A Good Weekend

This weekend we spent Saturday at a castle and Sunday at an art museum. We drove up to see the Muiderslot Castle. (about 15 km SE of Amsterdam) It took about 45 minutes to get there. The castle is over 700 years old, and although most of the signs were in Dutch, we got the main ideas. Also, since I'm teaching the middle ages at school, I was really into it! There were jousts to have, costumes to try on, swords to pick up, and virtual battles to hold. We had so much fun that I'm going to take my class there for a field trip!
Sunday we spent the day at the Escher Museum. We decided he must have been dyslexic, crazy or brilliant. His work is well known, and even though I totally enjoyed looking at it, Fred got dizzy and had to stop trying to make sense of the pictures. (He's SO logical!...Fred, not Escher)
Last weekend it was so cold that the canals froze. Apparently it hasn't happened here in thirteen years, and the entire country found ice skates and went outside. It's a very healthy/outdoorsy country! The windmills looked especially beautiful in the frost, I thought.

International Celebrations!

The 12th of December was Santa Lucia Day, very popular in Scandanavian countries. Since I have five Swedish children in my classroom, and the school is 20-30% Scandanavian, the whole school celebrated. The girls all dress as Lucia's helpers, and the oldest gets chosen to wear the candelabra and be Lucia. The boys wear clown caps and also dress in white gowns. They parade through the school and into the darkened theater and sing songs traditional for the holiday. The treats were wonderful, and I recieved several bottles of glugwine, which when drunk hot with spices, really warms you up! This holiday, along with Sinterklass Day (Dec. 6th) really gave me a different Christmas to celebrate this year!

Home for christmas

After a great flight to Chicago, arriving the one clear day between ice storm and snow, we have been enjoying some time with the boys, friends and relatives. BJ flew in from California and we hosted a Christmas dinner for nine, including new 5 week old cousin Beckum. I've spent lots of time using my credit card with all of the great sales and the Euro/dollar situation right now. We fly back to Amsterdam in a few days, and school starts again January 12th. Happy New Year one and all!