Bannerghatta Park w Nina

With Nina in town and Eelco away we decided it was time for our annual trip to Bannerghatta park, south of Bangalore. In the park you can do some sort of wildlife safari. As last year we almost got held hostage in the bus until we had tipped enough and we had too much attention we asked the drivers to join us. With 2 moms, 5 blond small kids and pretty Nina we figured we could use some help & bodyguards.

The safari park is quite nice, set up in different sections for different animals, in healthy conditions and with what appears to be an ok management system (except for the bus drivers it appears!)

 

 After the safari, and still being a little cornered by the driver for a big tip, we visited the butterfly garden. 

 It is mainly attractive due to the water, fishes and pretty flowers.

 99% of the butterflies in there look like this

 And the other 1% like this - if you are lucky enough to spot it

 The more intriguing things in there are the butterfly cemeteries

 And the kids happily watched an educational video on butterflies in Hindi, or Tamil, or Kanada

 After that it was time for a Nutella picknick

 With the caterpillars - this thing is about 1.5 cm diameter and 15 cm long!

 Radja Duuk on his swing

 And Duuk with the stick collection of the day, trying to get Daniela to answer all his questions

 We had a great time and so did the kids and our nannies….oops sorry….cannot ever call them that; our drivers -:0

Treasure hunts w Nina

On of the other activities Nina engaged the kids in was doing treasure hunts around the compound. If around we invited some of the kids friends over for these as of course in larger groups these things are more fun.

Pool Parties w Nina

After the summer holidays in Europe, Nina came back to India with us to entertain the kids whilst we would be at work in the remaining 4 weeks of their school holiday. We knew that particularly the first 2.5 weeks we would be back nobody else would be and hence the kids needed someone who could get in the pool with them, read stories, do treasure hunts etc.

Well in the time Nina was with us the kids went swimming almost every day, some days more then once. Especially Kaat was up for any princess pool party.

 I had beach towels made for the 3 kids and Nina so they would all have the same.

 Often if they went to the big pool the ladies also came with Duuk - and it did not take many days for Duuk to convince Nina to also take him into the water

 I also clearly missed Saffron colors dress day….Ladies in the same color on the same day like this is not normal!

 They had the pool to themselves almost every day - although you can imagine there may have been a little more 'maintenance' and 'security visits' to the pool area then is the norm -;)

 Our own backyard pool also got some good usage!

Chaos at the Gracht (Canal)

The last few days we spend in the Netherlands before going back to India where more a few stolen hours here or there in between visits, slipovers, business strips to Dubai and before Eelco & Duuk left (they left a week earlier). Somehow I do have quite a few very happy but very chaotic pictures from those moments.

 I hope that was a clean diaper…..

Too wet for the playground so……we made one indoor!

 Opa Sjoerd shocked or impressed by the bling - the whole girly princess thing is clearly very alien to Opa!

 A last evening Holland selfie - before the 3 of us would also go back to India