Even though it’s the summer vacation, we got to go work on William’s school garden. We harvested three heads of lettuce (different varieties) from the common plot and carrots, onions and beans from William’s plot. We also cut a lot of flowers from William’s plot and from the plots of his friends who weren’t there to get them. We had delicious salad for days and have flowers all over the house.
Check out more photos in the Gardening Gallery.
Flowers from William's Garden
We spent the whole day at a living history museum about 40 minutes north of here about the Netherlands during prehistoric times, Roman times and medieval times.
We started in the ice age with a ride in a dug out canoe.
An Ice Age Canoe
Then we had a hunting and gathering lesson. First we gathered leaves and shells. Then we did some creeping and running over to the spear throwing area.
William Hefts his Spear
Then our guide painted our clan symbol on our arms with mud. We were the “oobie-doo clan”.
Clanmates with their Weapons
Further on in history a woman showed us how to make twine out of a dried out stalk and how to grind flour with rocks. We also saw a man making arrow heads with a rock. Even further along, in the Bronze Age, we got to help move a boulder. It was very funny because the rope kept slipping off the boulder and we’d all go staggering backward. But finally we got enough people to pull and the rope to stay on and we moved that boulder right across the clearing.
Heave ho!
We took Mommy to Rotterdam so she could see our favorite museum there: the Maritime Museum. The best part of it is the rooftop port where kids can load cargo onto trucks and then take it through customs. We like moving the containers with the cranes. You can see lots of photos in the Rotterdam Gallery by clicking here.
The museum also has the Dutch Navy’s first “ironsides” steam ship, which you can tour and even practice shoveling coal into the furnaces. 
Right next to that ship is the harbor museum of all sorts of little boats. We went into a freight barge that used to take turf up and down the canals. The family had a very tiny kitchen and living room/bedroom in the front of the hold.
Our plan had been to also go to a terrific playground that William went to with a class trip (Henry was sick), but it got too late in the day. So we stopped off in Delft on the way home and went to the Army Museum there one last time.
We went back to Rotterdam to Playground Plaswijck the next day, but Mommy had the camera at the archives so we don’t have any photos. We wish we could show you where the lemurs got to watch children running around on ropes.
The boys have been hard at work this year painting up a storm. We have covered our walls with their art to brighten up our apartment. Thought everyone else might want to enjoy them too.
(Click on the gallery for one of the boys; Then click on a picture to blow up; Use left right arrows to flip through pictures)
We’re very sad to say that the Dutch didn’t win the World Cup tonight, although it was very close. Everyone here has been so excited about the world cup that the whole country has turned orange. Most of the frosting in the bakeries is orange, houses are decked in orange flags, fountains have orange water in them and people are wearing all sorts of orange clothes. We have a new orange soccer ball. The big plaza in the center of Eindhoven by the train station was all set up for a huge outdoor screening of the game with giant tvs and a big bar. The train stations in Den Bosch, Utrecht and Den Haag were full of people wearing orange and blowing orange horns.
The game was on past our bedtime but Daddy woke us up for what should have been the last 15 minutes of the game. It went into a 30 minute overtime, so we got to see a lot of it.
World Cup Fever in the Piskie Home
After all the interesting things in the Roman section of the open-air museum, we pulled ourselves back to medieval times on a ferry.
Heave Ho!
It was very hot, so we went back to the hotel to go swimming. We swam twice on Sunday morning too. Then we took the train to Den Bosch. We walked through the medieval town, across the marketplace and had lunch in a shady, breezy alley. Then we visited the magnificent St. Jan’s Cathedral. There was a little exhibition on the restoration of the cathedral so we could see gargoyles and waterspouts up close.
Then we took the bus to Heeswijk Castle, which began in 1000 as a wooden tower with a moat around it. It’s a lot more than that now. We had our own tour of the last baron’s living quarters with all the fancy furniture and china.
William at Kasteel Heeswijk
On Saturday we took the train to Eindhoven and then a bus to the open-air museum. It has local buildings from before the Romans built a fort on the river there through the middle ages. It was very hot, so the medieval family were all napping in the shade, but one of the men did show us how to use a bow and arrow.
Henry Draws his Bow
We saw smithies and bread ovens and looms for wool and linen and then we came upon a woman from Roman times washing the laundry. She showed us how she used a plant called zeepkruid (soap herb) for soap. William picked some from the garden and washed his hands with it.
Roman Soap
She showed us how to dig clay and make things with it and how gave us a tour of their house. The family lived in one third of it and the cows and sheep lived in the rest of it. She also showed us how to make spears and let us practice with them on a wooden target cut like a boar.
Grinding Spear Tips
We went on a expedition today to Kasteel de Haar, which is near Utrecht. We took a light rail train that went 130 km/hour to Vleuten and then we walked about 3 kilometers to the school. First we went through the little village of Haarzuilens and then we went over a bike/foot path through fields with sheep, cows and horses. We also saw a heron fishing and three different kinds of fish. We were happy to see a shady picnic bench too!
William at Kasteel de Haar
The castle was rebuilt from ruins in the 1890s so it’s very ornate. The baron still spends every September there, but for the rest of the year it’s a museum. We took a children’s tour, so we heard some good stories. And since it’s the Fourth of July we skipped stones into the moat instead of into Lake Michigan.
Stone Skipping on the Moat
We took a taxi back to the train station and got off at Gouda. Yes, the place where they make the cheese. They had wheels of “cheese” decorating the town, hanging across the streets, floating in the canals, but all the shops were closed because it was Sunday so we couldn’t get any. It’s also famous for a battle in which the Dutch Sea Beggars (sixteenth-century resistance fighters) defeated their Spanish overlords. The victory is commemorating in the glorious stained glass windows of the church.
The Windows of Gouda
Before the last day of school on Friday, the boys’ class took a trip to the beach. It is only a few blocks from their school after all.
De Jongen op School
It was cooler than it had been that morning, but that didn’t keep any of the Dutch kids, or the Dutch moms, out of the water! Daddy stayed on the sand in case any of the kids needed help drying off.
William and Friends in the North Sea
Tuesday was William’s last gardening class. He harvested a huge bouquet of flowers that he grew from seed. There are some pink straw flowers in amongst all the white as well. After class everyone stopped for ice cream.
Flowers from the School Garden
