Fall Break

Tobias had a fall break two weeks ago. We did not have a week’s trip planned like last year, but we did go out. The first weekend Tobias and Lorelei went to Opa and Oma. The four of them had a good time! Lisa and I took the opportunity to go out with the two of us. We did not go far, but had a good time too. We stayed at a hotel in Amersfoort, a city we had not visited. We did some shopping, some dining (and wining), but most of all, some relaxing.

The second weekend we went to visit our Friends in La Celle Saint Cloud (near Paris). We drove down on Friday, and came back on Sunday. We had a very nice time, and so did Tobias and Lorelei. Valentine and Tristan do not speak Dutch or English and we anticipated kind of a hard time playing together, but it was just fine. Apparently language is not that important yet if you want to play together. And Tobias picked up some French, because here they are watching Toy Story 3, in French!

We all went out together to the Aquarium in Paris (near Trocadero). The weather was horrible, the Aquarium smaller then we expected, but it was nice nonetheless (probably because it was inside and it was pouring down rain… ). After that Lisa and Julie spent some time shopping. The next morning Nadim and I spent some time mountain biking.

We headed back home on Sunday afternoon, after a very nice weekend with very nice friends. I hope we can visit again sometime soon (a lot sooner than this time because it had been a year and a half!).

Halloween

We had quite the Halloween experience this year. It started kind of early with aunt Shelli sending us candy, costumes and Halloween decorations. Some of this stuff has already been used during the weeks leading up to Halloween, but this past weekend was a real Halloween weekend.

On Saturday Lisa and Tobias carved the pumpkin, and what a great job they did! Tobias picked the design, and helped Lisa with the carving and getting all the yucky stuff out . I got to enjoy (and photograph) the result.

Lisa had a Halloween party from work on Saturday night. So, she had to make her costume as well on Saturday. Tobias and I read some scary stories .

On Sunday we had a Halloween kids party at a friend’s house. We were in charge of desert and Lisa and Tobias made pumpkin pie (yum!). Tobias and Lorelei got to wear their costumes and looked great! There were lots of candy, food and games at the party, and lots of carved pumpkins (but we had the biggest one ). At dusk we went outside for a walk and we saw some real bats fly over our heads! Scary!!!

We had a nice Halloween this year!