New Blog...

I have merged Tobias' and Lorelei's blog into one. You can find new posts about them on:
http://tobiasandlorelei.blogspot.com

If I Were a Carpenter

Tobias really wants a guinea pig. When I was little I remember having a rabbit and a guinea pig. I remember liking having them around. My mom remembers them stinking up the house and having to clean them all the time. Good thing the rabbit and the guinea pig weren’t my idea but hers at the time :-). Anyway, ours ended up in a rather sizeable cage outside.

So, I told Tobias all this and now we need a rather sizeable cage so we can keep the guinea pig outside… and that’s our rather sizeable project right now. I really enjoy that because we first made a plan, drew it up, got some wood and here we just got started on sawing the first poles. It’s going to be a really nice cage, but it will be a while before it is finished (and hence, before we actually have a guinea pig ;-)).

90 Years Ago

This year Tobias’ school celebrates it’s 90th anniversary. That is quite the milestone and they dedicated some class projects to it. In Lorelei’s class they looked at vehicles for transportation then and now. In Tobias’ class they looked into “professions” of then and now. Very interesting stuff. On the opening day of the celebration, February 8th, they went to school dressed in the kinds of clothes they wore 90 years ago. The perfect kodak moment, right? Well, Lorelei was a bit upset for one reason or other, but Tobias really wanted his picture taken in these “cool” clothes :-). He even made a sign (the piece of paper he is holding) saying: “This is 90 years ago!”, just in case :-).

They also took some pictures at school. Here’s one of Lorelei’s class from the school’s Facebook timeline (Lorelei is in the bottom row on the very left).

Christmas (final)

Taking posed pictures of one kid can be a challenge. Eyes open, nice smile (not too forced), good pose etc. Well, taking pictures of two children is exponentially more difficult. It took me quite some shots to get this one (and Tobias’ eyes are still kind of odd, or not? Anyway, I like this picture and I just wanted to post one more of my two very happy Christmas children.

Oh yeah, and very spoiled too. Check out the pile of gifts by the tree… Let' met just say tha 90+% of that was for them… yep… SPOILED, but happy and lovely, so I guess they deserved it…?

Sleepover with Catherine

I think I have written about Tobias’ girlfriend Catherine before, right? Anyway, there have been some sleepovers back and forth in the past.

The last one was a sleepover during the Christmas vacation at our house. It was just one night and it was a lot of fun. Warner, her brother and Lorelei’s friend, came over too. Before they came over we met in town for a skate and a sandwich. When they came over we played some games, watched a movie, had dinner and stuff.

Well, while watching the movie I found them on the couch like this :-). Kind of cute, right? (or should I be worried…?).

Maze

Tobias likes mazes. He got some maze books and a maze game from Santa. Well, on one of the last days of our Christmas break we went to a Castle (“De Haar”) near Utrecht and we went into a real maze. As you can see the hedges are tall, yet not so dense, but I can assure you, it still took some effort to get to the center, and to get back out. I can’t even imaging what it will be like when the leaves are dense and green…

Anyway, when we finally did get to the center Tobias was quite proud :-).

The castle was pretty cool by the way. We took a “Fairy tale tour” which was fun for both children and adults. I think we might go again someday…

Birthday Gifts

As you know, Tobias plays baseball. We got Tobias a baseball helmet and a baseball bag for his birthday this year. Despite the fact that it has nothing to do with Skylanders he was quite excited about that too. It looks pretty cool, right?

Lorelei got him Skylanders bedsheets, opa and oma gave him another Wii game, Mario and Sonic at the London Olympics 2012, but, like I said in my other posts, he mostly got lots of Skylanders stuff :-).

Skylanders Cake

I just have to put a picture on the blog of Tobias’ humongous Skylanders Cake! He has been into Skylanders for quite a while now. He bought himself the first version of the game, Skylanders – Spyro’s Adventure, with his own money last year. He also bought a couple of figures and actually played it quite a lot. Just recently a new version came out. Needless to say that was on the top of his wish list this year! Well, Tobias is lucky to have Aunt Shelli, because guess what she got him… Yep, Skylanders Giants, the new version of the game. A lot of his friends got him new Skylanders figures for the new game, so he is set!

With all that Skylanders stuff going on he wanted a Skylanders cake too… Lisa outsourced the cake-making this year and we go this cake. It was yummy, but like I said, huge!

Skate Party

Tobias is 8 now and celebrated this with his friends yesterday… on ice-skates! We went to Silverdome, the rink in Zoetermeer with Lisa, my dad, and me, and… 8 boys, all very excited to go skating. And to be honest, I was kind of excited too…

Rightfully so, because it was great! First we opened presents (including lots of Skylanders figures), had lunch (pancakes), and had cake (a Skylanders cake). After all that we went to the rink for a Party Lesson. I had hired an instructor for an hour and she did a great job. I was a bit surprised at the range of skating skills within the group (the range being much broader than I had expected), but she dealt with it very well. Everybody had fun. And, everybody got really tired. I had planned to skate for about 30 more minutes after the lesson, but al but two boys were of the ice within 10 minutes, so, after 15 minutes we just stopped.

