Happy Birthday Helana!

"It's the friends you can call up at 4am that matter."
- Marlene Dietrick

Mmmm, lekker!

Hello, my name is Abi and I'm a chocoholic.

lol. Ok, maybe not quite but I do loooove good chocolate. So, Ineke and I went to De Bonte Koe and took a class on how to make bonbons. It was so much fun and much easier than I thought :)


Our instructor


Decorating the bonbons


Here Ineke and I are with the finished products


Isn't it pretty?

I had such a great time and we even got a booklet at the end of the class with instructions on everything we did so I can do it again. It'll be my little secret though because it's all in Dutch, hehe *wink*

Boeven Feest

So, Morten had his 6th birthday party. His actual birthday isn't until next month but, since he'll be on vacation then, he got to have a party with all his school friends now. It was absolutely adorable. The theme was boeven (or thieves) and Ineke took them through this adventure where they get mistaken for thieves and got thrown in jail and all kinds of things. Absolutely adorable, let me tell you. Here are some pictures:


Ineke reading the story to the boys


Here's the cake, cute hé?


The house was decorated "like a jail cell" with cob webs and creepy stuff


They got fingerprinted


and mug shots taken


then there was a "prison break"! (a game they played, ankles tied together they had a race around the back garden)

Eventually the boys decided to play with Morten's new toys and then it was time to go home. I think it was absolutely adorable and went extremely well. In Morten's words "It was the best party of my entire life!"

Number 4,000

Sweet aren't they? This is the 4,000th picture I took with my camera that I bought in December. One of the best investments I've ever made. *smile*

Sometimes all that's needed

is a good cry...

This sucks :(

A good friend of mine is getting married. Today. In the States. And I'm here....*sigh* I'm so bummed I don't even have words...This is the second friend of mine (my age anyway) to get married. About a year ago my old best friend from elementary/middle school got married. In Florida. I wasn't there for that either. Geeze, what kind of friend am I? Both weddings I planned to attend but ended up not being able to because the dates got moved up. The most upsetting part with this one though is I'll be back in the States in three weeks. I'm missing it by three stinkin' weeks! I could cry about it...but I already did that. So yeah...I hope I get to see pictures. I asked Laurie to take some for me but I don't know if she will or not. If she doesn't maybe someone else will. I dunno...

So anyway, I decided not to go out tonight. I'm just not in the mood at all. Maybe I can go get a movie and some chocolate. I really need chocolate right now! lol. Mint chocolate chip ice cream would be the best, but I don't know if that'll happen. Anything would do at this point though.

Sorry this is such a bummer post, I don't do them very often but today I just needed to whine for a minute. Jenny, if you read this: I love you, Girl! I wish you and Mike all the best and all the happiness in the world. I can't wait to see you! *hug*

Just real quick

Today in Media Markt "Hollaback Girl" by Gwen Stefani came on the radio and Caroline, being the little dancer that she is, started bouncing/dancing to it and I of course joined her (kids are great for that, you can act like a dork and not look so rediculous because you're just "playing with the kid"). Later on the train, Caroline proceeded to try and sing the song and it came out something like "I msgnhd Hollaback Girl!". Of course I joined her in that too and we sang and were silly the whole train ride home. She is such a joy.

Getting over myself!

Well, my Dutch is actually pretty good now. I have been here for a long time so it ought to be (it'll be ten months on Sunday...woah! lol) I understand pretty much everything around me. Every once in awhile there will be a word I don't know or whatever but for the most part I really understand things very well. My problem is talking. Ok, all you who actually know me stop laughing, I can hear you from here! I know that the problem is usually getting me to shut up, but that's when I'm speaking English. Speaking Dutch, however is a whole different thing for me. In my head I'm almost fluent and even when I'm speaking to the kids I do pretty well. For some reason though when I talk to adults I get so nervous! It's strange I know, I think it's another part of my perfectionism...or something. But now I'm going to have to get over it...

See, what we've decided to do is to rotate languages. One day we'll speak only Dutch (for me to improve) and the next only English (for the kids to improve). We started with all Dutch this evening...and I just didn't say much, lol. But I did talk a couple times, mostly to the kids (which I always do no problem) but even to Robbert and Ineke which is new. It's funny because they've always been so encouraging and everything about my Dutch so I can't understand why I'm nervous...who knows. I'm excited though, I think this is really going to help me.

Tomorrow should be interesting too because it's English day. Actually, the kids have been doing really well with English. They can understand me if I have them concentrate and I speak slowly to them. Plus, they can say basic stuff like "Can you hang my jacket up, please?" or "May I have a drink, please?" etc. They're really a lot more open to it than they ever were before but they still kind of fight it sometimes.

Like today, Ineke brought home a puzzle with English words on it and Morten and Timo's reaction was something like: "Yea! oh, is an English puzzle?" Ineke:"Yes." boys: "ooooh...*frown*". Ineke then asked them if she should take it back, to which Morten quickly responded no. Timo however adamantly vowed that he would "Never, never, never play with it!" Of course after seeing Morten working on it for two minutes he wanted to join in as well. They react that way sometimes when Ineke, Robbert and I have a conversation in English at the table too. They really get frustrated when they have to think hard to understand everything (and I don't blame them, I know the feeling!) So, for those reasons I can see tomorrow being a bit of a challenge. However, I think if we really stick to it they'll learn in no time.

So yeah, wish us all luck. And lets hope I can just swallow my pride, get over myself and really finally learn...