Today was also William’s first day alone at school. William said it was great.
Click on a picture to enlarge it.
Super sleek race car.
Henry feeling better.
Ready for battle
Wearing all of their armor
Maurits Cornelis Escher (1898-1972) is a world famous Dutch graphic artist, he worked mainly with woodcuts and lithographs.
Today we went to the Escher museum with Daddy. He is famous for his interesting transitional pictures. Henry found the most interesting part was the Angel/Devil picture since it is the first time he has ever seen a picture of a devil. Henry picked up this postcard on the right to remind him of his visit.
Since Escher did a lot of things in terms of perspective we really had fun in the ‘perspective’ room. It really looks like Henry has had a growth spurt doesn’t it?
The other fascination was with the fancy chandeliers throughout the museum. They had nothing to do with Escher but can you guess which one Henry loved most.
After the museum we decided to surprise mommy at the archives. Lucky for us we ran into her at the train station and then took her out for Indonesian food for dinner.
Docents
Gallery
Lounging time.
Big Henry
Bigger Henry
Skullriffic
Umbrella
It’s a good thing the boys brought their knights’ costumes with them because their class celebrated carnival today. Their teacher, Juf Yvonne, was a cowboy complete with curly black mustachio. The kids danced a lot and had a parade.
Carnival in the Classroom
Juf Yvonne
It was a good way to spend an otherwise icy cold day.
William is Six!
For breakfast this morning we had our usual birthday pancakes with whipped cream and berries.
Birthday Boy at Breakfast
You’ll notice that both William and his pancake are missing a bottom tooth. Henry’s pancake had all its teeth.
Henry and his Pancake
After that we had to skedaddle to school, but there was snow so the boys were able to have a snowball fight on the way. At school William got to wear the birthday crown that he made yesterday and to hand out treats to his classmates. He chose to introduce them to an American favorite: rice krispie treats (thank you Opa for bringing the rice krispies). He also gave everyone colored streamers. The teacher invited William to stand on the table with his crown on, and everyone sang Happy Birthday (in Dutch and in English) and made a big mess with their streamers. The report is that most of the kids thought the rice krispie treats were good, although one girl seemed confused by hers, perhaps because it was bright blue.
After your class celebrates here, you get to choose two birthday helpers and take them with you to all the other classrooms to give the teachers a treat (chocolate). In return the teacher signs a birthday card for you (with stickers). William chose Henry and a boy named Ruben as his birthday helpers. Apparently Ruben knows everyone, so they even went into the principal’s office.
William's Crown and Cake
Wednesday’s are half days in Dutch schools, so we stopped at a bakkerij to pick out a cake on the way home for lunch (our oven doesn’t work). William chose a Christoffeltaart, which turns out to be a delicious confection of merengue, whipped cream and chocolate. Our Dutch friend Maarten came over for lunch and presented the boys with Legos. William spent the rest of the afternoon building a Lego firetruck and a Lego helicopter. He thinks the Legos are the best gift, although “the bike is good too”. All in all, it’s been a happy day for William and his family.
Not only is Opa here, but Aunt Elizabeth and Uncle Dan have come from Ireland for the weekend. On Saturday we went to a market where Opa had a favorite Dutch treat – raw herring.
Dutch Sushi
Then Henry went to the Museon with Aunt Elizabeth and Uncle Dan to show them the Roman and the fossils and the badger tunnel. William and Opa had “birthday piggy” afternoon by themselves. We all had a birthday dinner together with desserts from the bakery.
On Sunday we took a walk on the beach, but the wind drove the grown-ups inside before the kids had collected enough shells.
On the Tram
So we took the tram to Delft.
The Giant's Shoe
Opa, William and Henry had fun in a giant wooden shoe. When we got back to Scheveningen we had a great time in Aunt Elizabeth’s hotel pool. We wish they didn’t have to go home.
Tuesday was “reading breakfast” at school. All the kids wore their pyjamas and brought their stuffed animals and breakfast to school. We all sat at a big table to eat together. Two of the girls brought something for everyone: pound cake, gingerbread and water crackers slathered with butter and sugar.
Breakfast at School
After breakfast some of the Moms read out loud to small groups of kids. Mommy read a very funny book about a duck riding a bicycle. It was in English, so we had a small group.
And then we had a great surprise at lunchtime. Opa came to pick us up for lunch! We had sandwiches at a very typical little Dutch cafe that looks like a box on the sidewalk. We’re so happy he’s here.
Lunch with Opa
Today (Sunday) Mommy took us to the Scheveningen Museum. Our neighborhood used to be a fishing village separated from the city of Den Haag by hilly sand dunes. So the museum is full of models of fishing boats and the tools that fishermen used and lots and lots of sea shells and paintings of the fishing boats. There’s a little room that’s just like the cabin that the herring fishermen used to live in while they were at sea.
So we decided to go to the beach ourselves to see what sea shells we could find. First we stopped on the “boulevard” at the top of the beach for a snack from a kiosk. Henry had a plain sausage and William had a paper cone of french fries with ketchup. The tide was very, very low and it was foggy and about 34 degrees out. But there were hundreds of people walking along the beach with their dogs and their baby buggies. The tide was so far out that we could walk out on some causeways that are usually underwater. They were covered in shells. It was great.
Here’s a photo of the shells we found today.
The Shells We Found on 24/1/2010
By the way, the photograph at the top of the blog is of the beach at Scheveningen, where we were today.
Back from the market with lots of food.
When we came out school yesterday I told daddy I really liked the black bakfiets out front and that we should get one. I was so surprised when daddy said it was our new bakfiets. Daddy has not ridden a bike in a few years and today he had to bike 12 kilometers to bring the bike home. Daddy looked very tired and was not up for cruising all over town today.
Our first voyage took us to the Albert Hein for some groceries. We really like the sausage from the local butcher so we picked up 4 sausages on the way home. The bike is too big to fit through our front door so we parked down at the corner at a bike rack.
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Lounging in the bakfiets.
Dad picked us up from school today and did not look so tired. It is only 1 kilometer ride from our house. Thursday is street market day so we picked up some: grapes, clementines, chicken, nuts, brocoli and a new ball of yarn. Henry says that he loves the taste of ice cold grapes from the market.
William Without his Tooth
Big news – William came home from school with a loose front tooth on Thursday. It didn’t fall out during his gymnastics class on Friday. It didn’t fall out when he and Henry and Daddy were visiting bike shops or trying out merengues filled with whipped cream on Saturday (Mommy was at the archives). It didn’t fall out at home on Sunday or at school on Monday.
But when he was eating an apple for his morning snack at school on Tuesday, he felt something hard bouncing around in his mouth. It was his tooth! Henry ate up all the rest of the apple slices as fast as he could so that William could put his tooth in the baggie.
Before he went to bed, William put his tooth in an envelope for the Tooth Fairy and left her an empty envelope as well, just in case. And this morning there was an Irish two Euro coin in the envelope!
On Sunday Mommy and Henry went to the Museon, a hands-on science museum just a bus ride away. It’s full of interesting things like fossils, stuffed birds flying across the ceiling, and a badger tunnel. Henry’s favorite was the room about the Romans. It turns out that we are living very close to the site of a Roman settlement so we saw some metal clamps and bits of pottery that Romans left lying around our neighborhood. But best of all was the mannequin of a Roman infantryman and the movie about being a Roman soldier.
Henry and a Roman Friend
William and Daddy stayed home to work on Daddy’s Dutch homework.
