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 :-).