Netherlands 4: Biking

We rented bikes for the girls and my dad and I went on a little ride with them (about 8 miles). It was beautiful weather, and we stopped to feed some horses some grass, as well as at a cute playpark next to a cute teahouse. The girls loved it, with the favorite part feeding the horses. they were very seriously counting the horses, and as we drove many times along a certain route with at least 10x 10-15 horses, they added up quickly. Soon they were at 1000 and above. I began to be a little suspicious when the count was at 9000+. I just listened as they went up 9073, 9074, ....9099, 10,000. Hmmmm, something went wrong there. They obviously started to eb a little confused after 1099: not 1100 but 2000. :) Oh well, in short we saw a lot of horses.

On wednesday I visited my friend Saskia first at the Soesterberg airforce base, which was really interesting, and then at school to pick up her kids, Annefleur and Bastiaan. It was fun to show the girls a Dutch school, and that all kids are picked up by bike, with the kids biking themselves next to their mom who might have more little ones either or on the front on a 'bakfiets' or on the back and front in kids-seats. Fun to see. We went to a little forest place with petting zoo, play-ground and a little area with lots of sand, some water to wade through, and some fallen trees to walk over. The kids played well together and had a great time. We ended with a yummi dinner that Saskia made, where Sofia and Lilian put their olives on their fingers which was immediately immitated by Annefleur and Bastiaan, and which didn't make Saskia very happy (I always let them do this since they ate olives from their fingers since they were under 2-Saskia didn't agree :) Sorry, Sas!).

On thursday my dad accompanied me and Jasper to Eindhoven in the afternoon to meet some friends from the triathlon club, Patrick, Roger en Frank P. It was a lot of fun with many good memories and renewed relationships. I always love reconnecting with old friends, and it was worth the long drive. We also stopped at the Mechanical Engineering building at the University of Technology where I went for almost 5 years. Jasper felt pretty comfortable there, and was proud to be the youngest student there. :) He was in fact so excited to be there that he filled his diapere with lots of yummy ingredients, just when I had forgotten my wipes. Oh well, I hope no one had to go into that bathroom for a while- stinky Jonkje!