C12

Honors. All As. So, they had an assembly for the kids who got honors. Here she is!

This first photo is C12 getting a regular honors, with a handshake from the principal.

This next series is the principal announcing the awards. C12 got hers and forgot to shake hands, so Mr. T had to call her back. I missed when she actually did the handshaking, but she practically leaped off the stage, and Mr. T was laughing at her.

 Anyway, this was a good semester for her because she didn't have PE, which was her only B last year.

Onward to term 2!!

Ice Skating

Q10 asked if she could go skating. I took her and a friend, they had a blast, skating for the whole 2 hours, practically non-stop! I was so done by the time they were ready to go.

Zoo

Although K couldn't come down for Thanksgiving her son J11 still wanted to. So he could play touch football. Which he did. And he dominated the game, as you can see, because he is an incredible two-hand-touch football player.

Then the next day: the zoo. Grey Wolf and a Sea Lion.

Q10, J11, C12

 Q10 and me

Clockwise from left!
 C12, TCR, J11, T, and Q10

Science extra credit.

Q10 did a great job on this extra credit project, and had a fun time doing it. I just wanted to make sure we keep a photo of it.

Amsterdam, Day 5, going home, Tuesday

Odds and Ends. Nothing really to report. We had breakfast and hit the train to go to the airport.

But the girls took multiple photos of our hotel. We'd been placed, for our room, underground, actually, so here is the lobby, our room, and the breakfast area!

She took me eating breakfast with a flower. Love the second one. What am I, picking my teeth with my tongue? 

 The place was filled with tchotchee:

And I cannot stress enough how much the kids liked the elevator. There's our floor, negative 1.

Here's the guided tour.

Amsterday, Day 4, October 31

So. The 31st. We've gone to the book fair, TCR's bar and one restaurant, the Vondelpark ... and not yet Anne Frank house.  So we went to the Rijks Museum. It was an amazing museum. In honor of Halloween, I stepped on these mosaics. I mean I saw them. And stepped on them. And photographed them. They were in a square so I stood in the middle of them:

Actually, the whole museum was amazing. C11 was crazy pre-teenish during this museum, but still I enjoyed it. We just let her mope around. And then Q10 got a little tired. And me, too.

I really liked the Isaac & Rebecca (The Jewish Bride) painting by Rembrandt. It looks less impressive when you take a photo of it with your phone, but in person it was something.

 C11 really liked a lapis map. Q10 really liked a room with tapestries. TCR really like seeing the original Vemeers. They were pretty amazing.

After the Rijks museum, we hit the Anne Frank House again. It was 1:30, so I got in line, and TCR, C11, and Q10 hit the road to find me some fries. They came back and Q10 and I spilled them. Whoops.

No pictures inside the Anne Frank House, but it was a powerful place. And the video afterward was moving, as well. I'm glad we waited, even though it was a long, coldish wait. But, we had fries, so I am not complaining.

 C11 ... This is the same corner where we went to the cafe the day before when TCR went to the bar, but we were waiting for the restaurant to open, so I got a couple of photos.  C11 liked the houses. Me, too.

After this we walked over to one of TCR's favorite restaurants, next to his favorite bar. This was us waiting to be seated. Called ... Lieve. Lieve means "dear" in English.

The restaurant gave you three choices ... Mamma's Kitchen (homestyle), Belgian Baroque, or Mrs. Bubbles, which all had different levels of choice, place settings, and price. The food was good. It was a fun place!!

Amsterdam, Day 3 - Muiderslot Castle (Sunday)

Day three, Sunday October 30.

The goal for this day was to go to Muiderslot Castle. It was a train ride and then boat ride away. We got there early enough to have a little walk-along-the-seashore-and-then-have-a-coffee-or-hot-chocolate time, which was lovely.

You take the ferry over, a maybe 60 minute ride? on a long, flat boat, through a lock that brought us up or down about 6 cm, and out to the water. I do not have an adequate photo of the boat or water. 

                             
This was our first view of the castle:

We took the guided tour, then did the self-service tour. Best part? The toilets and the battlements, of course

 

And then we walked the grounds, and they were lovely, as well. Really nice.

 

 

This was the view from the levy inside the castle:

Then on the boat again on the way out we saw a lot of tall ships. There was virtually no wind, so this regatta that was going on resulted in ships basically standing still. Dead in the water. They were moving at blistering speeds of about 10 meters per hour until they crossed the finish line and could turn on their engines.

This first one must have been in last place. It looked like a ghost ship from so far away.

These were all coming into the harbor as we were cruising out.

And this was us on the ship out!