Big Brothers in Dubai

In the easter weekend Eelco went with his brother to Dubai. I think they had a nice weekend…..

 to the left in the picture - Dubai Mall, the largest mall in the world

 Burj Khalifa - the tallest building in the world

 Burj Arab - the fanciest hotel ever (probably taken from the 360 bar)

 The happiest brothers ever?

 The fountain show modeled after the one at the Bellagio in Vegas

 More grins

 Dubai Skyline - the older part with my 'usual hotels' and office in view

 'the world' in the background

 Some last grins from the hotel balcony in the Marina

On a random day…...

Even just on a random day in our lives, a 'normal' Monday on which we go about our daily routine of going to the office & to school and do chores at home, life is never dull!

For instance we had some kids in a box, or two. (their game & initiative)

Later at home I told Eelco to finally get writ of his old laptop. It does not work anymore, or hasn't worked in over 5 years, and we have no charger for it, it has less memory then the simplest phone in our house, but it does still contain some data from Eelco Engineering. So Eelco gave it to Duuk, to make sure the laptop would become really inaccessible -:)

Duuk took his first ever real chore in our household very seriously

And enlisted Kaat's help for the last bigger pieces.

Almost done

….just spill some milk on the hard drive and that's it!

Kings Day

The past weekend I was in Dubai with Sietske & Marlouke, and Eelco was with the kids in Bangalore. So we celebrated Dutch Kings Day 2014 in different ways.

On Thursday night, the start of the Dubai weekend, with Marlouke fresh of the plane from Singapore, and Sietske still 'en route' to meet us, Marlouke and I attended, kind of last minute or impromptu, the very slick, well organized and big (think 1000+ people) Dutch night in Dubai (theme 'op de camping' - at the camp site). We had no outfits in theme, but at least both an orange flower (coincidence somewhat), and a big grin - being happy together - we rocked up only fashionably late.

Turned out Mr Ali B had flown in from the Netherlands for a show. He had decided on a 'op volle toeren' themed show (Dutch musical TV show from when I was a kid), which was lucky for us as we did not know any of his hit songs.

Fortunately Ali B's lyrics are not that hard to sing along - a chorus of 'where is the party?', 'Here is the party' is easy enough to remember.

We liked his entertainment. And did get a nice picture with him (which evoked some significantly weird reactions on Facebook from sone of our Dutch friends…..we must have missed something!)

After Ali B followed a good cover band. They played all sorts of songs including Danny de Munk's 'Ciske de Rat' song to which we sang along very loudly (according to some video footage on my phone -;) 

2 days after in Bangalore Eelco attended a by Bangalore standards big Orange party (150 people?) organized by a few Dutch guys with no sponsoring. Equally festive it appears:

With a bunch of non-Dutchies helping in the celebrations, also well decked out in Orange, it apparantly was a fabulous night. 

And Eelco had plenty of nice (South African) friends to hang out with in my absence, in the local red light district -:)

On Sunday in Bangalore there was also a kids oriented Kings day celebration. It was not quite 'de konings spelen' (kings games) as hosted on many schools in Holland on Friday. And with most parents still recovering from the evening before,…..I understood it was somewhat of a subdued affair. Do you recognize them without the hat & wig? 

 Rick had been educated about the event by Ms Gerdien in his Dutch class so he was all prepared.

 Kaat did manage to score and appreciate one of the few bitterballen available.

 As well as some other Dutch treats.

 Rick enjoyed a quiet moment alone at the end of the party:

 And Duuk enjoyed his pancake - and probably everything else - as he is always happy.

The only one who provided somewhat of a coherent story on what occurred at the flea market was Rick. He got a horse with a prince (barbie's Ken; fortunately his friend Tandia I think has the Barbie horse) as well as a sword….there are a few other things lying around the house which I do not quite recognize. Rick said he paid…for the horse & the prince. The rest of it…..may have been smuggled into the car and our house accidentally ;)

Jardin Botanique alpin de la Jaysinia

In Samoens, about 20 min drive from Mieussy, is a lovely Botanical garden, all against the flank of a hill, in the middle of the village. We stumbled upon the place by accident, what a treasure! The kids loved it and ran up & down the trails for a good 1.5. The weather was sunny and not too cold and the views amazing.

 Opa SJoerd & Oma Joke also tried to take a few nice shots together, but Rick & Kaat where too enthusiastic to stay away.

 At the top of the hill and the end of the trail is a lovely seating area with a big pitch, a shelter of some kinds, benches and more amazing views. For some looking away from the hill. We where more mesmerized by the view of our amazing kids.

 Precious!

 Rick & Kaat's fantasies quickly went into overdrive and we all got instructed to play out all sorts of stories.

 Duuk also clearly loved the fresh alpine air.

 And Rick made an attempt for the 10th time that week to induce Duuk in the wonderful world of sticks.

With finally some success.

Fabulous park / garden to come back to often!

Braai

One Sunday, not so long ago, we invited our South African friends in Bangalore over to the house for a BBQ (incl 1 Dutch marries to an Afrikaner) and pool party on Sunday afternoon. Pretty daring considering they all are naturally better at 'braai-ing' then us Dutchies. However it was a fabulous afternoon. So fabulous we have few pictures as we were too busy laughing. As we had established in France Duuk is quite the meat lover. At the BBQ once again he showed us this by effectively consuming all leftovers, meat wise, from all other 9 kids -:)

Duuk also demonstrates that he inherited his pool hair from his dad.

Chalet Life

During our house hunt in France in March we rented a lovely Chalet from some brits from Edinburgh. The whole place was in theme and in supreme order. It is all a stones throw from the place we bought so will be the first place we would look at to accommodate any overflow -;)

In the week there we practiced the Chalet lifestyle with enthusiasm and actually spend quite a bit of time at the house, with each other, relaxing.

There were some fabulous block boxes at the house so we built lots of things.

 And all of us spend a lot of time in our PJ's close to each other -:)

 We enjoyed the views and the snow

And used the garden to practise Easter egg hunting (at least in tho weather the chocolate eggs did not melt before the kids found them). Do you notice the similarity in stance between Eelco and his dad?

 We also spend a lot of time in the house dressing up to go outside. With our kids being used to warm weather only, and not wearing shoes or socks for 95% of the year it takes some effort. Duuk thought it was funny!

 And we napped quite a bit - literally crashing everywhere and anywhere. Forgetting even that we were still wearing socks - which we don't like.

 We also made some lovely fires in the fire place. Which the boys LOVED!

 And I got loads of foot massages from Duuk - tip 1.wear socks - they are a intriguing thing for Duuk. 2. Wear bright colored socks for max results.

And last but not least - of course we had a resident princess in the house, and we had a lovely time buying lots of amazing food at the grocery store and eating many lovely home cooked dinners.

Turns out - we are very good at 'Chalet life' - the five of us.