Jewkes Family Reunion (Salt Lake City w. the Kelly's)

We spent one day with Angie Kelly and her kids. We played in her back yard and made it to 'This is the place' a monument park where President Brigham Young poined to when he came to the valley with the early latter day saint pioneers to indicate they had arrived to the place of his vision. It was a really nice place where we learned about those days (1850s), and where the kids met a real Indian girl, rode a fun train, and rode horses. It was a fun though very hot day! Thank you Angie for taking and spending your day with us, it was so much fun!

St. George and Provo

The extended Jewkes family (very large family) had planned a family reunion in St. George Utah. I was able to find some cheap tickets out to Las Vegas (1.5 hrs from St. George) for the kids and me, and as I needed to make various work connections and discussions in Utah anyway, we went for about 2 weeks. We started out in St. George, where we visited the temple with the kids, and just enjoyed the beauty of the surroundings and the pool as well. The next day we met with LaDonna and 4 of her 6 kids, whom I hadn't seen in way too long. It was really good to see them, and spend time with them. One of my best friends Jackie was so sweet to let us use her house while she and her family were gone, so it was a wonderful opportunity to do that. On friday we met with Alan, Craig and Blake from Woolley engineering, with whom I used to work and still have agreat relationship with. It was so fun to be able to do that and reconnect, especially because Alan's children were nice enough to play with the girls.

Sofia and Lilian are 6 Years Old!!!

The girls sure know how to celebrate a birthday well! They first had a party for the family, with lots of their favorite cousins being in town, partying at Jump-2-it (jumping on lots of 'springkussens'). Then on July 9th, 12 friends from school and gymnastics came over for the funnest water party! We split in 2 teams, and each team could earn prizes by winning events. We had the favorite slip-n-slide, a sponge race, egg-race, cup-race, water-balloons etc. We made a pretty 'lei', and had a delicious and very prettily decorated cookie-cake. As the theme was 'beach', the cake was decorated as a beach, with blue frosting and crushed graham crackers for the sand. Sofia and Lilian went all out and used their playmobil toys to create a true beach, I took a picture, it was so good-looking! Great job girls. Everyone had sucha good time, including Jonkje.

Finally, on the day of their actual Birthday we took them to see Ice Age III in 3D, which was a lot of fun. The girls were sure spoiled and fortunately were grateful for it. Our sweet girls are growing up!

Jonkje's New Accomplishments

In May, Jonkje was working on some accomplishments, like rolling a ball, sitting up completely alone while playing and crawling. With crawling he started to sit on hands and knees and just rock back and forth, trying to scoot somewhere (usually about an inch) forward or backward. So cute. Lief Jonkje.

Water Fun

Who doesn't like water games. We have a little baby blow-up pool in the back yard, and we bought a double slip-and-slide (so now the yard looks like a motor cross field). WE also were able to join Jana and Kailey in their pool one time, which was a lot of fun. All this was necessary as our neighborhood decided to start cleaning the dark green swamp -I mean pool- back into a blue clear water pool 1 day before school came out. Now more than 2 weeks later we still wonder every day if it is really safe to go and swim in it. :) Jasper LOVES to be in the water, and I love to look at his cute naked body crawling around, and sitting in the water, splashing, smacking cups together or slapping the edge of the plastic pool. The girls are so sweet with him to sit behind him so he can't fall over, and come up with fun things for him to play with. And they also get to enjoy the water to the fullest.

We recently had some girls come over, and they played the sponge race, cup race, egg race, hoola-hoop contest, 'koekhappen', slip-n-slide contest, water-balloon contest, and pictionary contest. 3 hrs later, they still had a blast. Hopefully, we'll be able to have a similar water party for the girls in the back yard with family for their upcoming 6th birthday!

Last day of City Pass

The saturday after memorial day weekend was the last day to use the city-pass, and cheapo as I am, I can't just let that be, so we went to Atlanta history museum with my mom, while Josh and my dad played golf. We went to the Olympcs part with info, photos, videos, flame-holder exhibits, and what not which was really neat. They had a part of a 400 m track and field court there, which Sofia and Lilian ofcourse used many times to find out who was the fastest of the 2, mind you..on flip-flops'. I would have ended up with a bloody nose, but they might enter the olumpics someday witha special track-and-field flip-flop race. We all loved that. They had an older farm area with some sheep and chickens, and a beautiful garden with mainly herbs and spices which were used for healing in the olden days. It must not have always worked back then, as there were warning everywhere: 'do not try this at home!' We ended up near an old mansion (probably plantation) which was a way too structurized and guided tour for anyone in our family, so we ended up playing in the beautiful weather in the neat yard. They were going to have a concert, and some men were carrying microphones and cables to set it all up. Sofia LOVES to help, so she asked me if she could go over and help. I said yes, she ran over to one of the guys and just grabbed the stuff from him without saying anything and started carrying it for him. It was really funny to see, and the guy was really nice about it and let her and Lilian help for a while until we had to leave. In the evening we had Josh family over for dinner which is always very lively and fun.

Last Week of School

The last week of school has already passed! At the end-of-school party, the kids presented some fun songs and had some yummy treats. It was a little sad to see they have grown yet another year and are really moving on to becoming big girls going to the 'big school' (grote school). They came home with the most beautiful report cards, Josh and I were very proud of them. It was very special that the teachers put a lot of time in getting memory books together (sort of scrapbooks) and provided us with a DVD with tons of pics of the schoolyear. I love looking back at those, and realize how incredibly much they have learned. One of the songs was 'I don't know, but I've been told' and the teachers had changed the words to: (....you'll have to wait so I can check with the girls, as I already forgot! :) )