Tuesday March 28, 2015

Our first official full day in Holland!

We slept at Iepie's house, in the attic.  A Dutch attic is much different than what you would imagine an attic here to look like.  It's mostly just another floor, except with slanted ceilings.  Ethan and I had to climb two sets of stairs to get all the way up to the tip top of Iepie's house.  So fun.  Ethan called it our "Magic Tower" as he was still quite sick and needed some persuasion to get comfortable in our new surroundings.

We were so tired by the time we went to bed in Monday night (my uncl Gerrit, aunt Anja' and cousin Anique came to visit later at night) and slept in quite late on Tiesday morning...around 10:30 or so.

We planned to do one of our most important visits this day...visiting my very good childhood friend, Marieke, and her family!

We hadn't seen each other for 12 years but picked up right where we left off.  So so so fun!!  I met her kids for the first time (I had met her husband before) and they met Ethan for the first time.  Ethan had a harder time getting adjusted but was ok.  He didn't eat much of anything since he was still fevered, the poor guy.

It was amazing just to pick up where we left off 12 years ago and joked that things were exactly the same, just with kids now!

It certainly recharged me in the friend department and we spent a long time catching up with more plans to meet later in the week.

 Marieke and Julis have 3 kids....here is the littlest...what an adorable baby!!  She looks so much like Marieke.

This is her middle one....he is the same age as Mason.

Ethan loved when they played Mario Wii...which he recognized from Austen playing it.

Marieke's oldest...same age as Austen.

And my dear "oldest" friend, Marieke!! Still the same fun, spontaneous, kind, and laughing Marieke!

We had a great time catching up!  

Holland...March 26-27

The day we left for Holland, we had been at my parent's house.  Ian left with the oldest 3 kids around noon and took them to Fun Haven, a good distraction because they were quite upset with mommy leaving for a week.

Ethan wasn't feeling well and I alternated Tylenol and Advil every 3-4 hours to manage his high fever.

Here he is playing with some tractor toys at Oma and Opa's house.

Peter and Opa drove us all to the airport in Montreal.  My mom's 2 friends, AnneMarie and Jeanette, came too.

As you can see, Ethan is still not feeling well.  Our plane departed at 8:00 PM and Ethan was exhausted.

Here we are having something to drink at the airport.

We made it through customs without the darn metal detector going off on me (my biggest anxiety). Here Ethan sees our airplane being loaded...the KLM.

We watched for quite awhile and patience was tested as Mr.Man needed to wait a long time for us to be able to board that plane.

Ethan loved the fact that the plane was his favourite colour!

All aboard!  Still sporting a high fever.  He is all set for take-off.

My mom and her friends sat across from us, on the other side of the aisle.

The beautiful sky.

Ethan was excited for the flight.

I gave him a lollipop to help with the air pressure (his ears popping) but he barely licked it when he fell asleep with the neck pillow, blanking, piggy, and his owl (Funky Monkey).

Nodding off...

Ethan slept the entire trip.  Across both seats, then 1 seat, then my seat.  It wasn't restful, and he woke a ton, but at least he slept.  I even woke him a few times to give him medicine so that the fever didn't have a chance to spike again.  I didn't get any sleep but at least Ethan did.

This is what I did went Ethan was sleeping...Friends!!

After almost 7 hours, we saw the Dutch landscape! Oh how I missed that for 12 years....

The sun was coming up and we landed at about 8:00 AM.

My uncle, Albert, picked us up from the airport.  We drove to his house and my aunt, Marleen, met us there.  My cousin, their daughter, Esther, had met us at the airport quickly to say hi.

My aunt and uncle's home in Zwolle.

We got birthday cake since Albert had had his birthday a few days ago.

Ethan was still so tired and fevered.  I was tired too and ready to go to sleep...but that's hard when it's morning in Holland and you still have the entire day ahead of you with a sick fevered 3 year old...

Not so fun yet....

Albert has a pond in his backyard which Ethan really liked.  Lots of fish.  We took the pic of Austen who loves fishing...

We were both missing the kids and Daddy a lot at this point...

At supper time Albert drove us to Iepie's house (Iepie's is my mom's best friend in Holland - from middle school).  We were happy to finally unpack and get some much needed sleep.  More Holland adventures next!

Catch up from February to March...

I took a loooong break from blogging am now I have to play catch up.  So, here is a catch up post!

My mom, Oma, turned 59!  One more year till the big 6-0!

Megan and Ian went skiing again with the school on Away Day.

Valentine's Day came...Megan made all her own valentines...

Mason and Austen went skating with their classes...they've improved a ton!

Ethan made birthday cupcakes....even though his birthday isn't till September!

Megan and Austen competed in public speaking competitions and both moved on to the next level at the Legion.  Megan's speech was on "The Milstones of a Three Year Old" and Austen's speech was on  "My Dad's Wild Animal Encounters".  Austen placed 2nd (Primary) and Megan placed 1st in the Junior division and she moved on to the next level too.

Ethan and I met Oma at the Dutch store in Ottawa and got a Dutch toque!

Our Easter friends came to visit as they always do.  They come at the beginning of March break and leave at Easter time. Here is our Easter breakfast.

Ethan had a really high fever right before we left for Holland.

I cut my hair.

Ethan and I went to Holland for 1 week right after the March break!  More on Holland in the next blog post.