April 30 is Koningindag or Queen’s Day and the whole country celebrates.  Everyone wears orange and the sidewalks turn into one giant garage sale.  Our neighborhood, Belgisch Park, had a street festival for the event.  There was a stage with music and lots of stalls with food and games.   The boys’ favorite was a big obstacle course.  Daddy’s favorite was the china smashing where he threw cups into plates and bowls with a great deal of crashing.  Mommy’s favorite was the “soessmijter” or cream puff catapault where the boys rolled a tennis ball up the ramp to trigger the catapault that threw something like a chocolate covered cream puff through the air into their hands.

Henry Pops the Balloon

William Races to the Finish

At the end of the day the kids tied orange postcards with their name and address on them to balloons.  At the count of 10 they all let go of their balloons – and a giant gust of wind took most of them into the trees.   Henry’s sailed free.   William’s worked its way out of the tree after a big storm.   William got his postcard back three days later from a town 200km from here.  Henry’s hasn’t come back yet.   We turned William’s in and are waiting to see who wins the balloon competition by having his or her postcard come back from the farthest away.

Waiting for the Balloon Countdown

Everyone here is a little nuts about ice skating so one of the first things we did when we got here was buy ice skates.  We got to use them on Sunday at Westbroekpark.  It has a long river that widens into ponds.  The whole river hasn’t frozen yet, but one of the ponds has.   There were about forty people on the ice, mostly skating along a winding track that two brothers had cleared with a shovel and a broom.  A man kept circling around with a broom as the neighborhood zamboni.

Zamboni William

William brought our broom along so we cleared a little space for the boys to practice on.  But before long Henry was gliding along with the rest of the crowd.  So of course William joined in too.   They fell but got right back up and kept going.

Henry Skating like a Dutchman

After a while William and Daddy got off the ice to roll a giant snowball on the playing fields.  Henry skated until he needed a snack.  Then he went to help roll.  The boys wanted to bring the snowball home, but it got so big that Daddy couldn’t push it anymore.  We had to give it arms and a face and leave it with all the other giant snowmen.

Now That's a Snowball!

Henry eating stroopwafel

Today William used his new Dutch skills to order his first Stroopwafel at the street market. He had to ask for them in Dutch and had to pay with 2 Euros. Although the syrup was steaming hot we found out that zero degree weather cools the syrup off very quickly.

Henry, William and Dada all enjoyed the Thursday street market. The boys found the ribbon and bead stall to be very interesting.  We ended up buying some chicken, ‘delicious meatballs’, grapes and tomatoes.

Boys enjoying bead/ribbons at market.

We are looking forward to going to the market every Thursday after school.