well so that the kids are busy about 10 mins at each activity.

They finish up with about 15 mins of a 5x5 game, and on his first team play, Kev scored two, count them, two of the five goals scored total between both teams! Not that Mom was proud or anything………..

Birthday Boy - Party Time!

2011-03-11T18:30:00.000+01:00

Kev's views on Birthdays are very clear - they are fun, should be counted down to in 'sleeps' long before mom is ready to think about party's and gifts (did we not just have Christmas?!)and are a thing of joy and much discussion in the weeks leading up to the main event.

Mom's views are a little more ambivalent...I know it's not supposed to cost much to do a kids' party, but it always costs more than I think at the onset...in terms of time, money and effort. It's these times I feel like single momness (very technical word, I know) pretty much kicks my behind. It's also when the juggling act I somehow always feel between being a mom and full time employee (then throw in party planner)leaves me feeling pretty stretched.

All this is to say that somehow I got talked into doing a party this year not at a venue like the last years (Bowling, play castle, community building) but at home. My Home. For eight 5&6 year olds.

I couldn't resist Kev, who due to my schedule has the one of the least number of playdates in his class, and almost never where kids come to us - Kev always goes there. So how could I refuse when I could in effect get 8 playdates in fell swoop and earn some points with little man?

So, we agreed on a theme (spongebob) and a date (his B-Day which was on a Friday when school ends at noon) the guest list and the games.

When the big day came, I knew I couldn´t do this on my own.....I needed backup, and Richard agreed to take a half day free to be on hand to help me keep order. He was also the pinata hanger, photographer and drew the dreaded ´keep mom sane´ duty.

We had lunch, played a spongebob variant of Pin the Tail on the Donkey (involving stickers of jellyfish and trying to get them closest to spongebob´s net), twister, beat the heck out of a spongebob pinata, opened gifts,

ate Spongebob cake,

played bingo, painted sea themed sun catchers, and signed a spongebob t-shirt. It was a full afternoon!

Everyone went home happy, and Little Man had a great birthday Party

....and a great class party, and a great party at daycare.....

almost a whole week's worth of celebrations have left mom very happy that b-days come but once a year!

1 (long) day in Paris and the last lazy day of vacation

2011-03-06T16:01:00.000+01:00

On Thursday, we had our one day to visit Paris. It was a bit overcast, but not raining...and not as cold as the previous days. We took the train from Disneyland into Paris, and from there got on the Metro to where we needed to be to get our tour.

When we arrived at our stop and checked in for the tour, we were almost 2 hours early, but we were right next to a park with a playground, so we took a break from Kevin to play (and mom to snap pics) and from there Kevin had his first lunch in a Parisian cafe.

It was everything you hear about - the service was not great, the food was expensive and not exactly tasty - and it was wonderful to be just the two of us, sipping cola and making our way through lunch. Also, it turns out that a croque monsieur is not exactly to comparable to a tosti or grilled cheese.....but Kevin bravely made it through most of his plate with the help of ketchup!
From there, we wandered back to meet the bus, and started our tour around the city in the top of a double decker bus. Kevin and I traded camera duty as we made our way around the city.
Once we were at the Eiffel Tower, the bus tour was over and our package included tickets to the second level.
I´ve been to the second level on previous visits, and Kev found it very cool. However, it turns out that you can purchase an additional ticket on the second floor to go up to the third level. If you look at a picture of the eiffel tower, the third level is really high up there! Kev really wanted to, and I´d never been, and we were there.....so we bought tickets and got in the very long line to get to the top. Almost 40 minutes later, we were in the lift, which is glass like on all sides...and Little Man didn´t want to look out! He was hugging me with his face in my jacket, and I was trying to tell the butterflies in my stomach that it wasn´t really that high up. Once we got out of the lift, it was a single flight up to the highest observation deck, and we walked around twice, snapping a few more pictures before getting in the line to go back down to the second level as the sun was just starting to set.
Back on solid ground (and very proud of ourselves for braving the third level) we walked across to the river to get on the next available river cruise. We timed it just right, and with less than a 15 minute wait, we were on one of the first cruises of the evening, enjoying the city we´d seen during the day by bus now at night from the boat.

We snapped plenty of pics, and at 8pm when we were back at the eiffel tower, we braved public transport to head back toward the disney parks and our resort. It went smoothly, but took longer than we thought.....we were back at the resort at 10.30pm, tired but triumphant!

Friday was supposed to be our 4th and last day at Disneyland Paris, but we were both pretty done after the paris day, and Kevin decided he really wanted a house day, to play games, stay in our PJ´s and be lazy. Mom was very grateful that even 5 year old batteries need recharging after a fun filled week!
Saturday we snapped our last pictures of the resort, packed the car, stopped at the village bakery for the last croissants and baguette for the road and then started the 5 1/2 hour drive home.

Lucky for Little Man, he didn't have long to wait for the next big thing - his birthday party last Friday!

Pics and a new Post to follow!

Vacation @ Disneyland Paris

2011-02-27T15:06:00.015+01:00

For once, Mom is going to post pics while the memories are still fresh, and before life interferes with good intentions.
We had a great week this last week. Some quality time just Mom and Little Man, lots of fun and busy time 3 days at the disney parks, one whirlwhind day in Paris, and we took as many pictures as I could remember to (or whenever Little Man asked for the camera).

So, in this post, I'll put up some of my favs, staying somewhat in order of the agenda and the days we were at the parks.

We arrived Saturday night, so Sunday was our first day to hit Disneyland, which is what we got up and did, arriving at opening time. We stayed most of the morning in fantasyland (Peter Pan, Teacups, It's a small world, etc) before moving to discoveryland to take in Buzz LightYear, and then off to adventureland with Pirates of the Caribbean. We managed to end the day just in time for the Parade, which Kevin got a good view of and gets the photo credits for these pics.

Monday we took a more relaxed day and hung out at the swimming pool at the resort in the morning before heading to a nearby village and visiting the Sea-Life aquaruium.Kev's highlights were the tidepool area where you could 'pet' the rays and fish as they swim by, and the big aquarium where there is tunnel like area you walk through and the aquarium is on all sides. This was the shark tank, and we had to take a pic, but no flash allowed, so he looks a bit like a smurf!

After we finished at the aquarium, we headed back to the resort to make it an early day, becuase Tuesday was Walt Disney Studios day!

Sunday we had reasonable luck with lines for the rides we wanted to do, but that was not the case at the studios. There were long lines for everything. We waited at least 60 mins per ride, and to do the one roller coaster that he met the height requirements for and that didn't go 360, we had to wait in line for a whopping 95 mins!!! No line dimished his enthusiasim, and we had a great day. We managed to take a few snapshots, and don't let the sunshine fool you...it was 2 degrees celcius in the morning, warming up to a whole 5 degrees in the midday!

The following day, we headed back to Disneyland with Winnie and Lars, who joined us at the resort to spend one day with us at the park. We stayed at Disneyland, did the 'best of the best' rides as recommended by Little Man, and ended the day with a hoedown high tea and a meet and greet with some characters. It was a long day, but we all had a blast. The lines were longer than Sunday by a bit, but we still managed to squeeze in everything we wanted to do and still got to see a street parade and the high tea.
The following day, Winnie and Lars headed back to The Netherlands, and we headed into Paris for the day! That is going to have to be the next post, which I promise I will try to follow up with soon!

Countdowns - a.k.a. 'how many more sleeps until'

2011-01-03T20:30:00.001+01:00

We have a couple of events coming up that merit the question of 'how many more sleeps', which in turns seem to be worth the effort of a countdown calendar, so Mom doesn't have to calculate or count the days on the nearest calendar.

The first event we have to look forward to is a trip to Disneyland Paris in the spring vacation. We´re going to be staying for a week, so i also plan to take him into Paris, and this way we can spend multiple days at the park, doing a few fun things each day (or evening) that we go.

MySpace-Countdowns

The trip to Disneyland is intended to be a Birthday present, since we have to plan all trips in the vacation times, but this trip does fall a few weeks before his actual birthday, so I know as soon as we get back, the next countdown will be for his birthday, so here we go:

Birthday-Countdowns

After that, the next countdown will be for Easter, and then I'm sure we'll need one for the next trip to the US.....Here's to a year full of fun things to countdown to!

When it Rains.....

2010-09-20T14:48:00.008+02:00

Summer 2010, wow! While there have been a few bright moments (the wedding, getting to see Holly, getting to go back to the US for the aforementioned wedding) it's overall been one full of those life lessons I'd just as soon not repeat:

1) No matter how hard you work, you're never irreplaceable.
2) The 6 month nest egg "just in case" is more important than anything you want now. (see point 1 above)
3) Even great and loving families go through rough patches.
4) Losing someone who you love makes you take stock of your own life.
5) Sometimes you have to get way past something before you can see the way things happen for a reason.
6) Whenever you're not there to witness it, some kind of milestone with your child will happen.

Right now I still have the feeling I'm at a crossroads....I can't see yet how things are going to turn out, which path is the right one to take (or if I'll even have a choice.) I hope that whatever the next few months hold, Kevin will know I've done my best - for both of us. It's sometimes pretty awe-inspiring to think that whatever I do now affects more than just me - I'm responsible for this amazing little man who I love so very much. It's as humbling as it is terrifying.

Mostly, this post is just to let everyone know we're still hanging in there, waiting for life lesson 5 to make itself known.

