Amsterdam Day 307: Kinderdijk

We went and visited the village of Kinderdijk. Kinderdijk is an area with 19 windmills and its purpose was to keep the lowlands from flooding. The windmills pumped water from the lowlands to the river on the other side. Remember, we are something like 20 feet below sea level so keeping water away is a big deal. 

The name Kinderdijk is Dutch for "Children dike". In 1421, during the Saint Elizabeth flood of 1421, the Grote Hollandse Waard flooded, but the Alblasserwaard polder stayed unflooded. It is said that when the terrible storm had subsided, someone went on to the dike between these two areas, to see what could be saved. In the distance, he saw a wooden cradle floating on the waters. As it came nearer, some movement was detected. A cat was seen in the cradle trying to keep it in balance by jumping back and forth so that no water could get into it. As the cradle eventually came close enough to the dike for a bystander to pick up the cradle, he saw that a baby was quietly sleeping inside it, nice and dry. The cat had kept the cradle balanced and afloat. This folktale and legend has been published as "The Cat and the Cradle" in English.

We took off on the trail to go look at some windmills. Bev and Cam were armed with scooters to make the trip easier. Ryan was on her skateboard. And Charlie was on his bike. All of 10 minutes, and Cam had to pee again already. No problem. We can handle this. No problem when it's Cam. More of a problem when it's Bev. This reminds me of a story. If you know Tracy, the next time you see her, ask her about her experience on the boat when she had to pee real bad. It's pretty funny. 

Charlie had an amazing time just cruising around on his bike. There are still no pedals. We might be getting close to getting him on the bike with pedals and no training wheels. We shall see. 

And we thought we would try to get a family picture since we don't really have any. The good news is that this is not a closeup. Otherwise you'd see the chocolate covering Charlie's face and all over Bev's dress (cause she uses her dress as a napkin). 

We really had a fun time wandering around the windmills. We can definitely see why Kinderdijk is one of the biggest attractions in the Netherlands. Come and visit and we will show them to you like we did with Tracy. 

Amsterdam Day 306: Bike Ride up the Amstel

Today we went for the longest bike ride that we have taken yet. Our friend Tracy is visiting and we decided to test ourselves on a long ride. We started off by riding along to a cute town Ouderkirk an de Amstel. We ride for seven kilometers or so from Ouderkirk along the Amstel river up to Amsterdam. 

It's a really cute journey looking at giant estates, farms, dairies, and windmills. 

While in Amsterdam we went to the Dutch Resistance Museum, lunch at the Salsa Shop, wandered around the Noordermart market (Tracy bought shoes and we had to stop her from buying more that did not fit), dinner at De Hallen, wandering through Vondelpark, checking out the house that we almost rented in the Old South, and then heading home by way of a cool second hand store. 

The girls found a box full of wedding dresses. What do you do when you find a box of wedding dresses? Put them on and take pictures. So they did. 

And we headed home. 

We did about 20 miles today on bike. It has been awhile since I've done that many. The rear end can feel it right now. It has been awhile since my spin classes have had me prepped. 

Amsterdam Day 305: Tassenmuseum

Today may have been one of the most exciting days of my life. Today we got to visit the Museum of Bags and Purses. Talk about excitement. Talk about entertainment. This is the pinnacle of museumdom in Europe. 

The top floor was all about bags and purses in the 16th to the 19th centuries. 

Or was it the 15th century. Dang it. Now I have to go back to find out. 

The place started off by showing why historically men and women have worn bags and purses. By the 17th century, men stopped using bags and purses except for specific reasons like gaming bags. The reason? Pockets. Pocket were invented and men decided they could carry all the important stuff in their pockets. But for women, the golden age of purses was just beginning. 

The place had a display for beaded bags. Another for work bags. And yet another for Straw, wood, and other materials. There was a display for silver lined bags and another for silver accessories. 

There was another display for Chatelaines. Read the above if you are interested. There were more separate displays for tie pockets, leather bags, tortoise shell bags, ivory bags, reticules (whatever that is), stocking purses, more leather cases and wallets, gaming purses, and mesh purses. And we were still not out of the 19th century yet. 

As we entered the 20th century on the next floor down, we saw displays on early plastics, cut steel, Art Deco, marcasite, and more Different Kinds of Leather (capitalized because that was the title of the display). 

This beaut was titled unusual bags. 

It wasn't a total loss. I was able to sit down and wait for the rest of my party with a man smoking marijuana. So great day. 

Amsterdam Day 303: Jared and Tina Wedding

This is Jared and Tina. Jared loves Tina. Tina loves Jared. They got married. And they lived happily ever after. 

