Sin City
Last weekend I went with my two best mama friends to Las Vegas. We had made the deal early in the year when we were all very pregnant of new moms for the 2nd time around at some party where we yet again only felt partially involved in the festivities.
as you can imagine it is not easy finding a weekend that works for all considering we each have 2 kids under 3 and had to deal with work schedules of both ourselves and our husbands as well as visa renewals etc etc. But we managed - at the tail end of the year - we went and left the kids in the care of our husbands who did a great job (apart from the 4 staples -;)
We loved having time for ourselves, sleeping in, having breakfast at 1pm, gong to the gym outside Nap times, having time to worry about which outfit to wear and making choices for Restaurants not based on the availability of a kids menu or high chair and quick service. It was also lovely to be able to stroll in and out of every shop we fancied without our company running out of patience after the first handbag. Not a bad place for shopping as Sin City has the fanciest piece of retail real estate in the world:
and every fashion brand does not just have one but usually several stores dotted along the strip. We also spend lost of time making our way up and down the strip checking out all the hotels and their associated interiors. We thought the New York, New York looked cute from the outside but was a disappointment inside.
The Cosmopolitan - New - has a super Chandelier Bar and is very pretty inside. The Bellagio is more classic chique and quite light inside but very busy and even there the advertising for girls...
Ceasar's Palace is as its name suggests enormous as the arena where Celine Dion and Elton John perform is not even visible on the picture. Almost 3400 rooms in this hotel alone as well as another fab mall and a section of the casino themed after the PussyCat Dolls.
We stayed in the Venetian (Towers on the Right) which together with the Palazzo actually has even more rooms then Ceasar's palace. Again very fancy inside as well with actual Gondola's and canals as well as plenty of Italian Designers represented and Italian dining as well as some hip clubs.
We enjoyed ourselves so much that we vouched to come back again together in 5 years. We even already picked a hotel - the fabulously lush Wynn.
We had a great weekend but all three of us were also very happy to see our kids & men back again.
What happens in....
And now you are all expecting to read - 'What happens in Vegas, Stays in Vegas'. Well - the real excitement occurred at home on Friday night, only hours after I had left for my mommy-weekend-to-Vegas. Rick fell ad hit his head on one of the walls and associates skirting boards.....He apparently only asked for Cookie Monster (a frozen bag of fluid shaped like cookie monster normally applied to pain) but really needed something more then that as he had a hole in head that one could actually look into. So this weekend we had another first - the first stitches (of some kind). Rick has 4 staples in his head...
I was utterly relieved he was ok and that he got to keep all his hair in the process. Apart from the remnants of some eye irritation (on Saturday) and being a little dirty (avoiding too much water on the wound) he looked pretty normal to me when I came home. He appears to not feel the wound on his head at all.
I found out Kaat also has picked up some new habits this weekend whilst I was away....
I better make sure I close the doors to the Pantry....
It is good to be back and I am glad everyone is more or less in one piece. Now we just have to hope the staples can come out before Hawaii. I do not have the heart to keep Rick out of the pools and the sea because of his head.
My Gorgeous
Just an evening at home in the hectic Holiday Season...Today was my last work day & Kaat had her Holiday Party at school.
Rick like us grown-ups appears equally ready for a break
They are definitely related those three!
The pink & soft vs the hairy & muscly
Cookie Exchange
December is the month of the cookie exchanges. We only learned this year for the first time really what that entails as we made it through 3 such events already. The idea is that everyone bakes a tray of cookies (buying cookies is not really 'allowed'). Then you take those to a party where other food is served - the cookies are not to be eaten there and then (which Eelco did not realize -;) but are nevertheless set out on a table - for display purposes.
At the end of the party everyone empties their bowl or plate or tin in which they brought cookies, and at the end of the event stuffs that plate or tin with some cookies from everyone.....
As we don't really understand much about 'snickerdoodle's' and 'red velvet cookies' etc so we stuck to what we did know - so far we have made Speculaas, Gevulde Speculaas and Kruidnoten ourselves. and the second time around I was even organized enough to make bags for all with some pepernoten as well as Taai-Taai (not home made).
The kids have so many holiday parties that I decided also to get them a proper outfit (so they would fit in) from a decent second hand kids clothing store. But as everything was bright red - which looks horrible on either one - too fancy to play in, too 'truttig' or way too hot for Houston I did not have quite as much choice as I hoped. In the end I stuck to the cookie scheme and got them ginger man outfits.
You can tell I did not take Kaat to the store when I went shopping and I think she can also do 2012 xmas in this balloon dress. From a dinner perspective it is amazing though as it is the best bib we have for her! Covers everything but her feet.
Art or Trouble?