Summer Vacation Update - Our US visit in photos

2010-08-04T10:10:00.012+02:00

As many of you know, this summer has been an interesting one. Firstly, our vacation got off to an early start this year due to Andrea and Eric's wedding. They had a beautiful ceremony at a great location on a wonderful day, and we were very lucky to be a part of it - Kevin as a ring bearer and I as a bridesmaid.

Leaving before the official end of the school year meant behind the scenes manouvering for the last 6 months to get permission from Kevin's School (the easy part) the School Board and the ultimately the city hall/council. Our offical permisson came through at the beginning of May, which might have been after the airlines tickets were already purchased........

Two days before we were due to leave, I got called into the office and was greeted with awful news - I wouldn't have a job when we came back from vacation. It cast a pallor over the final preparations and there was a lot of pressure to get things sorted out for myself in the less than 48 we had before we caught our flight to the US.

We arrived on Wednesday night after almost 24 hours of door to door travel. Once there, the first few days were a whirlwind of pre-wedding activity - final fittings, secuirty tags on the ring bearer suit that were missed in a post christmas clearance sale and now needed to be remomved.....a rehearsal dinner to meet the rest of the wedding party and see the location - which while beautiful, was a little remote and took a lot of back and forth driving......

....and before we knew it it was Saturday, the day of the wedding. I can't wait to have some pictures to share, becuase it really was beautiful in every way. Saturday night we all had the opportunity to stay at the venue and not travel back to Roseburg until Sunday.

The week following the wedding we tried to fill with family excursions....We got to catch up with Holly, there was the Enchanted Forest trip, the visit and small hike to Toketee Falls to see the impressive 120 foot waterfall as well as Crater Lake on the Friday before the 4th of July weekend. We did as much of the rim drive as was open, and even in early July we got hit with a snow/hale/ice storm during our picnic lunch at approx 7,000 feet up.

We wrapped up our visit with fireworks and a small birthday gathering on the 5th before it was time to pack up and hit the road before 7am on Wedensday morning to catch our flight back home out of Portland.

Even though it was two weeks and you think before you leave home you'll have enough time to do all the things you want, and see everyone you want, there will still items left on both the to do and to see list this time. It was such a whirlwind of activity our whole visit - it went by so fast!

Summer Travels & 5 year old logic

2010-07-11T14:05:00.000+02:00

Little Man has been looking forward to getting on an airplane and going to 'Amerika' for months. Exactly why the prospect of such a long plane ride would be so thrilling, I'm not exactly sure. So, a few days before we flew, I finally asked him and he told me it was because he could watch all the movies he wanted to - plus he wanted to sit at the window and look outside while we were really high up.

So, when we flew on the 23rd of June, I let him sit at the window in the row of 2 where we were seated. As soon as we'd leveled off, he looked out the window - and he didn't like what he saw at all! He declared we were too high up, and he was scared...Mom had to lean over and shut his window shade - and so it remained for the rest of the flight.

For the next 10 hours or so, he would occasionally sneak a peek, only to lower the shade again........By the time of our return flight 2 weeks later, the idea of being on a plane for 10 hours was no longer exciting. Welcome to how the rest of us feel, Little Man!

Over the next few posts, I'll be posting pics and sharing stories from our visit -we covered a lot of ground this time!

Andrea's Wedding @ The Big K Ranch, Elkton

Visit with Holly and Robbie (and a girls nite!)

Feeding the ducks at the duck pond (by Fred Meyer, of course!)

Trip to the Enchanted Forest (Salem)

Walk to Toktee Falls

Visit to Crater Lake

4th of July

My 32nd B-day (complete with sunflower cake!)

This has to be the earliest summer vacation I've had since my own wedding, and it feels a bit strange to come back and still have the whole summer ahead......but looking forward to it, and hopefully some extra time with Little Man during his 6 week vacation that started Friday afternoon.

I hope everyone else is having a great summer!

Kevin "Picasso" Fels

2010-06-04T17:10:00.001+02:00

This past week, 2 things having to do with Little Man's artistic abilities have come about.....Even for his (always) busy mom, that's a post-worthy happening. On this gorgeous, sunny, tail end of the working week, I'd like to take this moment to appreciate and brag - as is a Mother's right! :-)
This school year, Kevin's school has had an 'art menu' with all kinds of activities. They have linked these activities to fundraising to support a Dutch based charity that helps children in 130 countries all over the world. One of these activities was an art action, and each student painted their own canvas. The proceeds of the sale went to the charity. (Dad bought Kevin's canvas to enjoy and show off).

After the art auction, each class chose one student's artwork to represent their class and be shown on a postcard. The set of postcards, with one image per class, is then given (6 sets per student) to sell to neighbors, relatives, people at work, etc.

I received my 6 sets of postcards this week to sell, and when I was looking through them, I found this and thought " I know that signature!":

And when I looked on the back of the card for the credit, there it was.....My Little Man - his artwork - on a postcard!

And then, this same week, while mom was still basking in the postcard glory (and selling the cards to his father, my mother, poor co-workers, etc).........he comes home with this drawing: :

And I knew what it was...no squinting, no 3 guesses, no 'you tell me what I'm going to guess it is'......I recognized it right away as his playmobil fire truck with extendible ladder and extra wheels and sirens and......it was awesome!

It's been a good week to be a mommy! I'm off now to enjoy the weekend, some 'mommy time' and to dream of a retirement funded by art sales and autograph signings :-)

April Milestones

2010-05-17T18:30:00.002+02:00

Now that we’ve passed the 5th birthday milestone, mom was prepared that things might go a little quiet on the blogging front without much to report on that was new. I guess Kevin decided we couldn’t have that, and set about giving me something to write about – He can cycle on two wheels!

I should mention that while he’s pretty well on track ( I seem to remember the training wheels going off my Pink Schwinn somewhere between 5 &6) it’s felt like he’s behind the curve here in one of the cycling capitals of the world. It’s not uncommon here to see 3 & 4 year olds on 12 inch cycles without training wheels zipping along with their 5-foot safety flag waving alongside. Kevin had so far resisted any attempt to remove his training wheels for ‘practice’.

It reminded me very much of when we were trying to get him to walk……he went directly from crawling to running across the room. No tries, no stumbles…..He takes his time (practicing in his sleep?!) and just as we start to wonder…..he busts out a brand new capability like he’s been doing it forever.

He’s already able to cycle to the shops in the center of town, go to the recreational lake/forest area near his dad’s place….soon I’m sure he’ll be out-cycling mom, and be a true Dutchy cycling everywhere!

Here is a video from the end of the afternoon on that first day of cycling…this is near to dad’s house, and dad’s using his cameraphone….it might not be the best quality (and the proud papa Dutch commentary is an added bonus) but it’s clear to see how proud of this accomplishment he is……as are we!

Birthday Boy

2010-04-09T09:45:00.001+02:00

It's *only * been, like, a month (!) since Little Man turned 5.........

So, before I have to start planning for the next birthday, here are some photos/video of both the day itself and the long anticipated (if you're the b-day boy) party!

I know, it took me long enough..... :-)

These were on the big day, before we loaded the car for school that day (Yes, we took the balloons to school and tied them to the special chair/throne they the birthday kid gets to sit in).

For the class, we made little favor tubes with stickers, temporary tatooes, confetti, a balloon, a self inking stamp and small candies. Here is a photo of the contents and then the final package once it was all in the tubes.

I ordered the boxes for the cupcakes from ebay, and I also ordered smaller boxes for the favors at the same time from the same store.... but, what I got when I opened the package from hong kong were these little tubes and the cupcakes boxes. There wasn't time to re-order before the party, so Mom just had to make do. The end result wasn't too bad, if I'm allowed to say so?

As I already admitted in my last post, I 'cheated' on the cupcakes and ordered them rather than made them myself. Still, Kevin was happy with them! Maybe next year I'll be brave enough to make the cupcakes from scratch myself......

For the party on Saturday we did small favor bags with cupcakes, all in the theme of (of course) Cars. Everyone got a bag and a Cars balloon (or a star ballon if you one of the three girls) when they left the party. Since we had 12 kids for the party, compared to 25 plus in the class, we could have some small gifts in the bags as well.

The party on Saturday for 12 was at a bowling and event center in the next town over, Hoofddorp. They had a package for birthday parties that included birthday cake (you couldn't bring your own), drinks and then 1 1/2 hours bowling. We had three lanes - you can only have 6 kids per lane, and then I had an extra lane for the parents, which worked well - most of the parents stayed and bowled and had a good time, and I had some some support. I wouldn't advise trying to handle 12 kids in a bowling alley solo! The last hour of bowling was "disco" or cosmic bowling with blacklight and dance music. The kids all got glow in the dark necklaces to wear, and we were done entertaining by 4pm. I still think next year, Mom might scale it back to 6-8 kids, sizewise...........but I'm not thinking about next year yet! (no, really, I'm not!) :-)

As you can see from the video, Kevin got some great presents and we'll sign off with a photo of the (future) bowling phenom in action!

Party Planning 101 - Dutch Style

2010-02-09T20:54:00.001+01:00

So, now, onto the Party Planning phase of Mission:Impossible - Birthday Edition. This was originally one really loooong post together with the countdown clock, but I decided to break into smaller posts before a reader's eyes started to bleed :-)

When it came to planning where and what the party should be this year, we based on recent experiences he really semeed to enjoy, something we could do with between 10 and 12 children, and something that, with any luck, I could enourage the parents to stick around for, becuase who really wants sole responsibility for tweleve 5 year old boys?

