ProjectLife

Another one of my New Year's resolutions is to record the everyday stuff in a way that I can print it in a book at the end of the year.  Many many years ago, like before I had kids and scrapbooking was a "thing," I scrapbooked. Then I had kids, and got overwhelmed by the clutter and mess of scrapbooking with small children. Then digital scrapbooking became a thing, and I thought it would be the greatest thing because it solved the clutter-with-small-children issue. But I got busy, and I didn't keep up with that either. I love the idea of digital scrapbooking, though. I have several books that I've done of vacations, etc. I'm just so behind, that it's overwhelming.  Enter ProjectLife app. I heard about this app through social media, and I've decided to give it a try. It's a digital scrapbooking app on my phone. You can actually create pages in the palm of your hand. I love how simple the layouts are. It only takes a few minutes to create a page, and hopefully at the end of the year, I'll have a year's worth of pages already created that I can print into a book. That's the goal. I know doing it this way, a little at a time, rather than trying to do a whole year's worth of pictures at a time, I'll actually remember the little details of the day to day.  And I'll probably have a much more detailed look at what the year looked like, rather than just the highlights. Last night I created my first two pages, and it was so easy!

I'm really hoping my excitement makes me stick with it!

In other news, over Christmas break we became local celebrities! 

Front cover of magazine--picture of the Ollibollen stand at the top of our street

Our article was on the inside of the front cover

One day early in December a lady knocked on my door and asked if she could interview our family for the local magazine. I guess we stick out as one of the only (if not THE only) American families on our street. Plus we have four kids, so that makes us stand out, too, I guess. Turns out this lady lives a few houses down, and our next door neighbor is the editor for this magazine. So she interviewed us, and just wanted to know how we liked Rotterdam, what our experience has been like, what we don't like...all that good stuff. The article is in Dutch, but she sent it to me in English as well. Here's the translation, the grammar is a little bit funny:

Stroepwafels’, trees and bakfietsen

The beautiful Christmas tree in the window at the Heemraadssingel 198 belongs to a family all the way from Utah, US. Trevor and Annie are the parents of four lovely children who all became ‘Rotterdammers’ this summer. Trevor works for Petrobras an energy company that has its international headquarters in Rotterdam. Their children, Grace (13), Holly (10), Kate (7) and James (4) are very fond of Rotterdam. Kate is very pleased with our trees because in Houston the gum trees have very spiky round fruit balls. Holly’s official name is even Holland and she really enjoys the swimming classes at school. James is a fan of the ‘Pannenkoekenboot’, the famous ‘stroepwafels’ and chocolate. The favourite spot of grace is the Euromast.  They all love biking and do as de Dutchmen do; without a helmet. Annie even uses a ‘bakfiets’ to bring the younger girls to the international school. The one thing which is really different for her is that she can’t do all the shopping in one big store and that we are used to go to different shops. So they already have found the Makro.☺ The reason to choose Rotterdam was so work & family life are close and they like the Heemraadssingel for its park, canal ánd swans. Because of the international school and their international social network it is quite easy to settle in. The only thing they do not like is all the litter people leave behind at the street and in the front garden. Funny thing, they appreciate our cold weather and really enjoyed the Dutch autumn. When asked what would they like to change; language (Holly), a good stove (Annie), my turtles (James; looked after by his friend back home), clean roads (Grace). Well Sint has just passed but perhaps Santa still has some magic to sparkle…

Isn't this a hoot? Well, that's what we have been up to!

Happy New Year, Y'all!

Let me just say this up front: I'm a terrible blogger, and a terrific procrastinator. So, resolution #1: I'm going to try and make some of my weaknesses strengths this year, and try to keep up on this blog.

We've had such a fun Christmas break with Trevor's parents in town. They arrived on the 12th of December just in time to enjoy Grace's school talent show. Sadly, I didn't take a single picture.  That first weekend they were here, we decided to try going to a Christmas Market close by. I had read that Dordrecht had the best market in the Netherlands. And lucky for us, it's less than 30 mins from Rotterdam. So we checked it out.

pretty sure James is not impressed with Christmas markets

I'm pretty sure the point of Christmas Markets is to sample as much of the food from every food stall as possible...at least that's what we did. We didn't make it to any German Christmas Markets this year, so we don't know how the ones here compare...but I have a sneaking suspicion that the German ones are better. There's always next year to test my theory, I guess.

