Renesse

Last weekend we went to see my parents who are currently vacationing in Renesse. It was a nice day so, of course we went to the beach. We took a soccer ball with us and here the three of us (Tobias, Opa and me) are playing soccer. I like this picture for several reasons, one being, obviously, Tobias. Another is that I am in it, which doesn't happen too often, because I am mostly the one taking them. Then of course there is the fact that all three (generations) of us are in the picture playing soccer. And finally, just look at the sky....

By the way: My mom took this one...

Photographer

Just recently we had a sort of a family reunion with my dad's family. That was a nice time, although Lisa had to leave early because she wasn't feeling well... Anyway, I brought my camera to the reunion and was taking some pictures. Then suddenly Tobias asked if he could take some pictures as well. He had done that once before, but I never thought much of it, because it didn't happen again. Well, since that family reunion he has been asking, and here he is with "his own", or my old if you wish, camera. He tries to look through the viewfinder because that what he sees me, and Opa and Oma do, but this little camera doesn't have one. He sort of got that eventually.

I have to add here that the pictures of the family reunion are not all that bad.... Everybody is in it at least once and they are mostly in focus. The angle is a bit odd though.... :-)

Sports...

Another thing Tobias and I do a lot these days is play hockey, golf, or soccer. Just today we were out playing soccer for quite a while. We went to a soccer field close by and he just ran and ran... It was quite a warm day today so at one point he said to me "Papa, my hair is wet." and I didn't really know what he was talking about. The he said "Papa, why is my hair wet here?" pointing to the back of his head. It turns out he was sweating..... :-). By the way, he is developing quite a kick... Maybe 20 or so years from now he will keep Holland in the European Championships, unlike this time...... :-(.

Like I said Tobias also likes to play Hockey and Golf. The only difference between these games is the type of ball he uses. With golf he uses a little white golf ball that came with a little golf set he has. When he is playing golf the clubs from his golf set are golf clubs. When he plays hockey, they suddenly turn into a hockey stick. The hockey balls are slightly bigger than the golf balls, and they come in a variety of colors, like red... So, as you can clearly tell in this picture he is playing hockey.

His golf swing is developing nicely as he is taking lessons from Opa just about every week.... Oh, that thing on the table in this picture is a bubble machine, really nice!

Working hard

Probably Tobias' favorite thing to do on a daddy day is work... Work in the house, work in the yard, clean something, and the good thing is, he is making himself more and more useful :-). Although, most of the times I am working on one thing and he is working on something he made up himself, like here. I was going on the roof of our garage to check something out, while he was getting all his tools out, including his workbench. He decided to work on my ladder though, scraping and hammering all the paint stains off.

Of course, if you work that hard, sometimes you need to rest a little bit. While we're working Tobias will say things like "We're working really hard huh, papa?". When we take a break he will say things like "I am really thirsty papa, because I have been working really hard!" :-)

Proof: The Dude in Paris

And here is the proof that we actually were in Paris... I love this picture.... Tobias being his cool self, just sitting there in the middle of Paris (The Champs Elysees, with the Arc de Triomphe in the background) like he owns it....

Like I said, we had a good time there!

Note 1: As I was walking around Paris taking some pictures of Tobias I was thinking back to the first time I was there myself... That was when I was 20 years old or something. Tobias has already been there quite a few times...! It is nice to have friends there :-).

Note 2:I taught Tobias some french words on the way there. Stuff like Oui, Non, Merci, S'il vous Plait, Voiture, Lait, Verre, and probably some more. He did remember some of the a few days later, but what was astounding to me is that he was able to pronounce it very well! Another thing that amazed me is that language barriers do not seem to exists in the world of children. Valentine only speaks french (although she does understand some Dutch from her father and some English from her nanny), but both her and Tobias were just babbling along in, each in their own language, and they just seemed to understand each other. "Hey Valentine, can you please move that boat and bucket so I can jump." actually resulted in Valentine moving the boat and the bucket so Tobias could jump off the white stool in the pool (see one of my previous posts).... Interesting...!

Cool "Little Dude"

This picture was also taken in Paris at a playground near the city, I believe it was in Bois de Boulogne, but I can't be sure (I just followed our friends...). We were quite lucky because we could not have picked a better weekend. The weather was so nice. That however, has nothing to do with this picture.... I just like this picture a lot, because even though Tobias is getting to be quite a big dude he of course still is a little dude and in pictures like these quite cool too :-).

Probably one of his favorite things in a playground is a slide. They had quite a few here. He is standing in the opening of a tunnel cutting through a "dike" type thing with some slides on the side. Those were actually quite steep, and I had to help Tobias come down (hold him and go down together). Fortunately there were some other slides too...

...And an aweful lot of other children! It seemed like entire Paris had decided to come to this playground... Anyway, Tobias got to go down quite a few slides, play soccer with me, go in a merry-go-round, run around in a "fountain-pool" (a pool-type area with lots of different fountains that kids can run through), and more....

A good time for a kid, I guess...

A Pool in Paris

Well, the pool was actually near Paris. Two weeks ago we went to visit friends of ours in La Celle de Saint Cloud, a suburb of Paris close to Versailles. We did go into Paris one day, but most of our time was spent around this pool....

The girl you see in this picture is Valentine, she is about 4 month younger than Tobias. The weird face and posture Tobias has in this picture is because he is in mid-jump off the little white stool you see behing him. That was their favorite thing to do! Jump and jump and jump and then jump some more.

Their next favorte thing must have been throwing water on daddy's head.... Because both daddies were in the pool for a while too, and althought we thought we could have some peace and quiet and enjoy a beer and the sun, the children soon joined us and started pooring water on us....

We had a great time there and so did Tobias!