We took all the boys back to their respective homes and got home to get ready for the next party :-).

Trick or Treat

Admitted, it is a bit late for posts about Trick or Treat, but I kind of forgot to put this one on earlier… The most trick or treating we have done in the Netherlands is going around back to our front door and getting some candy from mama… :-).

This year it got a little more serious, in Oudewater to be exact… There were some kids who had organized a Trick or Treat tour. There weren’t very many kids (about 10) or very many participating houses (about 10), but it was much nicer than just going around back…. Both Lorelei and Tobias joined and got some candy

No, not pillow cases full, but some candy nonetheless… (oh, and a good experience of course…)

Paleontologist…

Sinterklaas is back in the Netherlands and has already put something in Tobias’ shoe! It was a brick :-). An interesting brick though, because it had dinosaur bones hidden inside. It came with a hammer and chisel and Tobias got to excavate the bones.

As you can see in this picture he had a good time doing that (oh, and a messy time too… that stuff goes everywhere… :-)). The bones have been added to his “collection”, which is an odd mix of all kinds of collectible things, like rocks, marbles, cards, bottle caps etc...

Yellow Slip

Tobias started taking Tae Kwon Do lessons just recently (around the start of the school year). He is really enjoying it and, as far as I can tell, he is making progress rather fast. It’s amazing to see how quickly he improves… To my untrained eye it appears it is a game of balance and control more than anything else. Those are the areas of visible improvement, anyway… :-).

This past Sunday he got to take his first exam, to get the Yellow Slip…. and he passed! He had to do some “figures”, stances, sparring exercises, and remember some Korean words (for the stances and kicks and stuff).

He was so proud and happy! Next one up is the green slip… 

PSV

Tobias has been to games of all the American sports (basketball, baseball, football, and hockey) on our trips to America. Untill two weeks ago he had never been to a major sports event in the Netherlands. Well, we needed to change that, obviously, so I thought it’d be a good idea to take him to a good old Dutch soccer game. I asked him which team he would like to watch. He thought for a minute and said “PSV”. I asked him why and he said: “Well, it would have to be Ajax (Amsterdam), Feyenoord (Rotterdam) or PSV (Eindhoven), and Catherine is Philips so is has to be PSV…” (yes, that’s Catherine, Tobias’ “girlfriend” holding the other end of the scarf :-)).

I had never been to the Philips Stadium (home of PSV) so I thought it was a good idea too. While planning this we talked to Catherine’s dad who is from Eindhoven and told him Tobias’ reasoning. He thought it was such a good idea that he wanted to go too, with Catherine, and that’s how all four of us ended up there (and Catherine’s dad ended up taking us… Thanks!).

It was quite the experience to be in a heated stadium in very good seats, and best of all, probably as a result of Tobias’ and Catherine’s relentless cheering, PSV won over Heerenveen 5 to 1!

Carnival

Wow, time goes by fast. The Carnival has come and gone already. Always a big thing, especially for Tobias. He loves going there. I like his excitement, but I kind of not like going there… But hey, what can you do, right? We went (and spent) quite a bit… It was nice though. Tobias is still traumatized by the Octopus, so we took mostly rather “simple” rides. The scariest thing was the Haunted House…

Both Tobias an Lorelei liked the Trampolines. You get to go on there for like 5 minutes or so. We were there early Wednesday afternoon and it was not as crowded yet, so they were lucky because they both got to go way over 5 minutes!

It is hard to take pictures with a (slow) phone camera when you’re kids are going up and down, but this one turned out OK, I think…

Jardin des Plantes

We went to visit our friends in La Celle de Saint Cloud, near Paris. It was a rainy weekend, so we spent quite some time inside. But, we also went into Paris and visited “Jardin des Plantes”, a big park where they have a botanical garden, a paleontological “room” with lots of skeletons, and a building with stuffed (real) animals. We went to the building with the stuffed animals and it was quite interesting. Tobias just loves seeing animals of all kinds, but he really likes sea creatures, so needless to say he loved this display. I have to say it was quite a unique experience to see all those animals… So, if you’re ever in Paris, visit Jardin des Plantes :-).

Walk in the Forest

It was quite a nice day last Sunday. Sunny, chilly, but nice. So, I decided to take Tobias and Lorelei to the forest. We went to the “Kaapse Bos” near Doorn. We took a 6km walk. We did some pine-cone baseball, some running, and some mushroom spotting, like here in this picture. We found lots of different kinds, sizes and colors (but unfortunately not red ones with white dots…).