The fun he had with Bowling during the Christmas break meant he wanted to have a bowling party for this birthday, in the theme of everything Cars - Lightening Mc Queen, to be exact. At first, it was Spiderman (again), then it was SpongeBob (who Kev loves (from his dad) but is not so popular over here yet), and finally we settled on the ever cool, always a hit with 5-7 year old boys, Cars. it also ticked all of mom's boxes (see above) so, I figured we were good to go!

With that settled, Mom has spent the better part of two weeks searching websites both here and in the US (love Ebay for things like this!) for all things Cars. So far, I've found the favors for both the class party and the bowling party attendees, the balloons, the invites, and someone to make about 70 cupcakes for the different parties (easier to transport and share than a cake, and no fights over corner or 'small' pieces!

I'm outsourcing the cupcakes because as much as I love to bake, 70 cupcakes is beyond my capabilities during a work week. I'll package them nicely and with some creativity (I'll post pictures later) but the actual baking would just be overwhelming on top of the parties and gifts and the invites.

Class parties over here are so...creative. There are home made gifts, made to look like other things (think paper ducks whose wings are chocolate egg holders, elaborate things made out of pipe cleaners……you get the idea? Then there are the funny handcrafted bags to put everything in...maybe it is for a lower costs overall (as a Dutch pastime seems to be to compare relative cheapness of things with pride – “this, oh it took only 5 hours and 49 cents to make!), but unless there are some bulk methods to buying craft items I haven’t yet stumbled across here after 13 years, it's never as cheap as they say when you try to replicate it!!

The materials that go into crafty handmade things aren’t exactly cheap over here (there are no large craft stores, or malls or anything like that in most towns, and then you've got to figure in the time it takes to make 50-70 of anything.

There aren't enough hours in the day for this mom, I'm sorry to say. I love to be creative, but that's just too big a scale for me. Those are the moments I feel very fish out of water with the more traditional Dutch moms who work 2-3 days a week and have time for these kinds of activities. At birthday time, I'm jealous, and wish I could do more 'from scratch'. Oh well... Maybe I need a hobby room like Holly's! - I should put in a request for an attic conversion, hmmm.......

You wouldn't think 12 invites would be a big deal - I didn't, but then I got the invites and realized they were completely blank! That means a lot of handwriting, in Dutch! The Dutch part is what takes forever, then add on Kevin's wanting to 'help' by writing his name in each invite, and mom's bright idea to add confetti and a balloon to each invite, then realize I was out of stamps and needed to order/buy some (because otherwise I'm trusting one almost 5 year old to deliver something to another 4 or 5 year old, and they in turn have to get it home to mom and dad), and before I knew it, 12 invites had turned into a worthy part of a blog post.

I'm also carrying on the tradition this year of the b-day shirt. Every year, I've gotten something for everyone who comes to his parties to sign. For the first b-day, it was the autograph bear with birthday cupcake from Build-a-Bear, and each year since, I've gotten a personalized t-shirt in the theme of the party that all the kids (and parents) can sign. This way he has something fun to wear on the day once everyone has signed it, and later he'll have something to look back at as his friends change (or don't).

So, with 29 nights to go, and the invites to 12 kids and their parents out........now I have to think about what my present will be...I'm tempted to go easy this year while I still can and do the party, let 1 or 2 friends stay over, and call it good. I think between Dad, Oma and Opa's, and the friends who come to the party, he'll be more than covered gift wise, and a party for 12, plus the class party for 30 has to be paid for somehow, and it's all mom as far as planning and invested time goes..... What do you guys think - can a party be considered a gift?

Leave a comment and ease my guilt, or let me know if I'll be scarring him for life if there isn't a package in the pile with my name on it.

I'll re-visit in March with pics and party stories, promise!

Winter Wonderland

2010-02-07T11:42:00.002+01:00

We're in the middle of a winter wonderland here in The Netherlands...... since about a week before Christmas, it's been snowy, freezing and everytime the snow melts away, there comes in a day or two a fresh layer. Both this year and last year the man made lake our balcony is out on was a big hockey/skating rink....a hot topic of discussion here is if there is still time to have the first elfstedentocht (eleven city tour) since 1997 this year. This week, the temps are supposed to plummet, staying between -2 and plus 2 during the day,a nd dropping to -10 at night....that's supposed to be 'great' for the natural ice and chances for skating...not so great if you're already almost 2 weeks into a head cold!

In the middle of the deep freeze early in January, a whole crew of dads and older brothers shoveled the snow off the lake to make a skating rink. I loved the view and watching all the winter activity from my warm, dry living room! :-) (I'm not sure what it says about me that one of my first thoughts was "a kid could make a killing here selling hot chocolate off the balcony). Kev's not yet old enough for his first lemonade (or hot choclate) stand, but Mom's filing that one away for future use!

During the last week, there was the first day that there was no snow or ice left on the roads near the house, or the sidewalks. The lake just melted, and all the snow piles had just just about melted before the snow started again at the start of this week - so it's not over yet, but a solid 6 weeks snow and ice in a country where they are not prepared for it at all has been pretty challenging. I've managed a personal best and only slipped and fallen twice - but it was on the same day and both times outside Kev's school.

Last week Monday, the commute into work due to snowfall took a record 2 hours and 15 minutes to drive 50 kilometers (say 30 miles). it also landed number 10 on the list of worst traffic jams ever, with over 500 kilometers of traffic jams around the country. Crazy!

Kevin has really enjoyed the snowy winter so far, and got his first pair of adjustable ice skates (double bladed for stability) for Christmas. He's been skating on an indoor rink twice during the school break, with use of a kind of walker-like device to keep him standing. During the Christmas break, we went bowling, skating, to the movie theatre, a pancake restuarant, had a play date and played a lot with his race track that he asked Santa for - so much so that one of the cars had to be replaced already, but he's figured out how to do the upside down loop withour flying out of the next corner.

On New Year's, I had my first preview of how the new neighboorhood celebrates New Year's. New Year's Eve is NL's 4th of July (and then some) as far as fireworks go, and I was amazed at how many fireworks there were starting from 10pm. Here private people can buy professional level fireworks.....In this short video, taken a bit after midnight, you get the idea.....these were all private households nearby! The height was the first 10 mins of the New Year. Next year, I'll know to have my camera ready, but even so, I found this pretty impressive!

Next year, I know where I'll be spending New Year's.....with a free show like this courtesy of the neighbors :-)...amd I can watch it all from the couch....this was the view from inside my living room. When you see this video, it's not hard to belive that the spend on fireworks this New Years was something like 65 million euros (!)

There's also been opportunities to build a snowman with his dad, and get pulled on a sleigh by dad.......Not that he really enjoys it or anything! :-)

Here is a few more from our collection of winter 2009-2010 photos....enjoy!

This was the skating rink the neighborhood dad's made on a Saturday morning...and what it looked like a 4pm as the light was starting to go.

And the skating continued the next day, but the wind made it really cold...no-one was out there much longer than 30 minutes at a time, but it seemed like most people were from the houses nearby, so the came back throughout the day. This was the view from the living room.

Of course, Kevin did make it out there, but he found it too cold (and a little bit scary, considering the he knows it's a lake filled with water most of the year), so after the obligatory 30 mins, we were back inside, drinking hot chocolate and watching the kids play hockey.

After a day of outdoor play in the fresh air, there is nothing quite like a warm bath, footie pj's (from Oma & Opa for Christmas) and a photo op!

B-day Countdown Clock

2010-02-03T17:54:00.017+01:00

I think this is universal to moms everywhere, but the only way to measure time as far as Little Man is concerned is 'How many more night do I have to sleep until......?"

We used this to great effect when Oma and Vivi came to visit this last summer, but then it was with the visual help of a paper chain - we took one chain link away each night before bed, and then he could count the links left. It's amazing to me that in the 7 months or so since, his countdowns are now more or less in his head. I have to set the base line number (90, or 40 or whatever) and then he pretty much keeps track from there, and will then tell me every night after ' did you know there are only so many more nights till..........'

He gets occasionally caught up when he's been 3 or 4 nights with his dad, and hasn't done the countdown in the in-between days, so we'll have to reset the count.....but overall, he's pretty spot on, and understand the concept that the closer something is, the less nights there are till it happens. I bring this all up because the countdown we are in the middle of now is '29-more-nights-till-the big-5-and -31-till-the-party-countdown.

So, in that spirit, and since Kevin lately has taken to asking if he can see 'his pictures on mommy's computer that are for Oma' (also known as 'the blog'), here is his very own Birthday Countdown Clock:

Birthday-Countdowns

Deck the Halls

2009-12-20T17:26:00.001+01:00

By popular demand....(ok, mom's demand)..I have photos of the living room with my tree and Christmas decorations!

This years tree (my first christmas tree in years!) is a beautiful live tree that with we did actually have to trim down to so the topper would go on.

Season's Greetings

2009-12-18T01:04:00.002+01:00

I don't know where the month of December has gone....It feels like I've been waiting since oh, October, for it to be Christmas, but then, all of the sudden, there this two week gap of time - it was just Sinterklaas...and now, it's almost Christmas - and I'm not ready!! How did this happen?? :-)

Long story short (kind of), the Christmas cards are going in the post tomorrow, but since it got so late this year, I'm not sure they will make it in time to everyone in the US.

