Holland...the conclusion

Last one.  I promise.

There was just soooo much to do and see.  As you may have guessed, I loved Holland.  We headed for Haarlem.  IT WAS ONE OF MY FAVORITES.  I recently read "The Hiding Place."  I'm ashamed to say that I had never read it before, but it was fabulous and I instantly fell in love with the Ten Boom Family.  Their story and faith was amazing.  Haarlem was one of the places I was most excited to visit, and it did not disappoint. 

 Right outside the Corrie Ten Boom House.

 Another view of the house.  It is now a museum and the bottom is a watch/jewelery shop (if you've read the book, you'll understand that significance).  

 This tour was really neat, because they let the kids actually go into the hiding place.  It was really neat to actually put a picture with what I read in the book.  This is Liv going into the bookcase "hiding place."


 This was Corrie's room where the hiding place was.  When the warning buzzer would go off, they would hurry to this room and crawl through the bottom shelf into the hiding place and then Corrie would put the back of the shelf in and put the towels over it.  (The hole in the wall was put there for tour purposes.  That way we could see how small the space was.  Six adults stayed in that tiny space for almost 3 days!  The miraculous thing was that they were never found by the Nazi's and finally a friend who knew about the hiding place came and rescued them. Loved the tour!

 Haarlem also has one of the pretties churches.

 It has a gorgeous wooden slat roof.  The organ in this church was played by Handel and Motzart!

 Okay, am I terrible for putting this up?  

While at the church they were having an art exhibit that we looked at.  This was one of the pieces.  

REALLY?!

  I mean, do you see the ipod? 

 We also spent some time at the beach.  Cold, but so nice.  

I'm telling you, Holland has everything!

Driving on the roads we saw lots and lots of these images.

 Seriously?

This looks like just a bunch of letters stuck together.  They speak this!

 The place we stayed had a great playground. After long days of sight seeing, we'd head back and play at the playground.

 Another really cool thing was the cheese market we went too.

 And yes, it was the best cheese I've ever had.

 We got to hold the cheese wheels.  They are seriously heavy.  The kids needed help holding them. The "cheese men" were hauling about 6 or 7 at a time!

Ever since watching "Best Two Years (a family favorite)," Dudi has wanted to try Hollands Haring (raw fish...yuck!).  At the cheese market he got his chance!

 He ate the whole thing!  

 
 We visited the city of Delft which is known for it's "Delft Blue pottery."  It is gorgeous and the genuine handpainted items can only be bought from 2 factories in Delft that make it.  We went to one of the factories...and Dudi and I got a piece!


 It is the "Girl with the pearl earring."  It is such a gorgeous piece. Vermeer is the artist who did the original and he was from the city of Delft, so that's the piece we chose. 

 The kids and I hiked to the top of the tower in the city square.  Dudi stayed with Jude  because he had done it on a previous trip.  I've gone to the top of a lot of towers, but this one was really, really high.

To say we had fun in Holland was an understatement.  WE LOVED IT! 

Mothers

I know this is a day late...that's usually how I roll.  However, this time wasn't my fault, the internet was down ALL day yesterday.  Early this morning it was back up, so I thought I'd share a few of my favorite mothers.  First things first though.  Dudi hijacked my blog yesterday and left some lovely little notes from my darling children.  Obviously uncoached and unedited messages.  The kids thought they were so funny...until they realized he had posted them for all to see:)  They wanted to repost serious messages, so those might be making a future appearance.  And for those of you who don't know "TDY" is basically a buisness trip.  Yes, he left on Mother's day.  He owes me...big time.

Aaaanyways.

A few of MY favorite mothers.

 My maternal grandma (Forgive this pic, it was a couple weeks after I had Jude!)

 My paternal grandma

My mom 

I am also thankful for Dudi's mom (sorry I didn't have any pics on my new computer to share!) and my many friends who are wonderful examples in different ways of motherhood.  I have learned so much from them all and am so grateful to have them in my life. 

They have prepared me in so many ways to be a mother for my own kids, who I love more than anything.  I am blessed to be their mother.

Mother's Day Surprise!

Happy Mother's Day, Mary/Mama. 


We love you. 


Enjoy the video messages! You're the best wife/mom in the whole world. (The videos may not show it, but I did the best I could with the subjects I had.) Click on the youtube links to enjoy the fun.

from Micah:

from Asher:

from Olivia:

from Jude:

I hope this little gesture makes up for the fact that I'm TDY on Mother's Day. "No other wife ..."

weekend wrap-up

This weekend was full.

Asher had a soccer game Friday night.

Olivia had her ballet dress rehearsal Saturday morning.

Micah had a soccer game Saturday morning also, so Liv, Jude, and I headed over to the fields after her rehearsal (more to come later on that!).

After an AWESOME game-Micah scored 2-we headed home to change and then I headed off with the two older boys to the local club team soccer game.  Micah and Asher each had a friend that came with us.  We parked about 2 blocks away and walked to the stadium.  No big deal...unless the sky decides to open up and POUR as soon as you all step out of the car!  It was raining so bad that I decided to put my camera back in the car so it wouldn't get ruined. UGH!  We were all soaked, to say the least, by the time we got to the stadium.  Thankfully our seats were covered even though we were in the second row!

And yes, as soon as we sat down, the rain stopped:) 

We had a great time eating gummibaren(gummy bears) and cheering for our team!

The Keukenhof (Holland spring break part 2)

 If you are over the age of 70, you will love this post.  If you are younger, you may get bored. I'm warning you now, there are a lot of pictures of flowers.  So many, in fact, that it deserved an entire post.

The Keukenhof Flower Gardens are seriously unbelievable.  I can totally understand why people plan their entire vacation around it. 

 It.Is.Gorgeous.

 So many flowers, and so many fun things for the kids to do.  They fed swans, we went on a boat ride through the tulip fields,  there are playgrounds throughout, windmills, garden mazes...

 and flowers.

We spent about 7 hours there!  We were one of the first ones to arrive (before the crowds), so I was able to get some pictures without a thousand tourist in them!

 These are just a few of my favorite flowers, there are so many different colors and types.  By the end of the day, we would walk by a field full of gorgeous flowers, but if they were "just" normal single colored and regular style, we caught ourselves saying"these are just yellow, or these are just red." We got spoiled by all the exotic ones they have!

 These were Micah's favorite (above).  They were pretty awesome.  He really enjoyed the Keukenhof and I let him practice his photography skills while we were there.  Dudi took the younger kids to the playground for a while so that Micah and I could take pics.  After a few pointers and tips, Micah was doing great!

 Most of the gardens are outdoors. 

But some of the rare types are kept inside a huge greenhouse.

 This was a fun bridge!  Some German speaking older women walked by and started saying how dangerous it was!  I guess I'm just a bad mom, but I figure, if it was THAT dangerous, they wouldn't have it up! Asher looks like he's enjoying it!

 I thought these flowers were so cool.  The bloom grows upside down (below).

Of course the day was filled with pit stops.  These waffles are the best!

The pictures don't do it justice.  It was fabulous and soooo glad I had a chance to go!