It’s nice to be outside with them…!

Carving the Pumpkin

Halloween, not big in the Netherlands, but big enough in the US for us to do some traditional stuff, like carving the pumpkin. Nothing fancy, just a face. Tobias loves participating. He picks the face and tries to help as much as he can, but that pumpkin skin was tough! So, even though he looks quite like the tough guy in this picture, he ended up just pricking the pumpkin here and there, but Lisa and I carved most of it…. I put a picture of the finished product on Facebook.

It turned out that, even though it may not look as big for US measures, we got ourselves quite a sizeable pumpkin this year :-).

Working

Tobias goes to after school care on Thursdays and this year he went up a group. That means that he mingles with bigger children and gets to do “big kids stuff”. One of those things is “working”, on wood really. They have workbenches and tools and wood and they can make stuff. Apparently he likes it because he started asking for wood and started using his toolbox we gave him a while back. At first he was working on the floor, but then I gave him my workmate and that is great. He has really been putting some stuff together… At the after school care they give them real tools, which I think is great. His tools are rather real, except for his saw. So, after concluding that the saw from his toolbox does not work properly, I went out and got him a real one. He is all set!

I have to tell you about one thing he made, tonight… Yesterday we found a dead mouse in the yard. Darwin had killed it. Tobias is so fond of animals that he felt sorry for the mouse. Apparently, this morning, he was thinking about the mouse, probably because he walked right past it (and hence, saw it) on the way to his bike. He talked to Lisa about it and it must have been on his mind, because tonight he quit playing the Wii and said: “Papa, I am going to bury Squeaky.” (The mouse was named Squeaky post mortem…). At first I did not realize what he was talking about, but he actually wanted to bury the mouse. He wanted Lisa to help him, but then I heard him say “Wait mama, first I am going to make him a tomb-stone.”. So, Lisa goes: “How?”. Tobias says: “From those planks in the garage. I’ll make something like this <he points out a rectangle> and we’ll write ‘Squeaky’ on it.”. And that’s exactly what he did. He sawed two pieces of wood, made a cross and wrote Squeaky on it. It is now sitting over Squeaky’s head right by our rose-bush…

Did I ever mention how sweet my boy is? He’s very sweet… :-)!

Camping

I guess we could start calling it a tradition… Tobias and I went out camping again this year. We went to the same place we went last year, except this time we went for two nights. Also we went a little bit earlier in the year which made for nicer weather… I took the Friday afternoon off. I got home around noon or so and we started packing up our stuff. Last year I had to pack all my stuff and Tobias’ stuff on my bike, but this time Tobias had bike bags as well. Also, we had bought our own little air beds, which was nice.

It is so great when Tobias gets so excited about stuff! I had promised to go again, but I hadn’t told him when. I told him about a week before we left, primarily because the weather is so unpredictable and it would be such a disappointment if we would not be able to go because of that. But, from the moment I told him he was bursting with anticipation and enthusiasm! And rightfully so, because we had a great time, again!

Since we were somewhat earlier in the year it was light a lot longer, which enabled us to stay outside longer. As a result we did not play as many games inside the tent, but we did get to see a lot outside. One of the things we saw was a couple of baby-owls learning to fly, which is quite a noisy thing to witness :-). Also, we saw shooting stars. There is not a whole lot I can think of that is better than laying on your back cuddling with your son, looking at the sky and seeing shooting stars… He had never seen one before so the excitement was high and the enthusiasm and thrill indescribable… Let me just say that I treasure those moments and memories.

As you can see in this picture we did not bring much in terms of cooking… We just biked from our campsite to Oudewater to get groceries and got ourselves an instant barbecue :-). We just grilled some meat, had some bread and of course we could not go without roasting some marshmallows. In fact, we made s’mores, despite the fact that we are unable to get graham crackers here… (we repeated this “ritual” the next day).

Basically we had the trip there on Friday, the trip back on Sunday and a full Saturday to spend in the area. Tobias had his first fishing experience in the USA and then Opa bought him a rod in Maasdam, so, he really wanted to go fishing. We went out looking for a rod, but could not find one (strange, really…). Instead we went into two museums: the Ropes Museum and the Witch Museum. That was actually really nice. Tobias made his own jump rope and he went on a “witch hunt”.

We had a nice weekend together and I am pretty sure a tradition was born, because we will definitely do it again next year!

Back Home

Well, that was a lot of posting (both here and on Lorelei’s blog) about our vacation. I’ll finish with this picture which was taken the day we got home. Tobias had been talking about Jip and Darwin (our cats) a lot during the vacation telling us how much he missed them and how happy he would be when he would see them again. During the vacation he had a surrogate: Socks, but that was just not the same. Does he look happy to be re-united with Jip? I think so :-). Yep, we’re back home!