In the meantime, here is the digital version for everyone - and rest assured, your personalized greetings and Kevin autographed versions are on the way, I promise! (Yes, he signed the Christmas Cards this year all by himself!) :-)

Through all the ups and downs, rough patches, etc......I am reminded how blessed I am to have freinds and family who love and support us in all they ways that they do. Thank you for being there and for being you - we appreciate it more than we can say.

If I ever forget to say it or express it as I should - I'm sorry!

A Very Merry Christmas to you all!

Love,
Sharon & Kevin

Recent Pictures

2009-11-29T21:05:00.016+01:00

Some photo catch up, since Mom has been a little quiet on the posting lately......

On the 11th of November, we celebrated St. Maarten for the third year with Winnie and Lars. This year, we stayed closer to home by making the rounds with our homemade lanterns in Amstelveen, where Winnie lives. While it comes close to Halloween, we don't dress up here. However, mom couldn't resist to add his gold mickey mouse ears (Dineyland Paris 15 year anniversary edition with led lights) to compliment his gold pumpkin lantern. He got compliments and wows by almost every doorbell we rang!

These last weeks, Kevin has made real progess with his name. He can write 'Kevin' from memory now, but the Fels still needs some work. This is an early example :-). Together with his name are a butterfly and a person, which hangs on my wall behind my desk at work in a place of honor.

The weekend after St. Maarten, Sinterklaas arrived by boat from Spain, and the next week it was time to dress up for school as one of the helper elves, called 'Zwarte Piet'.

Also for the third year, we carried on our tradition of celebrating Thanksgiving with the same couples. Here you can see the house, ready for guests. The renovations are pretty much done, only a light fixture here and there, and some pictures on the walls to go to make this a finished home!

The new and improved 'Zwarte Piet' Suit, and Kevin singing traditional Dutch songs :-)

Enjoy, and hope this catches everyone up who needed a "Little Man" fix.....it might be after the Holidays before I have a chance to post again!

Where Does Money Come From?

2009-09-23T23:00:00.000+02:00

I knew this day was coming, when we would have to sit down and have The Talk.

You know the one - about money.

For the last six months, Kev has been really aware of the concept of paying for things. He also loves to assign value (usually in cents) to things - one thousand eighty hundred million is currently a favourite number when something must be really expensive - like an inflatable boat.

I've had to explain the concept of paying for things to Kevin, maybe earlier than 'normal', becuase we get by on my single income. So, while I want to do fun and special things, I also have to explain that mommy can't "do" special every weekend, becuase well.....going to the swimming pool or amusement park or indoor jungle gym all costs money. Which was ok at first, but then over the next few months as he got his 'cents' for his piggy bank (the contents of my change purse when I got too many 5, 10 and 20 cent pieces in my wallet), he wanted to make connection between these 'cents' and what the things he liked to do cost. When it became clear that the cents I gave him had no real buying power, it was time for The Talk.

The only piggy bank he has now is a can sytle one that you can't open, so he have to wait until it's full before we take the lid off with a can opener and head to the bank. Recently, the bank where I opened a savings account for Kevin after the divorce sent Kev a piggy bank and decorating kit with a plastic stopper in the bottom.

The nice thing about this savings account is that you can take your piggy bank into the bank and put all your change into a big machine that sorts it, tells you how much you have, and deposits it directly to your savings account. No coin rolls needed, just dump the contents of the piggy bank in one go into this big machine...it's like magic to a four year old.

Kev has figured out that the plastic stopper in the bottom of the piggy bank means we can take the money out anytime, which we can't do with his old piggybank. Now he's torn between saving his money in his piggy bank so he can take it to the magic machine at the bank, and spending his 'cents' on bubbles, and the inflatable boat costing (of course) one thousand eighty hundred million cents. Tough choice, I know.......... the self decorated piggy bank though was a cool idea, and now mom has a cool memory from it all, too.

It took two days to decorate the bank. One day to draw the all the flowers and details and shapes, and then it took about 5 mins the next day to 'color' all his drawings in.....coloring in the lines is a concept that still needs some work, and you'd never know how detailed all his petals on the flowers were :-)

I think he's come really far on writing his name for a 4 year old. How does he rate, other moms?

Making Brownies

2009-09-21T20:24:00.003+02:00

This weekend, Mom was recovering from the flu, but while Little Man does his best, sympathy is a challenge to the attention span of a four year old.

So, while mom wanted to be housebound, Kev wanted to go to the petting zoo. The only activity I had in my distraction arsenal was...Making Brownies.

This was his first time to use the electric mixer, and this was also the time introduced him to the joy of getting to lick the mixer attachments afterwards.

The hard part was waiting for the brownies to bake, so while they were in the oven, we set about melting some chocolate on the stove to drizzle on the finished brownies. His concentration where chocolate is concerned is impressive! Once the brownies were cooling on the counter, we drizzled chocolate on the top, a small spoonful at a time. The end result....mmmmmm, and it provided a nice treat in all the brown bag lunches this week:

Oma & Vivi, Week 1 - Leiden, Den Haag and the North Sea

2009-09-12T13:52:00.011+02:00

At the end of the first week of the Oma & Vivi visit, we decided to go palace/castle hunting. ...we made our way from Leiden, to Den Haag (The Hague) to Scheveningen (at the North Sea). Our total route of 50 kilometeres would take over one hour to drive one way, but since we stopped at each location, and took some back roads along the way, it was much longer than that.

On this trip, we went to 4 places:

1) Leiden Castle , 2) Paleis Huis Ten Bosch, 3) Noordeinde Palace, 4) Scheveningen Boulevard

1) Leiden Castle - Leiden Castle began as an artificial hill, was constructed in the 11th century (that's the 1000's!)and an wooden fortification was built on top of it. Around 1150 this wooden fortification was replaced by the present stone castle.

Archeological excavations showed that Leiden Castle was probably never used for permanent habitation and only served as a refuge for the people of Leiden and their belongings in times of peril. In 1203 and again in 1204 the castle was sieged by the Spanish and suffered considerable damage. As the town of Leiden grew around the castle it lost its military function in the beginning of the 14th century after almost 500 years in existence!

In 1651 the castle was bought by the town council of Leiden.
The castle was built on a strategic spot; in a bend of the Old Rhine river. Nowadays that river is reduced to a canal through the city of Leiden and can't be seen from the castle anymore due to all the 18th century buildings that surround the raised hill.

No matter how long I live here, it is amazing, awe-inspiring, and mind boggling to me that within 30 minutes of my house I can see something that is has existed for over 1000 years.

From there, we drove through Den Haag (and some very confusing summer time construction, which meant my GPS was no help at all!) and arrived at 2) Paleis Huis Ten Bosch - The Paleis used to be more accessible, but since the attack on the Royal Family on Queen's Day this year, it was no longer possible to get anywhere near the gates for a photo. We waled parallel for 5-10 minutes in a nearby wood, but there was no way to get close enough to take a picture, and while we could see it (much like this) from where we parked, there was a big closed gate now, and the two armed policeman guarding the gates and noting my license plate didn't seem like they were willing to pose for a photo op, so I'm going to have to settle for a photo I found in my search on the net, taken pre attack:

The Palace dates back to the 1600's. It has only been used again as a Royal residence since 1980, when Queen Beatrix, the current Queen, made it her residence. Before that, it had fallen into disrepair since the the Germans plan to demolish it failed in 1943. The renovations to what is seen today began in 1977.

While we were in Den Haag, I took mom and viv to 3) Noordeinde Palace- in the center of Den Haag. The oldest section of the palace dates from before 1533. In 1795, it became property of the state, as it is still is today. It has been used as the offical royal residence since 1817, except during the German invasion during WWII in 1940.

Right aross from the palace, there is a square with artwork, and various statues and memorials. One of the artworks in particular caught Vivian's eye.....here is it from the front, and then from the back..it made for an interesting photo!

From the center of Den Haag, we drove about 20 minutes to get to the North Sea and the seaside town of Scheveningen to watch the firework on the along the boulevard (totally by accident - every Friday in summer they do fireworks - who knew?!) So, that how we ended up sitting outside on the curb, at the Boulevard, sharing a pizza, watching the sunset and eating pizza on Friday night.

After all the excitement of the fireworks, pizza and being up way past bedtime, it was time to end the day on a good note.....with lots of kisses from Oma (who somehow still had enough lipstick on to leave her mark :-)

What a great end to the week!

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

2009-08-30T16:29:00.004+02:00

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

2009-08-15T11:58:00.011+02:00

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

2009-08-13T22:05:00.001+02:00

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!

School's Out For The Summer

2009-07-07T14:07:00.006+02:00

For something called group 0, it still feels like a milestone of some kind...Little Man has completed group 0! For the next 6 weeks, it's summer vacation here until he starts 'group 1' on the 16th of August.

As part of the end of school, Kevin received his first 'report card'...what he does well, what needs to be improved, etc. For this first report, there were no real grades given in numbers, as it was more of an individual assesement on his first few months in the group. I think the number scoring/grading comes into play as of group 3.

The main difference in grading between here and the US is that here there is a number system from 1-10. Bascially, no-one ever gets a 10 awarded by a teacher/professor...so really it's a scale of 1-9. 6 is passing (barely), 7 is a normal, respectable grade, 8 is very good and 9 is excellent (and rare).

So, without further ado, here is the English translation of his first report card, and the images of the original Dutch if anyone wants to check Mommy's translation skills:

Report of Kevin Fels

working development

He enjoys everything in the classroom to see and do. He can not yet concentrate for long periods on arts and crafts, but he does focus and concentrate on completing puzzles. In the listening circle he has some trouble to listen for a long time and focus, but he finds it very pleasant to take part.

