Avondvierdaagse

There is an annual event for school children called "Avondvierdaagse". It is a walking event where the children walk for about 5 km for four nights in a row. Tobias' school participates and children from groups 3-8 can join. So, this year was Tobias' first opportunity to walk, and he did.

Of course, we were not sure what would happen since up until now we had only viewed it as an annoying annual event. They walk through our neighborhood just around the time you get home from work and sometimes you have to wait for like half an hour in order to be able to get home.

Well, I guess time changes things, because this year Lisa even walked with him one night, the final night (I was supposed to, but I sprained my anckle pretty badly playing tennis...:-( ). Anyway, Tobias came home very proud and tired every night and we would take his shoes off, have a drink and massage his feet :-). It was quite hot so he had to drink a lot and his feet got kind of sweaty and soft, the perfect ingredient for blisters. Fortunately he did not get any and he had a wonderful time.

Look at his proud face showing off his ("first real") medal!

Breakfast in Bed

 There are those moments that need to be cherised rather than documented. This was one of them, but I could not help myself for it was so sweet! One Sunday morning we were lazily waking up. Tobias came to our room, like he does every Sunday. We cuddled a little and then Tobias asked if we would like something to eat. I said "Sure Tobias, I'll have a cheese sandwich...". Initially I thought he was just joking, but when he went downstairs I was expecting him to come back up with one of his toy sandwiches, like he has done before.

Much to my surprise he came back up with an actual cheese sandwich! He then asked Lisa and Lorelei what they wanted and ended up making everyone a sandwich (one by one). So, we had breakfast in bed prepared by Tobias!

After receiving my sandwich and realizing what he was up to I could not help but go downstairs and take a look (and this picture...).

Skater Boy

 I used to be quite the skateboarder one day. Not that I was a very good skateboarder, I was just skateboarding a lot. I used it for transportation, built ramps, went to skate parks and all that. That was a long time ago, but the skateboard was still in my parents' garage.

When Tobias and Lorelei spent the night there a few weeks ago Tobias found the skateboard (or rather it was found for him :-)) and played with it. When we picked them up Tobias wanted to take it home. He has been wanting to skateboard a lot since and I have to say, the progress is quite stunning. He's still a bit insecure, but he is doing it!

Check the "old skool" style of that thing :-). Still, he looks pretty cool, right?

Little Chef

Tobias had a project at school about "basic ingedients" I guess. They talked about all sorts of basic ingedients for foor, like wheat, rice, cocao, eggs, meat, fish etc. Each grade had their own basic ingredient that they learned about in detail. Tobias' was Eggs. They did lots of fun experiments, like dissolving the shell so you get a translucent egg and you can see the yolk, putting lots of weight on eggs and see when they break, trying how hard it is to break an egg by squeezing it... loads of fun!

They also cooked a dish with eggs and sold it to the parents on the final night of the project. The proceedings went to a good cause. They had a chef come to the school and prepare a dish with each group. Of course they needed some parents to help and I was lucky enough that I was able to help. So, I got to see a room full of little chefs with aprons and togues preparing a spinach omelet :-). Oh yeah, and that very evening I got to buy a piece of it for 2 euros :-). It was great fun.

Of course, when we went to my parents for Easter, Tobias wanted to show Opa and Oma what he had learned. So, he told Oma over the phone what ingedients to get and he made the omelet again. Opa and Oma loved it too!

Baseball Uniform

Yet another baseball post.... This time of proud Tobias in his baseball uniform. It was so cool... I think this picture was taken just after we had gotten the uniform. For the kids you can "lease" a uniform, meaning you pay a small fee and you can use it for one season. If there is a growth spurt during the season you can just exchange it for a new one. If you see how much these uniforms cost and how fast he grows, that's a good deal... Anyway, Tobias was so excited that he wanted to show Lisa right away! The next week, the day of his very first game, before he came down to our bedroom, he had put it on :-)! It does look quite nice, doesn't it?

(For the MLB fans: The Braves logo (cap) is from the Atlanta Braves during their 1967-1989 seasons)

Taekwondo

Tobias has been taking a couple of Taekwondo classes. There is this thing here in Gouda called "brede school" where you can try stuff. He has been trying a couple of things including soccer and music. This time it was Taekwondo and he liked it. It was only three classes of which he missed one (due to me being in London for work... shame on me :-)). But, he did attend the last one, and so did I. They did all sorts of moves and other exercises culminating in a grand finale of breaking a board.

This is Tobias' board breaking... I thought it was great! He was so proud of himself... I think that, after he gets his B-diploma in swimming, we might have him join Taekwondo class for real.

Oh, guess what, Tobias made it to the (local) paper with his Taekwondo endeavors :-):

Gouda Braves BBall Majors

Tobias has started baseball this year. I wrote about that earlier, but that was when they were still playing inside. Now they have moved on to outside and there are actual games involved :-). This team picture was taken on the second (practice) game of the season. The first one was lost to a team of somewhat bigger and more experienced kids... On the second game, the opponent did not show up (kind of rude...), but they made two teams and played each other. Afterwards there was this photo-opportunity (and I took it with my phone... hence the not so full zoomed view of the team, because I would have been in the way of the people with te real camera's :-). Last saturday was the third practice game. The opponent showed up and was, yet again, obviously more experienced, so we lost again. There is one more practice game before the actual season starts...

It is lots of fun to watch the team learn and grow. It goes pretty fast actually. What they do is, they pitch an under-handed ball. If the batter can't hit they switch to a toss-ball (tossed from the side of the batter). If that doesn't work either the have a tee. Well, the first game the tee was needed a couple of times, but on the third game they did not need it anymore. In fact, pretty much half the team didn't even need a toss ball! Also, the plays are being learned pretty quickly. Of course they are not able to throw the ball all the way across the field yet, but the intention is there :-).

I will keep you posted on developments and try to take some better pictures in the near future.