First week of school

It's been a long, weird summer. We've had a lot of change and transition, and it feels good to be back to school! Although, I will say, I prefer sleeping in to getting up early. So that's going to take some getting use to again.
Here in the Netherlands, kids start school at age 4. All day. Everyday. It's the law. So, guess who's going to school?

He wanted me to take a picture of his backpack first

He's so excited to be going to school with his sisters. On the third day of school, his teacher told me a funny story about him. They were going through the calendar, and the teacher asked the kids if they knew what day of the week it was. All the kids kind of stared at her and didn't know the answer, except James. He piped up, "Wednesday!" She said, "That's right, James, how did you know that?" He said, "I guess it's because I'm just really smart."

The kids are going to an international school, which means all of their classmates are from all over the world.

Grace is at the secondary school, which is a different campus entirely. She's finding that she is ahead in science, but needs to do some catching up in Math. Good thing she's got a dad that remembers all this math stuff!

So, after I dropped them all off the first day of school, I decided to brave the big market in Rotterdam all by myself. Every Tuesday and Saturday Rotterdam has a huge farmers market. You can buy all sorts of produce, fish, cheese, spices, and basically everything else under the sun. It's a bit intimidating since I don't speak dutch. But I did it!

I'm loving how little I drive here. Seriously, I'll go multiple days without getting in my car. We bike everywhere. The weather has been awesome, too. The rain finally quit and we've had sunshine and not-too-hot days. It gets pretty cool at night. Pretty much perfect in my book.

Trevor was in London all week for work, so he missed all the school and market excitement. He saw a show, ate awesome Indian food, stayed in a posh area of London, and basically made me jealous that I wasn't there, too. He totally owes me. Anyone want to come and babysit so I can go to Vienna with him in a few weeks? ;)

In other news, we finally have a dining room table and chairs. I'm pretty sure I've visited IKEA more in the past week than I'd care to visit in my entire life. We are getting pretty handy with a screw driver and an allen wrench.  So far, we've assembled two dressers, one pantry, one kitchen table, 8 chairs, one kids table with four chairs, two shoe racks, one coat rack, two desks and I think that's probably not all but I can't remember what else.

Also, I found Crisco at the Chinese grocery store today (along with cream soda).  Who knew these items could be so exciting! It's really the little things in life...

Last week of summer

So, it rains a lot here. ALOT. I kind of love it. But I thought I had left the land of mosquitoes...not so much. Have I talked about this? I feel like I've talked about this. Here in the Netherlands, there is no such thing as air conditioning in homes. Weird, right? It just doesn't get hot enough for long enough for there to be a need. But, on those few days that it does get warm enough, you have to open your windows to cool down the house. Well, the windows don't have screens. This country needs a lesson in window screens! So, since it rains here, there are mosquitoes. And since there are no screens on the windows, they get into the house. And eat everyone alive. Poor Holly has eleven mosquito bites on her face. And that many on her arm, too.  We haven't been leaving the windows open for a few weeks, but they seem to sneak in when we open the front door. It's like they're a different breed, too. They itch forever and ever, and get all swollen. So, here's hoping we get some cold weather to kill the suckers off. Okay, rant over.

We've just been chillin' out waiting for school to start. Tomorrow is the big day. I think the kids are nervous. New school, new country, new everything.  Trevor's actually in London this week, which means I get to navigate the bakfiets, four kids, and two different schools in the morning. I'm a little nervous, myself! (And a little jealous that he's in one of my favorite cities without me.)

We did have one day of beautiful sunshine this week. So I took the kids to Delft. The place where all the blue and white china comes from. It's only 15 minutes away from our house. It was so pretty outside. We just walked through town and toured the Old and New Churches. The Old Church (Oude Kerk) was built in 1246 and the New Church (Nieuwe Kerk) in 1496--so not super new. ;) While we toured the Old Church someone was playing the organ. We all thought it was pretty cool.

New Church

Town Hall

cute kids

Old Church

We stopped for some lunch at an outdoor cafe. 

And then we toured the Royal Delft Porcelain Factory and saw how they made these:

 All in all, a fun day. On Saturday, we ventured out to do some shopping. It really is so much easier to get around this city on a bike, because you don't have to worry about parking.  This time, Trevor hauled the kids. I snapped this pic mid-ride.

And Holly got a new bike! She left hers at Grandma's house in the states so she would have something to ride when we are there. I think she just wanted an excuse to get a new bike here! :)

Isn't it adorable? Dutch bikes are very practical and come equipped with everything you need to haul a lot of stuff. 

Cute girl and a cute bike. Hope it doesn't get stolen!

Wish us luck for tomorrow! First day of school here we come!!