Social-emotional development

Kevin likes to play and talk with the children in the class. He has become quickly accustomed to the group. Kevin has found his spot within the group dynamic. He is also good at standing up for himself.

Motor skills
He does well with joining in the tumble and gym lessons. He moves well and is always in the mood to play outside, which he enjoys very much.

Creative skills
He is willing to work on worksheets and participate in organized activities, but he has a short attention span. He prefers to play freely without structure.

Comments
He is comfortable in his skin, and has already found his place in the group.

Have fun in Group 1 next year and a happy summer holiday!
Teacher Anke and Teacher Bram

Terrible Three's (and Four's)

2009-04-15T17:32:00.010+02:00

The last post was in February? Where does the time go?

When catching up on my blog reading, I came across a post from Holly about "the defiant child". I went to type a reply and realized there was a blog post of my own in there to mine rather than a comment on someone else's ....Sorry Holly!!

(but I love the wordle - had to do one for Little Man's Blog, too!)

I do remember that as I got older I dared more to "back talk" my mom, but smart aleck comments (and ok, a petty need to have the last word) were more my style than the outright rudeness of 'shut up' 'I hate you', etc. I was still pretty scared of making my mom mad and earning one of her signature glares (which she comes by honestly...the nana glares are the worst!)well into my teens. I also remember hearing (on more than one occassion)my mother's wish that someday I would have a child 'just like me'. I used to laugh and reply that I was never going to have kids, so there! hahahaha.......fast forward to the end of 2008.

Kevin is 3.5, and while I think he's a pretty cool and well adjusted kid overall, he's developed the habit of having to have the last word for everything...If I'm upset, he tells me he's more upset, he says 'no' when asked to do things (or suddendly develops hearing problems), he turns his back when you talk to him, the whole nine yards. Time outs are more of a fight to get him to sit for than the original 'fight', and just when I think the techniques you read about in all the parenting books are going to help me win the war, Little Man finds the Achilles' Heel: "I don't want to live with you anymore. It's no fun here. I like it with Papa (dad) much more. I want to live with papa."

It lacks the short punch of "I don't love you", but for all it's wordiness, it hurts that much more...there seems to be so much consideration behind the word choice. Direct Hit, Battleship Sunk, Checkmate......

The first time he dropped this wordy bombshell, I went ballistic (exactly what you aren't supposed to do, thank you What to expect: The First Four Years) and sent him to bed. The second time, I ignored him completely ('look, a raincloud! Isn't that exiciting') which only meant he felt the need to repeat it, at a progressively louder volume, much like American tourists in a foreign country asking for directions (but I digress..)

The last time he said it, was at the end of a week of business travel, not having seen Little Man for almost a week, coming back to fight with kitchen contractors, bank mix ups, and a full week of work to complete in one working day, rushing home Friday night to collect Little Man, and, upon waking the following morning looking forward to a 'Mommy day', having the following conversation:

'Good Morning Little Man'
mumble
'Shall we go downstairs and have breakfast'?
'I want cookies'
'Cookies aren't for breakfast. You want cereal or toast?'
'I can eat cookies with Papa. I don't want to stay with you, I want to go and live with Papa'
And that was the moment I had a mini meltdown. All the phone conversations with my mom over the last months (you know he doesn't mean it), went right out the window. I put my hands in my head and felt tears rolling down my face. What was I supposed to say? Should I just give up and let him move in with Dad?

The change in Kevin was incredible. He rushed to find a Kleenex, wiped my cheek, told me not to cry, and then said 'I Love you mommy, you don't have to cry'. I thought, this might be my chance. I sat with him on my lap and told him I did have to cry, becuase sometimes words hurt. hurt words hurt just as much as falling down. He thought about this, looked at my knee and asked if I needed a spiderman band-aid? I then said that when you hurt with words, a spiderman band-aid doesn't help, because it's inside that hurts. Again the look......'I don't want mommy to hurt'.

I gave him a hug and told him that it hurt to hear he doesn't like it with me, becuase I like being with him very much, and I would be very sad if he didn't want to stay with me anymore. Then, we agreed that it's ok to love both mom and dad, and stay at both mom and dad's house. We were reading a story later when he said 'I love you mommy'...and suddenly things felt right again. What a crazy power the little ones have!

I won't say he's cured completely, but since that day he hasn't again said that he doesn't like it with me. I'll take the occasional 'no' any day.

I'll feel blessed if this one of those lessons he learns early in life - that words can hurt. And I hope my mom didn't really mean it when she wished a child just like me on me....was I really that bad?

Flat Stanley's Adventures in Nederland part 2

2009-02-11T16:14:00.004+01:00

Celebrations and Sinterklaas

Starting from November 15th, Sinterklaas arrived in The Netherlands. The Sinterklaas feast celebrates the birthday of Saint Nicholas (280-342), patron saint of children.

Sinterklaas has a long red cape, wears a white bishop's dress and red mitre (bishop's hat), and holds a crosier, a long gold coloured staff with a fancy curled top. He carries a big book that tells whether each individual child has been good or naughty in the past year. He traditionally rides a white horse.

"Zwarte Piet," Sinterklaas' helping hand Black Pete. Their black skin may refer either to their Moorish background, or to the job of chimneysweep, an option is corroborated by their clothes, reminiscent of an Italian chimneysweep's costume and Pete's rooftop occupation. Sinterklaas and his Black Petes usually carry a bag, which contains candy for nice children and a "roe," a bunch of willow branches used to spank naughty children — in actuality a chimneysweep's broom. The Zwarte Pieten toss candy around.

Sinterklaas traditionally arrives each year in November - this year it was Saturday the 15th in the town of Almere - by steamboat from Spain. He is then paraded through the streets, welcomed by cheering and singing children. His Zwarte Piet assistants throw candy and small, round, ginger bread-like cookies, either "kruidnoten" or "pepernoten," into the crowd. The children welcome him by singing traditional Sinterklaas songs. Sinterklaas also visits schools, hospitals and shopping centres. After this arrival all towns with a dock have their own "intocht van Sinterklaas" (arrival of Sinterklaas). Local arrivals usually take place on Sunday, the day after he arrives in the Netherlands. In places a boat cannot reach, Sinterklaas arrives by train, bus, horse, or even carriage.

Traditionally, in the weeks between his arrival and December 5, before going to bed children put their shoes next to the central heating, with a carrot or some hay in it and a bowl of water "for Sinterklaas's horse," and sing a Sinterklaas song; the next day they will find some candy or a small present in their shoes, thrown down the chimney by a Zwarte Piet or Sinterklaas himself. Black Pete enters the house through the chimney. In The Netherlands adults started to give each other presents on the evening of the 5th; then older children were included and today in these countries sometimes even the youngest on the evening of December 5 (Saint Nicholas' eve), known as Sinterklaasavond.

After the singing of traditional Sinterklaas songs, there will be a loud knock on the door or the window, and a sack full of presents is found on the doorstep, or next to the chimney. Presents are often accompanied by a simple poem, saying something about the child or with a hint to the nature of the present.

During the time between the 15th and the 5th, Kevin and Flat Stanley attended parties in Nieuwegein (where mom's first dutch apartment was), at preschool, at his 'gastouder' Anky's house and finally on the evening of December 5th, Kevin celebrated with both his parents together at his father's house. Kevin dressed up at School as a 'Zwarte Piet' and at the party in Nieuwegein, he made his own "Zwarte Piet" hat and got to shake the hand of Sinterklaas!

Between Sinterklaas and Christmas - Kinderboederij and the Speelkasteel

Shortly after Sinterklaas, but before the real build-up to Christmas began, we took advantage of an ok day weather wise to go to the Kinderboderij (children's farm) in Hoofddorp. He had a lot of fun seeing the sheep, chicken and rabbits, and Stanley and Kevin even 'rode' on the play tractor at the end of the visit.

The children's farms are sort of like a petting zoo, but they are run as a real farm, on land donated by the city or a private individual, and run usually by volunteers on donations and sponsors. Entrance is free every day between 10 am and 4 or 4.30. We try to go at least 2 times a month. Our favourite ones is in Nieuw Vennep because it has a much better petting area for the rabbits, gerbils and hamsters. Kevin calls it the 'big one' :-). We also visit together with Papa one in Hoofddorp frequently, which is not too far from where papa lives (also in Hoofddorp).

Also in Hoofddorp is a large indoor playground and climbing castle. We've blogged about it before (most recently with Winne & Lars), and the speelkasteel will be where Kevin's 4th Birthday party will be this year. Kevin loves to ride the motorcycles and play air-hockey, and Stanley was his cheerleader at our trip before we went back to the US.

We hope that Stanley had as fun fun during his adventures as we did! We look forward to hearing from Vivian where he's off to next!

Didi Bear and Kevin

Flat Stanley's Adventures in Nederland - Part 1

2009-02-02T15:32:00.013+01:00

Back in October, I received a letter from Vivian asking me to participate in a project at School....They had recently read a book about Flat Stanley and his adventures, and everyone in the class made their own. These Stanelys would be mailed to relatives and friends all over to have their own adventures and then the class would place pins on a map for all the places Flat Stanley has been through the school year. I did my best to be a good big sis and participate, but part of the 'assignment' was to write a story about his adventures. I've had great intentions to do so, but have yet to get all the ideas about stories, pictures, google maps and wikipedia entries into one flow...until now. Here is the first of my two part series about Flat Stanley and his Dutch adventures!