The kids finished up their last week of school before Christmas, and then we flew to Copenhagen--land of Hans Christian Anderson, Tivoli Gardens, really cool palaces, and just plain awesome. We had heard that Copenhagen was one of the best "Christmas-ey" cities in Europe. Probably because of Tivoli Gardens. It's the second oldest amusement park in the world--opened in 1843. It was beautifully decorated for Christmas, and had christmas market stalls setup through out the park. The kids, of course, only had eyes for the rides.

We arrived at our hotel in the early evening, so we headed over to the Hard Rock Cafe and Tivoli for the evening. I know it seems like if we're in Europe, we should eat like the Europeans or something. But come on, sometimes we just miss an American hamburger. We've tried Dutch hamburgers, and let me tell you something, they are weird. So we got our fix, and then hit the park.

The next day, the sun came out, so we decided to take a canal and harbor tour of the city. Copenhagen is beautiful. I really loved the architecture of all the buildings. We toured the exterior of the Rosenborg Palace, since it was closed. We saw the Little Mermaid...

Rosenborg Castle

Rosenborg Castle

boat tour selfie

boat tour

The Little Mermaid sculpture

Visited Amalienborg Palace (the royal family actually live there)...and I didn't have any pics because cameras weren't allowed.

Sunday we attended church, which was conveniently right next to the Copenhagen Temple, too. The translators weren't working, so we listened to the majority of the meeting in Danish. It was their Christmas program, so there were some nice musical numbers, too.

Copenhagen Temple

Later, we visited the Copenhagen Cathedral. This is the church where the original Christus statue is, along with the 12 apostles, all done by the famous sculptor Bertel Thorvaldsen. We arrived in time for a Christmas Mass service. It was really neat to observe in such a beautiful place.

Christmas mass at Copenhagen Cathedral

as usual, James isn't impressed. But Kate is.

We also visited the inside of Rosenborg Palace, where the crown jewels are kept.

The next day, we took a train north of Copenhagen to Hillerod, to tour Frederiksborg Castle. It was built starting in the 1500s as a royal residence for King Christian IV, and now it's a museum of national history. It was just spectacular.

Also of note, especially to members of our church, there is a room in the castle that houses all of the original Carl Bloch paintings.

We really enjoyed walking around the gardens as well, even if it is the middle of winter!

gardens

Our last day, we visited the Copenhagen Zoo. The kids needed a break from castles and palaces and art.

that's a kangaroo

And to finish it up, we visited Christiansborg Palace, and the royal stables.  We saw all the royal horse carriages. I don't know how I got out of there without taking a single picture, because they were really cool.

We headed home and enjoyed a nice, quiet Christmas. Lots of lego building, and puzzle making, movie watching, and yummy food eating.

Christmas morning

Christmas dinner

Holly building her Legos from Santa

Grace loving her fancy Dutch bike

James got a bike too

Anne Frank House

In front of the town hall and their ginormous Christmas tree

Over the next week, we visited the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam, went to a movie, and spent a day in Gouda.

Ya know, where the cheese comes from. Except in America, we say it wrong.  It's pronounced How-da...and if you clear your throat will pronouncing the H, you'll say it like the dutch do.  Gouda had a great old church with amazing stained glass windows that are original to the church. The kids also got to ice skate in the town square--pretty much their dream come true.

I loved the shutters on this building

amazing stained-glass windows in Gouda's church

Kate trying out her ice skates that Santa brought her

First attempt at ice skating. Do you see the skates? They strap around their boots, and they are double bladed...genius!

This kid kills me

The mighty skaters

Well, if you made it through this obscenely long post, then you deserve an award. Happy New Year! We are looking forward to all the new adventures that 2015 will bring.