Right after the wedding, we joked wondering if there ever would be a woman this excited to be with My little baby brother. Well there is and she is a wonderful woman. I was so excited to meet my new sister to be and to meet her family. I was also excited to see the life that Jared has built for himself in the great state of Ohio. 

The wedding was beautiful. The temperature was perfect (if you mean by perfect freezing cold with a hint of snow and rain). The bride looked amazing. And the groomsmen were almost as handsome as the groom (handsomer but don't tell Jared). 

The reception was held at a country club that evening. And it wouldn't be a Kartchner wedding if there wasn't some car decorations for the bride and groom.  I have no idea how this happened. I was surprised as anyone when I saw this being done to the car. I have no idea how Ryan and Cameron got my credit card and bought the supplies from the store a few miles away. They are a creative bunch. 

The hit of the party was the photo booth. I could not keep Cam and Ryan away. I kept telling them 3 times is enough. And then 4 times is too many. And then, well, if you are going with the bride then 6 is ok. Now with grandma and grandpa? Ok. But no more. But then cousin Julianne needed a picture too and she is too little to do it by herself. 

After 12 pictures, I put my foot down, in the photo booth with them for another picture. 

At about 830 at night, Cameron was so tired that he fell asleep under a table. Ryan was determined to stay awake and watch Jared and Tina discover their car. And she couldn't wait for the dancing to start in order to dance with her favorite person, me. It was so cute and I will remember her excitement when she is 16 and hates me. Finally, around 1030, with Ryan really starting to drag, the bride and groom left the building to discover that someone had decorated their car. And Ryan was right there to see the look on their faces. So much fun. 

It was a wonderful wedding full of wonderful people. And I am so excited to have another sister in the family. Welcome to the family Tina!

Amsterdam Day 302: Back to the States

Ryan, Cameron, and I flew back to the states for my little brothers wedding. He lives in Ohio. I haven't seen him in a few years. And I had never met his fiancée before. More on that later. Within an hour of landing, we went immediately to Chipotle for lunch. Oh how I miss those California style burritos. And oh how good it was. I even paid extra for the chips. 

The next stop was Chick-fil-a for food for the kids. Ryan said that she wanted Chick-fil-a for every meal. And we did pretty close. We arrived on Saturday so they had a chicken sandwich and fries for lunch that day. Pizza for dinner since it was provided at the wedding rehearsal. The next day was Sunday, so no Chick-fil-a that day. But Taco Bell made for a great substitute. And it was oh so good. 

Monday morning meant Chick-fil-a breakfast. Since we were flying to Atlanta early that day, we were at Chick-fil-a before the store even opened. We had the hardest decision ever. Do we go with the chicken biscuit or the chicken minis? Cam and Ryan both chose the minis. Ryan got an extra entree of the minis. And me being me, I decided on the minis. And then I chose the chicken biscuit also. Oh so good. 

When we arrived in Atlanta, I took Ryan to her friends school for lunch with the friend and her mom. And what lunch did her mom have prepared for Ryan? Another chicken biscuit. 

Best vacation ever. 

Amsterdam Day 290: Self Service Canal Cruise

Jaimee decided that it would be a great idea to rent a small boat and cruise the canals in Amsterdam. I will fully admit that I had my doubts about handling a boat with all the other boats, walls, children in the boat, and even bigger boats. 

Jaimee picked up the boat, with her friend Ashley and the kids, and met me and George at the Rijksmuseum, since we came in a little later from work. The first thing we saw when they came around the bend was four very brightly orange colore life vests and a boat that could not go straight. Instead it was rotating from side to side like a drunkard or a 10 year old was driving. Possibly because a 10 year old may have been driving. 

They picked us up at a dock along the side of the canal and we were on our way. I can absolutely say that the view from a boat in the canals is so much different than the view from walking on the street. Like this view. There are baby birds in one of the tires along the side of that boat. I don't think I would have ever seen that from the sidewalks. 

I remember so many times walking around, seeing the boats cruising down the canals and thinking of how much fun it would be to be in the boat. And it is so much fun, until you see a bridge that is very low, and a bigger boat coming through the bridge straight at you. And then thinking how in the world are we going to get by the boat without hitting it or the boats on the side. 

The kids had a blast. Every tunnel that we went though, the kids were trying to touch the ceiling. One tunnel was so low, that we all had to duck. 