Flat Stanley has been all over the Netherlands with Kevin and I between October and December. During those months, he lived in my camera case, so that whenever we were somewhere interesting, I could take a photo with him....I didn't always remember to get those 'Kodak moments', but wherever my camera was, there was Stanley!

When we came to the US to see Oma and Opa in December, we brought him back to the US in our carry- on luggage..nothing less than first class for Stanley. :-)

Here are the adventures (with pictures when I remembered) we had together while he was visiting, together with a map of all the places we visited in the Netherlands. On each pin or flag on this map, I've added a description of the town and what adventure it was that took place. Click on the blue pin to see what we've done:

View Larger Map

Visiting Schiphol Airport/Watching Planes:

Schiphol is an important European airport. In 2007, Schiphol handled over 47 million passengers, ranking fifth in Europe. From Schiphol, direct flights are operated to more than 260 destinations in 91 countries.

Schiphol has five main runways - the latest of these, the Polderbaan (nicknamed the "fifth runway", was completed in 2003. Plans have already been made for a sixth main runway.

The Schiphol Air traffic control tower, with a height of 101 m, was the tallest in the world when constructed in 1991. Schiphol is geographically the world's lowest major commercial airport. The entire airport is below sea level; the lowest point sits at 11 feet below sea level; the runways are around 10 ft below sea level.

In the main terminal, there is an observation deck called the Panorama Deck that you can walk 360 degree around and view planes in the gates as well as taxiing, taking off and landing. On a clear fall day, we went up to there with Flat Stanley to show him the planes.

Another time, on a rainy Sunday, we went back to the Airport to eat pancakes and have Starbucks lattes. Schiphol is the only place in the Netherlands that there is a Starbucks! Stanley came along so he could have a little taste of 'home'......

St Maarten

Stanley also came with us on the night of St. Maarten - St Maarten is celebrated in some areas of the Netherlands, (The province we live in is one of them). While the holiday has a religious background, the modern celebration would be closest (I think) to an American Halloween. St Maarten is on November 11th, which fell on a Wednesday this year. I took off work early so that we could have dinner with the three other children that made up the group in Almere, and we started the rounds at 6pm, when it was already dark. Here you can't see Stanley, but his arms were over the outside of the bag so that we was along for the ride the whole evening. It was cold, but it stayed dry for the two hours we were out. That's a whole lot of knocking and singing!

Fels Look-alike Meter

2009-01-29T15:44:00.004+01:00

Thought this was fun to see, and answers the age old question "Who does the little one look more like - Mom or Dad?"

In our case, it's pretty close, but it's official...Little Man looks more like his Mommy!

MyHeritage: Family tree - Genealogy - Celeb - Collage - Morph

New Year, New Skills

2009-01-18T21:43:00.006+01:00

In the last few weeks, Kevin's language skills have grown by leaps and bounds. Since we've been back from the US, he's really taken to English. He loves to ask me out of the blue 'Do you speaka English momma?' and then when I say yes he asks me (in Dutch) to 'say something' and then laughs at whatever I do say. Besides the Q&A, it's really struck me how much English he picked up with just two weeks around Oma, Opa and Vivi.

Seeing him in full sponge mode has made me aware again of how intelligent he seems to me - I guess every mom thinks that - but I see such potential in him to be an all rounder. It not that he's writing symphonies or recreating the Sistine chapel frescoes with his finger paints, but in general he can count very well, he's got good hand eye coordination, a good vocabulary (starting now in multiple languages) and I am very lucky that he's been blessed with a basically happy personality. All these observations have a point, I promise.....it's almost school time!

Since we've been back, he's started his first,(for lack of a better term),internship at school. I don't know what else to call it, but for up to 10 weeks before a child's 4th birthday, they can have 'trial days' at the school. He's met his teacher, (Mister Bram), he has his chair with his name on it, and between now and March, every Friday is his school day.

He still goes to pre-school 1 day per week, so for now he has two school days. As of March 4th, He'll be full time in kindergarten. The school schedule will be half days on Wednesdays and Fridays and full days (8.30am - 3.00pm) on Monday, Tuesday and Thursdays. It seems a lot for such a little guy, but I've noticed that there is less homework here...they get more done during the day to allow for kid time outside of school hours, and the school system here overall is excellent.

I have no doubt that, should we ever move to the US, that he would be at least on par if not advanced to most of his peers, plus have languages he'd not be exposed to otherwise. It's funny for me as well to find myself thinking so much about his future, who and what he can be, the options I hope he'll have....It seems he's hit this kind of magical age where you not only think about and enjoy the moment - (which is where I think I spent most of his 'babyhood') - but now I see the little person within developing and coming to the fore. That makes me think longer term, too.

On purely a fun note, we went to the indoor play area two weeks ago, and at 11.30 in the morning there was a children's disco. Here is Kevin dancing away.

Videos From The Holidays

2009-01-07T17:35:00.003+01:00

Here are a few recent movies I've shot with my digital camera. I know every parent should have a real video camera, but in the meantime, here are a few short video clips from the last couple of months.....Enjoy!

Fireworks on New Year's Eve back here in NL......

Kevin on Sinterklaas (december 5th) dressed as a 'Zwarte Piet'
waiting for the knock on the door with the presents!

Vacation Pictures

2009-01-06T11:25:00.012+01:00

This Year, I couldn't resist....I bought Little Man a four piece suit for Christmas. Velvet vest, clip on tie, the whole nine yards. As his mommy, am I allowed to call him adorable?

Posing for photos is something he's getting better at, or at least he now has a *little* bit of patience for.

Here he is 'working out' with Vivian on Oma's treadmill

This trip he was even more Vivian's Little Shadow.....when it came time to leave, he first spent almost 30 minutes trying to convince everyone 'Vivi' needed to come with us, and when that didn't get a yes, he next option was to say he wasn't going to go if Vivi didn't go, because he wanted to stay with Vivi!

Together in their OSU sets from Oma for Christmas.....

...and playing with "auntie' (Andrea)

The Big hit this Christmas was his Singing Spiderman and echo microphone......

Almost the whole family was together this Christmas......3 of my 4 aunts and uncles were all together on Christmas day to spend time with Nana. Aunt Cathi, Aunt Carol, Mom, and Uncle Jeff are here with Nana. Only Uncle Mike is missing from this family photo.....

The morning we left, Oma was the one to wake Little Man...here are some of the last snuggles of the trip.

Oma Promised to come visit us with Opa and Vivian this year! Watch this space! :-)

Happy New Year!

2009-01-05T14:44:00.002+01:00

Wow.....2009 already?!..............It's hard to imagine that in March (7 weeks, give or take), Kevin will start school.....and the last little bit of 'baby' will be gone once he hits that magic age of 4.

This was our last chance to plan our vacations whenever we wanted......soon we'll have to follow the 'school vacation' schedule (like 15 million other Dutchies).

We took advantage of this last year of freedom to plan an extra long, 3 week break. 2 weeks with Oma, Opa and Vivi, and a few days back home. Today was the first day back to work and daycare and it was hard for both of us........

Pictures of the vacation to follow soon, and to everyone a Happy 2009!

Watching Planes

2008-11-14T16:05:00.015+01:00

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

2008-11-12T10:52:00.014+01:00

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

2008-10-30T16:14:00.005+01:00

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?

2008-10-13T10:45:00.003+02:00

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

2008-08-25T10:28:00.002+02:00

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?

2008-08-11T15:44:00.008+02:00

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

2008-06-27T16:34:00.007+02:00

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

2008-06-10T15:25:00.002+02:00

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

2008-05-24T09:36:00.007+02:00

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

2008-03-07T17:16:00.009+01:00

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

2008-02-19T10:32:00.005+01:00

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?

11 November - St. Maarten

2007-11-27T11:11:00.000+01:00

This year on November 11th, Kevin joined in his first St. Maarten celebration. St Maarten is celebrated in some areas of the Netherlands, (The province we live in is one of them). While the holiday has a religious background (you can read about here on Wikipedia: ) the modern celebration would be closest ( I think) to an American Halloween. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Martin

We met up with Winnie and Lars (from the 'Sprookjesbos' post, remember?) and we went to Winnie's sisters' house in Almere, about a 35 minute drive away, who has two girls, aged 4 and 7. It was a nice group of 4 children and 3 moms to go out together through the neighborhood.

While the kids don't dress up, they do make paper lanterns and set a candle in the middle (or the safety version is a little LED light on a plastic fishing pole apparatus) which they carry door to door, and then ring the door bell and sing a little song in exchange for some kind of treat.

It's a little rhyming song _ there are many versions, I guess, but we went simple, and the translated version goes something like this:

'Here comes St. Maarten

the cows have tails

the girls have skirts on

there goes St Maarten'

(it sounds cute in Dutch, really!)

Kevin enjoyed getting the candy, (although when they put a bowl in front of him, he can't seem to choose...he just stood there and looked overwhelmed by the decision of choosing just one treat out of a big bowl of treats, especially when there were different candies in the same bowl!) but no so much the singing until we were at the end of the hour and 3 houses away from where we started....then I heard him sing for the first time. Of course, at 2 1/2, with a home made lantern, he got candy just for showing up and being the cutie he is :-)

It was a fun evening, and much more enjoyable for mommy to join in with other Dutch families. I don't know that i would have taken Kevin on my own around even our small neighborhood. It was definitely a case of the more the merrier!

