Holidays

Wishing you all a very merry Christmas and a blessed New Year!

Fall

The weather is still lovely and sunny, but fall has started. All my men are back to school, even Adriaan. He opted for voluntary redundancy after 25 years with Shell and has started a one year course at Delft University, to become a physics teacher.

Yesterday he unexpectedly had a day off, so we went for a long walk with Maya.

Holiday

The summer holiday started and we spent the first week in Zeeland. The weather was great. We had a lovely holiday house and we discovered a part of the Netherlands that we didn't really know yet. Fun was had by all and we still have 6 more weeks to go. Bliss!

Our holiday house at het Veerse meer. We also rented a sailing boat.

Theo Jansen and one of his Strandbeesten. We went to a lecture by him on Wednesday, so that meant driving back to The Hague, but it was more than worth it.

Theo pulling one of his creations towards the sea, so it can walk on the hard sand, powered by the wind in it's sails. It walked quite fast.

Ring riding in Middelburg

Beauty!

Ring riding, without a saddle!

Windmill in Veere

Veere

Vlissingen

Vlissingen

Maya came along and she had a blast too. She loved the fact that she could jump into the water easily from the garden. She swam a lot.

Huge jump in

Here she slipped when she jumped,...

Beauty!

 Simon decided he wanted to have a ride in the Haunted House in Vlissingen. It was scary!

Simon on the third floor, at the beginning of the ride.

Coming out of the Haunted House. It was scary!

ALAS Voorjaarswandeling

Today we went to the annual Spring Walk for all the rescue dogs from ALAS. After a week of horrible winter-like weather, we had a lovely sunny day with 13C.

The walk was in Ugchelen, on the Veluwe, a beautiful area in the middle of the Netherlands. I am not sure how many dogs were there, but it was a very large pack and Maya had a great time running around with them.

Maya on the right, taking off at full speed

No water tastes nicer than the water from a puddle

Heaven!

Austism

Last week was autism week and Simon wrote a poem for the school paper:

Autism- by Simon Spaander

I am not weird

I am not abnormal

I am the one to be cheered

I am the one most formal

You break the rules

You do what you want

You are the fools

Fools like mules

The ones who fill the schools

Yet I'm the one you taunt

You scoff at logic

You think you've fooled the law

And you think I'm the one who is tragic

Nay, I am the one most normal

Life is so much nicer when the sun shines

A lovely winter's day

I love this weather: cold (-3C) and sunny. Maya and I went for a long walk this morning.

Happy puppy

Ice

Looking for mice