School's almost here!

We have spent the better part of the last couple of weeks getting the apartment set up and preparing for the start of school (tomorrow - I can't wait!). The place is coming together very nicely; we lived in our home on Casselberry for 1.5 years and didn't have nearly the "degree of completion" that we have here. Kenilworth either for that matter, after 8 years! I guess I would attribute it to bringing less - the result is certainly more!

Here are some shots of the pad:

First floor (above street level) - front / Living Room area overlooking the Prinsengracht.
Note the ridiculously small green car across the canal. These things are everywhere!

Our new painting, which is a scene from just down the canal.

Middle of the first floor / Kitchen area

Rear of first floor/ Dining area

Second floor - Master bedroom

Second floor - Eliza's bedroom.
Not much extra space in here!

Third floor - Lilli's room (she's hiding behind the TV)

Third floor - Lucy's room

Terrace (above the 3rd floor) - looking towards Prinsengracht

Terrace - looking towards the rear

The girls and I have tried to continue venturing out to find new parks/ entertainment during the days. We are now doing so mostly by bike, which is quite an adventure in and of itself. Lilli and Lucy are on their own, while Eliza is in the trailer.

Westerpark
We took our second tour of Westerpark recently (the first was when Lilli was out with Mrs. Beck & family so this was her first trip). Westerpark is a large park on the north west side of Amsterdam - pretty close to us and a reasonably easy ride. On the north side of the park (through a "tunnel" under the train tracks) is an "natural outdoor adventure"area where we spent most of our time. Here they loan out small nets to capture creatures from the marsh for closer study, provide a fire (and supplies) for making bread and popcorn, and provide some natural and man-made climbing/ swinging challenges.

Small trees (Willows I believe) are braided together to form a tunnel.
We have seen several similar examples around the city - very cool!
Eliza couldn't be bothered to take her biking helmet off until we had been there for a while.

Inside the tunnel, and light at the end!

The swing is also made of (mostly) natural materials. This kind of swing is popular here - kind of a basket where multiple kids can climb in and lay down. The girls love them!

Eliza on the zip-line going over a "canal" (about 1' deep).

On our way home from Rembrandt Park we happened on a small park tucked away on one of the canals. After letting the girls run for a few minutes, Eliza discovered that there was a petting farm just through a barn in the corner. Amazing the things that you find when you're not even looking:

Rotterdam Zoo
Since we visited Amsterdam's zoo (Artis) over spring break, we decided to take an afternoon trip to Rotterdam to visit their zoo. Lots of cool stuff here, including some "walk-through" aquariums. Unfortunately, it was difficult to get decent pictures of many of the critters using my phone, but I did get s few good ones.

Jellyfish!

Sea horses - one on the shirt too!

This is from the Amazon exhibit (think rain-forest). Butterflies everywhere!
Eliza tried sneaking up on this one.

I didn't get the species, but believe it or not this butterfly is one of the most beautiful I've ever seen. You can see why below.

Lilli took a more scientific approach and got a little juice on her fingers.

I took about 30 pictures trying to get one with its wings open and finally got one!

A few other critters of interest:

Red panda - first saw it crawling across the top of a cedar bush.
First one we've ever seen, but immediately recognized it from one of the girls' animal books.

Roo jumping into momma's pouch!

Wolf pack - we were able to get very close to these guys!

This polar bear was (as I learned very shortly after this picture was taken), if not disproving the old axiom, providing at least one example outside of a forest.

I love raptors - owls and eagles especially!

Surprisingly, this was their favorite "exhibit."

We then found a pelican that apparently had an itch:

And on the way out of the zoo, we heard a very loud noise around the lion area. We investimigated...

Amsterdam Forest
On the recommendation of a couple of locals, we checked out the Amsterdam Forest (Amsterdam Bos). It reminded me somewhat of Bernheim Forest in Kentucky. The girls spent their time up in the trees in a ropes course, while Eliza was grounded due to height/ age requirements. As anyone who has spent any time with Eliza can imagine, she was NOT happy about this slight. But after some encouraging (read: threatening) words from her wonderful and caring father, she made the best of it.

Lucy's ready! Eliza reminds me of that olympic gymnast that placed Silver...

Lucy tore it up!

Lilli ended up a little bored by the end and ready for the next level - she's an athlete!

THIS ONE - well, like I said, she enjoyed herself immensely (on the ropes closer to the ground)!

Prior to this trip, I rode my bike through the forest earlier in the week and found a huge "farm" area with cows, horses, sheep, goats, pigs, and various large birds; a lake with a swimming area and boat/ canoe/ kayak rentals; and a 2,200 meter long rowing course called the Bosbaan (the oldest artificial rowing course in the world, dating to 1936).

Hosting the 2014 World Rowing Championships later this month!

Closer to HomeNot everything was far enough away to need transportation. We finally found a great, fairly large playground right around the corner from us. Eliza immediately made some friends:

Eliza is surprisingly good at throwing the Frisbee!

All three girls got haircuts at Rob Petoom (a very fancy salon just around the corner from us). They all look fantastic:

While the other two were finished within 20 minutes of sitting down, Eliza had established quite the rapport with her stylist... When she was asked "would you like me to do anything with your hair", her eyes got big...
"What can you do?"
She was very bouncy on the way home since her new curls were up to the challenge!

I've had the chance to get out on my road bike twice now - the most recent trip was up the Amstel, which is the city's namesake (Dam on the Amstel - Aemstelredamme, first recorded in 1275 - developed into Amsterdam by 1325). It was a beautiful ride, although I'm not a big fan of the wind and there is no shortage of that here (one of the many reasons I prefer mountain-biking is there is no wind). When I returned home, Holli had a snack-dinner ready to go on the terrace, where we enjoyed ourselves for a couple of hours in the great weather:

This is a popular meal method in the Netherlands - apparently how they do lunch every day at Holli's office.
Beats Wendy's by a long shot!

These three LOVE their books.

Always in a good mood after biking, especially when there is good beer involved!

Daisy continues her death-defying antics on the roof.

Watching the birds go overhead from one of her favorite perches

We've had a couple of arrivals in the last day. Clayton began the third leg of his European tour (after a couple of days each in Dusseldorf and Copenhagen. I'm thinking the entertainment will be somewhat different here, but we are all happy to have him - especially Lucy!

Lucy learning to eat chicken wings at a Tapas place with her Godfather.

The other arrivals came this morning: packages from Nanna & the Highfields and from Leah. There is a lot of excitement in the apartment right now as the booty is divided up!

Tomorrow is the first official day of school - and Lilli's 11th birthday! As a result, we will have much more to report next time!

One final section - and one that may appear from time to time. I've seen some interesting things going down the canal, so I decided to document a couple of them here. Hopefully there will be more as the weeks go on!

These two guys are driving a hot tub. I think this is my favorite one so far!
We smelled wood burning in the apartment a couple of times, and couldn't find the source, then I looked outside and saw this floating by. I think the thing must be wood-fired!

We saw this one heading south in the morning (upper) with a few nasty-looking bikes that were evidently pulled out of the canals. Then later that afternoon it came back by (lower), piled high with junk bikes!