Saturday morning we had a play date from Rick's class. As usual the 4 that have been in daycare together from day 1 stayed longest....
and decided to help Mr Jason a little with the redecoration of his house.
and decided to help Mr Jason a little with the redecoration of his house.
Looks good right?!
A week at the FED
Last week I had training all week for a certification program from Stanford University (California). The training was brought to Houston and due to the connection with the local university I spend the whole week in an auditorium at the Federal Reserves Bank. Pretty interesting! The bank named by many as the 'FED' is a branch office of the one based in Dallas. Considering it is 'only' a branch office the building is HUGE and quite nice & fancy & new (2005).
The FED is more or less the same as the ECB in Europe and is effectively the bank for the banks. Currency distribution and monetary policy, check processing, local intelligence & research for the Federal Government etc are all tasks of the FED. Apart from the FED itself the building is also used by the Netherlands Business Support Office and the local division of the Secret Service....
The place inside is almost like a museum with lots of high quality local art. The FED also does tours which are booked months in advance. But as we did a course there and as one of the other participants worked for the FED at another Branch we got one as part of the deal incl. all the educative material they have.
The Houston Branch office also destroys tons and tons of 'unfit' money - i.e. dirty old dollar bills. SOme of these are put into tubes after shredding and we where allowed to take these home. That was definately the first (and likely the last) time I left a bank and said to security 'I just took some more money, thanks' and only get a big smile and 'have a nice evening ma'am in return!
LITH
Saturday was Light in the Heights (LITH) - the annual holiday street festival in our Neighborhood. A couple of blocks are zoned off for pedestrians only and all houses along the route are elaborately decked out in xmas lighting. Every few houses there is a band or some other group making music or doing some other kind of performance. As you can imagine exactly up Rick's alley!
Kaat also was impressed by the light & the music
Rick danced the night away
and even got Bluesbrother sunglasses & a hat to be the 3rd brother....unfortunately I have no good pictures of that part of the act but at least some fifty or so other people do!
and then we where on to the next band
Maartje & her family live on the route of LITH and so if not dancing in the street we spend our time on their veranda. Rick got a little carried away in his whole acting thing and pretended (-;) to be extremely ill for Dr Maartje.
He was quickly cured though when Joost took him for some more Rock & Roll
Kaat was really busy soaking it all in too and stayed awake as long as she could.
All in all a lovely evening with our friend in our own neighborhood
Guess we have to go for another walk this week after work though as we took 0 pictures of the beautifully lit houses!
Really?
Eelco had a trip to California last week to look at some test on a pipeline. The line is a couple hundred kilometers long and so he had to go see a few different locations quite some distance apart. Turns out one of the 3 locations he had to visit......was smack bang in the middle of one of the project Areas I am working on.
Really?!? I have not been out to the field yet (only the office) - mainly due to lack of time, and he gets it thrown in as a surprise? Not the first time he's done that as in Sakhalin he was not even working on the offshore side of the project and still managed to spend some time on 'my' platform and 'my' flotel. Somehow he thinks I will not be jealous but just utterly pleased if he makes some happy pictures of himself with the respective assets...
Bit of a strange place it is - Producing for about 100 yrs now, and the 6th largest producing fields in the US the place is covered in infrastructure and constantly busy with new development and keeping up operations.
National Geographic had a big picture of the field in a recent article as it shows a side of California not any people know or think about.....
Milkmaids & Cowgirls
One of my friends is leaving Houston for good this week and so we had a Dutch girls day out on Saturday to give her a good Texan send off.
After Lunch & Coffee we headed out to Brazos 'Alligator' Park. The drought was very very visible and the lake could barely be called a lake anymore.
The guest of honor herself, Nicole, also made some good artistic - old western type shots of us (&me)
Do I look like a native Texan Mom yet?
The crocodiles reminded me of the North Sea Seals as they were all sunbathing on separate mud banks.
In the nature centre for about 3 seconds touched the Tarantula and then decided we had done enough nature for a day.
On to some proper Cupcakes for the sugar rush after the adrenaline -:)
And then on we went to the very Texan Armadillo for venison chili, burgers and chicken covered in at least 3 different layers of something tasty & greasy.
The next program item was the Bull at the Honky Tonk. Fortunately there were not that many people at the bar yet so some of us dared to have a go. Cramp in your thighs within 2 seconds and a bruised ego are more or less guaranteed but at least we can scratch something else of our bucket lists now.
Not to long after we were shown hot it really is done...
Other then the bull we were either too tired, to old, too sober or too un-hip for the Honky Tonk and left for a nearby wine bar were we could at least hear each other. We all realized we were definitely not getting enough practice at this kind of life anymore - and I certainly struggled the last hour to keep my eyes open
A great day though with some new inspiration for visitors.
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