A day at the Efteling

2007-11-23T13:59:00.000+01:00

In October, Jan-Kees' company had an outing at the Efteling, a disneyland style fairy tale amusement park in the south of the Netherlands. I've been twice before in my 10 years here, both times before Little Man. Even though this was something that should be a 'papa' event, I wsa asked to come along becuase the entrance covered two adults, and the thought of J-K on his own with Kevin in an acres big, crowded park made me more than a little nervous, so I tagged along for my own piece of mind, and to enjoy the day through the eyes of Little Man.

It was on a Sunday, which meant getting up at 6.00am, meeting up at 7.30 and driving the 1.5 hours south to get the park at around 9am. It was a very cold but clear morning, and after some warm coffee and a donut welcome session, we were allowed to hit the park at the 10am opening time, to be first in line for everything we wanted to do at that time of the day.

First we did the boat ride attraction '1001 nights', which was a bit freaky even for my taste and Kevin seemed to not like at all. His verdict: A little scary. Sso, off we went to a water ride where you get splashedby rapids and bump into other boats during rapids and mini waterfalls...kevin had a blast, (and the only one to stay dry) but it was still quite cool in the morning and both J-K and I ended up soaking wet.

From there we walked (Kevin ran, of course) to a different section of the park, then it was time to ride the carousel with papa so I could take pictures. From the carousel it was time to have a coffee, and by then Little Man (having been awake since 5.30) was getting quite grumpy, so for the first time that day he was strapped in the buggy (under loud and public protests, of course) , and feel asleep 5 mins later in mid whine about how he wanted to walk.

For the next hour, Kevin dozed in his buggy while we wandered through the rest of the park and formed the battle plan for the rest of the afternoon. There was the pagoda that takes you 100 feet in the air and does a slow turn so you have a view of the whole park, then we did the outdoor boat that lets your turn and wander through a man made lake/lagoon for 20 mins, and then it was time to hop on the choo choo train for a tour of the outer edge of the park, then back to the buggy and the long walk from where we were to the exits.

We stopped at the gift shop and turned a 5 cent piece (which looks similiar to a US penny) into a stretched and stamped souvenir, then he was allowed to pick one something as a reminder of the day and he chose a turtle from one of the rides he liked the least, but the animal he loved.

By then it was 3.30 in the afternoon and mommy at least was done for the day, but I still had the drive back to do. Kevin watched a DVD and talked to himself (and us) about the day, the cars we passed, the cows we saw......1.5 hours of running commentary from a wired 2.5 year old...it makes the time and kilometeres pass, that's for sure :-)

Bad Mommy!

2007-11-23T13:10:00.000+01:00

I know, I know.....It's been a while. Life has been especially hectic (which isn't a good excuse, but there you go) but I have been taking photos occasionally. So, here's the first in a series of what Little Man has been up since the last couple of months:

1) Playing outside whenever possible:

There is a park nearby the house (It's one house away close) where Kevin likes to play. The summer was one of the worst on record here, but September and October had more nice weather days (as in, it didn't rain) than May, June, July and August combined, so we took advantage of it every chance we got.

The park has two sets of playground equipment: One for small children with safety everything, then a section for bigger kids with a big slide you can can only get to the top of by climbing a rope-net ladder and a big see-saw. There is also a soccer (football) field and in between the two sets of playground equipment: a basketball hoop and ping pong table. Something for everyone I guess.

He always starts out at the age appropriate playground, but the lure of the big slide is just too much for Little Man. The rope net ladder one needs to scale to reach the top of the (I guess) 8 foot tall slide is spaced too big for his height and legs (as it should be) but that means mommy gets to 'help' him climb the ladder each time he wants to slide. The slide at the other end of the playground that he can do all by himself is too short and easily conquered compared to Slide Everest. I love to see the sense of adventure he has, and the total lack of fear when it comes to these kind of things. I'm not sure if that makes him crazy, or just incredibly trusting of his mommy's ability to cure everything with a kiss (in which case: crazy!)

Santa's Head Elf

2007-10-01T13:48:00.000+02:00

Just some photos of Kevin starting to work on his Christmas presents for all the Oma's and Opa's.........

First Day of (Toddler) School

2007-09-24T15:32:00.000+02:00

September 5th was the day we officially didn't have a 'Mommy Day' each week anymore.

Here in the Netherlands, there is a kind of toddler school that they start from the age of 2. Since Kevin turned 2 in March, and there was a waiting list for the school I wanted him to go to, he started instead after the summer in the 2007-2008 school year.

The most exciting thing by far for him was his own special backpack, packed with a change of clothes, diapers and wipes, and of course a special drink cup (winnie the pooh, of course!) with his name on it that's just for Wednesdays.

The idea that he has to stay on his own (Mommies and Daddies are only allowed for 15 minutes between 8.45 and 9.00) is still causing some minor drama when I have to leave, but the teachers assure me his eyes are dry almost before I'm out of sight. It's part of the larger issue right now he has with letting me out of his sight period (see the posting ' Change is the Only Constant'. I hope it's something that will get better on it's own as he realizes that I always come back.

A Trip to the Zoo

2007-09-21T12:43:00.000+02:00

Has it already been a month since my last update?! Bad Mommy! :-)

There has been so much going on here with Mommys work, that while I've been getting better about taking pictures, I've been less attentive about creating new blog entries, it appears.

At the end of August, it was Kevin's last 'free' Wednesday before he would start the Peuterspeelzaal (loosely translated: toddler play center) in September. I decided to mark this last whole 'Mommy day' this with a trip to the zoo in Amsterdam, Artis.

We spent a good three and a half hours at the zoo, with Kevin walking almost the whole time (he had his first heel blister the next day). There was so much to see.

Highlights had to be: the Aquarium (complete with Nemo's!).......................

............Feeding time of the Elephants and Lions..(he got a great view of the feeding time by getting the high level view on Honey's shoulders, photos above)..........................

.......the Pengiun exhibt (or 'Happy Feet! Happy Feet pengiuns mama!' as Kevin called them) , the monkeys......

......................and the giant turtle.

The picture shows the giant turtle with his 'little buddy', but just to give you an idea of how big the big guy was.....they had a shell outside the exhibt that children could crawl through like a tunnel. Two or even three children could fit in the shell at a time. This is a big, old turtle. They can live to be well over one hundred years old, and they estimate this one is close to 100 itself.

We ended the day with pizza in the Marriott hotel in the center of Amsterdam (one of three or four places in all of the Netherlands where you can get Pizza Hut pizza) for the delicious end (pizza is 'Lekker!') to a perfect but busy day!

Weekend Play

2007-08-15T19:28:00.000+02:00

I don't know how it happened, but Kevin is a little boy through and through. Cars, construction sites, trains.....all of these are endless sources of entertainment and excitement.

For his first birthday, Kevin got a wooden train set from IKEA. the wooden tracks can be made into a circle, oval or kiney shapes with the curved pieces, or a figure eight when you use all the parts and the bridges. there are four little train cars that connect to each other with magnets. The whole system is simple...no batteries, no noises or lights.....just imagination and play. At the time, it wasn't very interesting, except to take apart the tracks once mom or dad had put everything together...........

The original set ended up with Dad in the divorce, but a few months ago I picked up the same set to see if Kevin was ready to play with it on his own. it's been played with a total of three times in the last six months or so, but this past weekend it was rediscovered in the cabinet, and Little Man knew exactly what to do with it!

He can't use all the pieces on his own just yet (the bridge pieces and making the figure eight are a bit too complicated), but he can play for long stretches of time once the tracks are assembled. It's wonderful to watch him play, pushing the trains along the tracks, crawling along on the floor, making choo choo noises.

Some days it truly amazes me what a complete little person he's already become. The advances he makes seem to come in leaps in bounds. There are days for sure he embodies the 'terrible two's', but mostly this is just such an amazing time to watch him develop and grow.

The Little Artist

2007-08-14T21:08:00.000+02:00

Friday when I picked up Kevin after work, he came bearing gifts. He'd made an aquarium. He decorated the fish, painted the tank, laid down the shells and pearls on the bottom...it was amazing how much of the project he had done on his own with just a little supervision (and someone to hang the fish so they were 'swimming').

With his day care provider, Kevin has made some great gifts for Mother's Day, Father's Day, etc....but this was the first project he'd really done on his own without any special occasion attachted to it. His Mommy thought his 'fishies' turned out great!

Change is the only Constant

2007-08-10T12:41:00.000+02:00

When I stop to think about it, it has been a very full and probably 7 weeks or so for little man. First, I was gone for almost two weeks while he stayed with his dad and went to daycare, then I came home and he was with me and going to day care for a week.

Then, the vacation period started. Our normal daycare provider went on holiday a week before we did, so Kevin was off to a replacement provider for a week, and on that week Friday I picked him up and we drove to the vacation park for 10 days.

He had a blast - and not much of anything that was like his normal structured schedule during the days. After that, it was back home, a week with just mommy at home (and the pool and the fairly tale woods, and the zoo with daddy) ....... then this week, back to his normal day care, but at a new location .

As a result ( I think) he's decided he doesn't want to go to daycare anymore. Each day, the crying starts as soon as we put clothes on. 'Nee, Kevin gaat niet naar Anky toe!' (No, Kevin will not go to Anky!) Yesterday was a very loud tearful goodbye when I finally left to go to work, and this morning he started again almost as soon as he was awake and he realized mommy was getting ready for work.

