Bodrum, Turkey- October 2012

Due to crazy budget airline flights, we arrived 2 days before the Unruh's met us from Singapore.  So we stayed at a Kids Club Resort and it was awesome! We would definitely go back to this place again. It was a beautiful setting with crystal clear water. Tons for the kids to do. We all loved this place. 

The resort is called Rixos Premium Bodrum and I booked it on Booking.com for all you expat friends or travelers who might be interested.

The pictures below are all part of the kids club! You will quickly see why the kids liked this place so much!

Kman did all these slides by himself but Coco thought she needed to do them all too! The water was freezing but we all managed to get some good sliding in before we turned blue!

Did you forget about us?

Sorry I've been away for awhile, 7 years of blogging was taking it's toll on me! Not sure anyone will ever check this again but I thought I better catch up and post through the rest of our overseas adventure. With our move back to the USA looming over us, I'm starting to feel very sentimental about our experiences here and need to be sure to have all our memories in one place so we have them to look back on. So I will start with our amazing trip to Turkey we took with our dear Singapore friends, the Unruh's, back in October. They were pregnant then and have since had a sweet baby girl named Jessalyn. She is beautiful and their first brown haired baby! Can't wait to meet her someday. So. I will be back to post Turkey photos soon.

Sinterklass

In mid November Sinterklaas arrives on his barge from Spain bringing his Black Piet along with a whole bunch of presents and peppernoten! He stays for 2 weeks and leaves on Kaelan's bday, Dec. 5th, to go back to Spain. Over that 2 weeks he could arrive at your house, knock on the door then run away leaving some gifts behind in a big Sinterklaas bag. He also might arrive while you are sleeping and leave gifts in your shoes. This could happen every evening/night of his stay in the Netherlands or just a few times but there is a lot of pressure on him once the kids get in school because they all talk about how many times Sint came around! 

Waiting for Sint and Piet to arrive on his boat.

This year we went to a neighboring village, Son en Breugel, to see Sint arrive on his barge. It was really cool to see him come in that way but we think we liked the small scale, easy access to Sint last year better in our village. 

The Madson's have become our best friends here in NL. Not sure what we are going to do when they leave for Portland in February to have a baby! 

The girls!

Here they come!

These little speed boats zipped up the canal to keep us entertained while we waited for the slow barge in the distance.

There he is...and no that isn't a barge but for some reason he was on this one and not the huge barge that followed behind.

Peppernoten

After they got off the boat they paraded up the road into the village. All the Zwarte Piet pass out peppernoten along the way. They couldn't stop without 100 kids swarming them. Colette wouldn't get close but Kaelan would follow them around with his bag open yelling "Piet! Piet!" So fun! He did a good job sharing with sister and friends.

See Kaelan in the front with his bag open?

This Piet was talking to me and Colette trying to get her to take a picture with him. She would not have it...obviously I would be posting that pic if she had! 

It has been so fun for us to share in this incredibly unique to the Netherlands tradition. They don't do much for Christmas but it doesn't take us long to get to Christmas central in any village in Germany. Most all do a Christmas market and it is all very festive!

Grandpa and Grandma

 Grandpa and Grandma came to visit!

After a 10 day cruise on the Rhine with the Ortman's Grandpa and Grandma stayed with us for a week of fun and lots of play!

Art and Dee stayed with us for 3 nights and we managed to tour around a little. The best was driving to Margraten to see the US WWII cemetery and then stopping at this pancake house in Thorn with over 250 Dutch pancakes to choose from! Yummy!

Grandpa and Grandma spent one morning raking up all our leaves! Huge weekly project around here and Travis was really thankful not to have to spend his weekend raking!

Coco helped too!

Kaelan's favorite part of their visit was going to the Train museum in Utrect! He still loves trains and yes, he is wearing his pirate costume from Halloween!

Coco couldn't get enough of opening and closing the door on the coal shoot on the engine!

There was a little train outside that Kaelan rode about 20 times! He loved it and finally got a turn in the very front on his last ride!

October

Football (soccer for all us Americans!) in the rain.

Kaelan started playing soccer back in September with a team of 4 year olds. He was a little young but the coach let him join. Since this is his first exposure to soccer he has a lot to learn but he seems to be catching on a little more every week. 

About 70% of the practices have been in pouring rain...it is Holland after all.

Coco likes to go to Soccer Practice too...especially if she gets to hold brothers umbrella!

Some of the kids getting ready for the scrimmage or Mob Ball!

The kids and I have started a music class once a week in Eindhoven. This is something I have been wanting to do for Colette for a long time so we decided to test it out this fall. Kaelan really seems to like it too but he will start school full time in January so it will be some good girl time for Coco and I when he's busy with school.

Halloween

We went to a bday party/trick or treating party. The Netherlands really doesn't celebrate Halloween but there are a couple neighborhoods in Eindhoven that do pass out treats so Colette was able to trick or treat for the first time!

Caterpillar and a Pirate

Coco with the Birthday girl and her best friend!

Trick or treating is very different here! The houses were decorated very scary with scary music and most of the home owners were dressed scary. All the kids costumes were bloody or goulish. Oh, and the candy they passed out was not wrapped. A gummy, cookie, licorice etc all unwrapped and in this big neighborhood only 15 or so houses were passing out candy so the kids had to really work for their loot!

Scottish Highlands Part 2

Day 6 & 7

Day six we drove to Ft. William to catch the famous Jacobite train that is featured in the Harry Potter movies. It starts in Ft. William and takes a beautiful 2 hour journey (round trip is 4 hours and the kids did great!) stopping in a small sea town called Mallaig. 

Kaelan was in Heaven! 

To tell the absolute truth...we drove to Ft. William on Day 6 and weren't able to get tickets. So we bought tickets for day 7, our last day, but seeing the train depart from the station in Ft. William was one of the highlights of K's trip...mine too for that matter! It was really incredible when the train began to leave and all the people, including ourselves, disappeared in a cloud of steam! K and I watch youtube videos of steam trains all the time but it was so cool seeing it (and not being able to see through the steam) in real life!

On the Train

K and Coco got a cool steam train from the gift shop on the train to play with for the train ride.

Girls out numbered the boys on this trip! 

Coco liked her train too but it kind of became K's an hour into the ride!

See what I mean. He NEEDED both of them if he was really going to do this right

The scenery 

The Glenfinnian Viaduct was featured in the Harry Potter movies too.

Mammy had a first class car named after her!

We made it to Mallaig

On the drive home from Ft. William we decided to take a slight detour to see the famous Glen Coe. Parts of Braveheart were supposedly filmed here. It was just a drive but one of my favorite days in Scotland. It was exactly what I had always imagined Scotland would look like, so beautiful!  

Glen Coe

Random Photos

Only group shot taken- Glen Affric

We saw a few herds of the hairy Highland Cows

They were so cool!

Yep we did...a couple times.

Kaelan touching Loch Ness