George turned out to be amazing also. Not because of his mad driving skills, but he is so good with the kids. He was driving the boat and Ryan wanted to drive again. He sat with her so patiently and taught her how to drive. When she has her own boat (and motorcycle), she is going to call it The Turquise Dolphin and she will be Captian Ryan. 

Ryan was so confident, that as we were all singing loud to frozen songs (George has them on his phone, don't ask me why), she almost hit a boat or two. 

The hardest part of the whole cruise was Charlie. He always walks around like a drunk sailor, which is not good on the boat. I think he completely stressed out every single adult as he leaned far over the edge way too many times. Maybe we should have let him fall once. He would have learned his lesson pretty quickly. And he had a life jacket on so don't judge my thoughts as evil so quickly.  

One difficult part of a three hour cruise is finding a place to go to the rest room. We pulled off to the side once and let the boys pee on a tree. But that doesn't work so well if you are a girl. So Bev got to lean her backside off the side of the boat and just let it go. So much fun. Speaking of peeing, we watched a guy peeing off the back of his boat right into the water. Unfortunately, he was a lot closer to us than we would have liked and we got a view of more than we liked.  And he went for a very long time. 

It was an amazing time. And we promise when you come to visit us, a three hour tour of the canals of Amsterdam by Captain Ryan in the Turquoise Dolphin, will absolutely be the crowning jewel moment of your trip. Jaimee was right. 

Amsterdam Day 287: Happy Mother's Day

For Mother's Day this year, Jaimee was able to spend the day doing whatever she wanted in Paris with her childhood friend. She had a few desires when she returned as part of her Mother's Day gift. 1) Keep the house at least as clean as when she left. In general, I think we did pretty good with that one. And 2) have a bunch of flowers around the house. I think that we did a pretty good job with that one also. 

Charlie decided to wake up early this day and went downstairs on his own. After not hearing anything for a bit, I got worried that he was into something. Sure enough, he had knocked one of the vases over, with water spilling everywhere. And he was counting the petals as he was ripping them off the plant. 

Later in the day, I found another vase tipped over with ten more petals laid out all in a row, also ripped from the plant. What am I going to do with this kid?

Amsterdam Day 286: Kasteel de Haar

Mom is out of town. She is so lucky to be hanging out in Paris with her childhood friend Ashley, without children. The rest of us decided to do a little sightseeing. About 25 minutes away from our house is this beautiful castle with beautiful gardens. 

As you can tell by Cameron's big smile on his face, we were all very happy to be touring. Notice Charlie's hat. He loves to take that hat around everywhere. 

Well, he threw it in the moat. 

And we watched it float away. 

And it kept getting further and further away. We finally abandoned it to go to the shrub maze further in the gardens. About 20 minutes later we came back to see if it had floated over to the side where we could grab it. And it had. We grabbed it and continued on our merry way. 

It appears that Charlie threw the hat in the moat because he did not have a stick or rocks to throw in. In his head, it all made sense. Nothing else to throw, so the hat must go in. Better the hat than him I guess. 

Amsterdam Day 285: More and More Tulips

On our way to church today, we thought we'd stop off at some flower fields for one last run through the tulips. I thought this was a great moment to take a perfect picture off all my beautiful children dressed all up and looking wonderful. Boy was I wrong. I took what I thought to be a lot of pictures and not a single one looks great. But you can look through and let me know if I got a perfect one. 

Ryan, Bev, and Cam look pretty good in this one, but that is Charlie running away in the distance. He didn't come back for a little bit, which makes taking pictures of them difficult. 

Charlie fell down. You can barely see his head way back there. 

And I guess we were all off to save him now. 

Here is a cute one with three of them enjoying the flowers. No Charlie though. 

I finally got all four of them in the shot. Too bad that Bev was paying attention to the other kids and not the camera. And Cameron is not looking either. 

Finally I got one. Oh no I didn't. Ryan is mad now and does not want to participate. She's the mature one that I shouldn't have to worry about. 

This angle didn't really work. 

Beverly is really cute and in her element. So the trip wasn't a waste. 

She wanted to do a heart. Cute thing. 

Charlie ran away again. He wanted to pee on the flowers. The potty training seems to be going very well. 

Oh, I got Charlie. And he's paying attention. Quick Cam, look over here. He didn't. 

Oh good, the three are looking at me now. But where did Charlie go. He's laying down in the flowers. 

Alright, he is back up. But now where is Ryan? Oh that's her behind Charlie. 

Let's try something different. Everyone smell the flowers. They did. But I want them smelling in my direction. 

Oh good. They are smiling in my direction. Ryan? What are you doing now?

And Charlie is off again. 

What do you think? Did I ever get the perfect picture?