So, today was all about bargaining. I admit I'm weak. It was so unlike him to cry and carry on like he did yesterday that I really felt like an afwul mother, abandoning her child for 10 hours a day. I didn't think I could handle a similiar scene again today so when he started in with the 'Nee, Kevin gaat niet naar Anky toe!' I countered with: 'Today you have to go to Anky, but not tomorrow.' 'Today yes, tomorrow no.' I just kept repeating 'today yes, tomorrow no' everytime he started to fuss.

We got in to the car without too much hassle as I explained (well, I tried) that, 'When mommy goes to work, Kevin goes to Anky. But, when mommy doesn't go to work, Kevin stays with mommy.' All he got out of it was 'morgen niet naar Anky, morgen Kevin niet naar Anky' which he made into a little song as we drove to Anky.

When we arrived at Anky's, he shot me a look that clearly said 'What are we doing here?!' but he got out of the car and went inside. When he started to fuss, I told him 'today here, tomorrow with mommy...... today yes, tomorrow no' and he quieted down and even walked me to the door to open and close it for me as is the normal morning ritual. I avoided a blow up today, but who knows how next week will go? :-)

Vacation Part 3 - SprookjesBos (Fairy Tale Forest)

2007-08-09T10:06:00.000+02:00

The last week of our summer holidays, Kevin and I met up with a friend and her son to go to the SpookjesBos in Enkhuizen (up in the north of the country). Lars is just 6 weeks older than Kevin, so it was great to go on an outing where Kevin had someone his own age to run around with.

The 'forest' part of the park is filled with these little houses and areas from fairy tales and children's stories (some Dutch specific, but not all) They are done on a scale that the windows are the perfect peeking height for children between the ages of 2 and 5. Each little house is a new scene, and some have songs or part of the rhymes spoken when you walk up to them.

The house pictured below, for example, is the one from Hansel and Gretel, and when we walked up to it, a bit of the story was read to us by the witch. The magic woods took most of the morning to wander through.

The cave that held the elf village was one we had to drag them crying from after we'd been there 15 minutes and heard the story 4 times...when the village gets dark, and all the elves go inside for the night, thunder and lighting started and a witch flew over the village on her broomstick.

From the woods, we went on to the Wizards lake, which didn't interest the duo near as much as the water surrounded by big boulders and the cicrcular layout which meant they could run around and around and around and climb on rocks, and point at the water, and run around and......

Of course, playgrounds with slides are always a big hit, and this park had a lot of slides. We stopped at lamost every one we came across. Small slides, medium slides, twisty slides....slides in tree houses, across bridges, you name it, they slid down it.

One highlight was the ladybug boats they could 'drive' all on thier own. That one we had to do again, even thoug Kevin wasn't too sure at first about mom getting out of his sight for a few seconds at a time the first go-round. He did enjoy it, and after a break at the slide play area near by, it was back for another boat trip. The first ride was included in the admission price, but for extra rides you had to purchase coupons for €.50 each and go to the back of the line. the price for the coupons was ok, but after the second trip, the line had gotten awfully long to do it a third time, so we called it good at 2. It was just over an hour drive each way to get to and from the park, and we were there for a good 4 hours at the park itself before calling it day with two very tired little men to guide back into their car seats!

What a great day! We made a 'date' to go back after the summer holidays when it should be more quiet so we get a chance to do the things we didn't make it to this time around becuase of long lines or tired little men (and mommys, by the end of the day!) The complete 81 photos from this trip (I know, I know....'only 81 photos') are on our photo album on flickr. Click here to go directly to the album

Vacation and Travels (Part 2) - CenterParcs

2007-08-07T15:11:00.000+02:00

After Mommy's solo trip to the US for work (and the much needed play weekend with her mommy) it was two weeks of hectic work and then two weeks of holidays together with Little Man.

The first week we spent at a bungalow park in Belgium (well, 5 kilometers over the border from the Netherlands, but still, it's already my 3rd time this year. It works well right now becuase it's a max 2-3 hour drive, we can bring the dogs, and since were not at home, we actually relax instead of doing all kinds of projects and busy work. Still the accomodations leave something to be desired for the price you pay, and while all the nature is lovely, is a screen or two over the windows to keep the mosquitos out really so much to ask for?

The weather was not in our favor for this trip. It rained. Alot. It meant we spent a lot of time in our little bungalow with the faint musty smell and the mysteriously wet floors for hours after the shower, bath or dishwasher was used. During the day we could try to keep the windows and doors open, but come dusk time that was not a good idea unless you wanted to be on the menu for the approximately 50 billion mosquitos in residence at the bungalow park.....

Still, the nice 'nature' meant long walks with the dogs, trips to the petting zoo when the sun shined, and we did make use of the indoor pool complex several times. Little Man got really into it and asked every day if we could 'zwemmen kijken' ('look at swimming', by which he meant 'go play in the water')

We were at the park for 9 nights, and then the second working week of my vacation started. Monday night Little Man went to papa for two nights and spent Tuesday at the Zoo in Amersfoort with papa looking at the tigers and giraffes and other 'wow' animals.

'Nee, I Love You More'

2007-08-07T09:26:00.000+02:00

While I was away at the end of June, I spoke to Kevin about every other day. He loves talking on the 'hello' (telephone) and some days he jabbers away and other days we only go round and round about who loves who more.

Kevin speaks a lot of Dutch right now, I'd guess about 2/3 of his vocabulary right now is Dutch, but there are some words that I just always use in English. ' I Love You' is one of those ('Ik hou van jou' just doesn't have the same ring to it) His other English words are 'please', 'thank you', 'bink' (pacifier) and 'I Love You More'.

So, when we have a phone conversation, I tell him I love him, he says 'I love you', then I say 'I love you more'. Then he says 'Nee, (do I have to translate that one?) I love you more'.

For all the other times we 'fight' about his use of the word Nee (loudly and often, at the moment) This is one time I enjoy hearing it!

When I came home from this last trip, he ran into my arms, took my face in his hands and just grinned from ear to ear before hugging me and saying 'mama, I love you too' . It was one of those moments I know I must be doing ok as a mom if this little man can love me so much.

Travels and Vacation (part 1)

2007-08-07T08:33:00.000+02:00

It really has been a whirlwind summer this year. At the end of June it, was off to California for a week's worth of meetings with colleagues from around the world, and since I was already that direction, of course I had to stay on for a few days and at least see my mom, if I wasn't going to make it back to the hometown 'burg this trip.

So, after the work part was all done (which means long days where almost every moment is planned from the time you wake up until at least 10 pm at night, day after day) it was a quick flight for a few days of playing in Vegas! Acutally, quite a few of my international colleagues had the same idea, so it could have been like a mini convention, but I didn't see a single face I recgonized in our three days there.

The real purpose for doing Las Vegas now, this year, was that this was the last year of Celine Dion's 5 year run at Ceasear's Palace. Mom and I were in Las Vegas in January 2003, when the Theatre for her show was being finished, and we kind of made a pact that we'd be back to see that show before it ended. It was originally only a three year show, which the pregnancy and arrival of my Little Man pretty wiped wiped out the option for. When the show was extended through the end of 2007 though.....we had to go! I know no-one is actually supposed to admit to liking her music, but the theatre has 4,000 seats which were, even in it's fifth year at 4 or 5 shows a week, for 40 weeks of the year, at least 80% full. For the record, it was an incredible show!

So, Vegas was great...we shopped, we slept out, we were at the pool at 11pm when it was still 90 degrees outside.....it was hot! This may seem like a no-brainer, but I mean it was hot like 'step outside and feel your fingers swell like sausages' hot. It was a great excuse to spend the days in air-conditioned shops and theme hotels (we like the Ventian, in case you can't tell from our flickr photo album) but as soon as you stepped outside the heat hit you like a wall. Overall, I enjoyed this trip, but I'd plan the next trip for winter or spring.

I missed my Little Man, but it was also 10 days to just be me. Sometimes it's nice to remember I'm not only Kevin Daniels' Mommy (although I love having that responsibility 99.9% of the time!)

The Launch of Kevin Daniel's (and his mommy's) Blog!

2007-08-06T15:59:00.000+02:00

I must be the last person I know I start a blog. I've been envious of my Best Friend's Blog since she started it after her son was born, but it seemed so time consuming, so artsy, so unlike me that I figured I'd stick to the updates to family and friends via e-mail and free on-online photo albums.

Yet, while the e-mails go out at different times to different people, the content is always pretty much the same (if worded sometimes more carefully than others) and the pictures are always digital 'brag books' of my little man. So, why not combine all that into one place and just send everyone the link?

Well, my employer wouldn't be happy to know that a good part of my first day back after two weeks of holiday was spent on figuring out how to do just that......pretty soon, Yahoo photos won't exist any more, so the first thing I had to do was move all my photos to flickr. Oh, that can't be so difficult, can it?

Between that little move across cyberspace, setting up this blog and linking them both to a google gmail account (and all to each other, I hope) I've spent the better part of three hours at this now. (Ok, maybe four, but I did 'real work' in between, I swear!) I think I finally have it all up and running now.

I have to say, at the end of this set up process, I somehow feel old at 29. And, truthfully, a little out of touch in a world of MySpace profiles and iPods and this kind of stuff that feels like everyone else does with no effort in no time at all.

The future posts will be photos and notes from me, Kevin Daniel's Mommy :-) To keep everyone in the loop, so to speak, and to keep those photo's up to date for everyone! Next up should be the vacation post and photos (though I'll only post a few here and leave the rest on flickr). The url for our photo album on flickr is here, so please bookmark and check this blog and our photo albums reguarly!