Four's Company

The kids are sad.

Today, cousins Helene and Lizzie, along with their mom, Lucy, boarded a train back home to Berlin. They'd stayed for an exuberant, fun-filled week with us in Amstelveen. Playtime lasted for seven days, interruped only by sleep, Ben going to school and Sophie going to her peuterspeelzaal (poh-ter-spayl-zahl) or toddler play group.

Marnix, Josy's brother and Lucy's husband, was in Boston visiting Oma. And the week coincided with a school vacation for Helene, so they decided why not spend the week in Holland so the kids could all hang out. What a great time it was, indeed.

It's quite a sight to see all four of these kids playing so nicely together. Rather than the unbridled chaos one might expect when four children are left to their own devices, there's actually a harmonic convergence of sorts where they all seem to entertain each other and just have fun. For us parents, it was a breeze. No more were there the periodic fussings and demandings of attention from mommy or daddy. Nah, forget mom and dad -- there are cousins to play with.

A highlight was going together to the Nemo museum in Amsterdam. More a reference to Captain Nemo than the animated clown fish, it appears. Nemo is a hands-on science museum for kids, with all manner of crazy experiments and games and distractions. Bubbles. Static electricity. And a ball factory where kids insert the spheres into Jetson-like tubes and can then watch them on conveyor belts going all throughout the intricate contraption and eventually ending up back in the production supply queue in front of the kids, ready for re-insertion in the tubes. (See the picture-movie here.)

Not sure when the next visit among the cousins will be. Maybe in a couple weeks. Maybe next month. Whenever it is, if you ask Helene, Ben, Sophie or Lizzie, it can't come a day too soon.

Winter...Finally!

At long last, we got some snow! Despite a weather forecast that called for partly cloudy and a possibility of rain, the white flakes started descending late morning and continued through the afternoon yesterday. After dumping up to 8 inches on England, the storm front deposited a leftover inch or so here in The Netherlands.

One of the local swans, possibly freaked out by the fluffy deluge, sought refuge next to a faux elf who's forever fishing in the nearby canal.

Ben got to ride home from school. Any unease with biking on snow soon passed and was replaced by increasing offroad experimentation.

With admirable resourcefulness, and with visiting cousin Helene offering guidance from her more comfortable position inside the dining room window, Ben and Sophie together managed to lump together a portly, diminutive snowman from the meager snowfall in the back yard. When handed a carrot for the snowman's nose, Ben promptly broke it in two. So, we compensated by branding the frosty gent as our beloved Alien Snowman -- the carrots being his two eye-antennae.

It's all melted by today. But for a few lingering lumps in the back yard, the slowly ebbing reminder of the Big Blizzard.

Did I mention that Josy chose today, at my enthusiastic urging, to ride her bike to work for the first time...? ; )