Welcome to Delft, Mama!

My biggest blog fan has her very own post! 

For $55, my mom (flight attendant) flew over to visit me in Delft! She arrived on Monday afternoon, and spent 3 full days with me and my "second family." The woman is immune to jet lag, and was game to do anything and everything. The first day that she arrived, she spent meeting the kids and entertaining them with her knowledge of horses. They seemed just as interested in her as she was with them, and every time Oliver had something to say to her, he would say, "Chelsea's Mom..." 

Mom insists there needs to
be more pictures of me on the blog

Tuesday, we spent the day walking around Amsterdam, or rather, walking in circles in Amsterdam. We walked around the same block without knowing it 3 or 4 times, then laughing at ourselves each time that we realized what we had done. We hit up every cheese shop for their hundreds of samples and tried to determine our favorite variety of cheese, snapped pictures like the tourists the that we were, got ice cream and hot chocolate, people watched, and had lengthy conversations about the sex industry as we passed through the Red Light District. It rained off and on, giving us a beautiful rainbow to enjoy as we sat on a bench and licked up our ice cream and sipped chocolate.

Wednesday, I took mom out on a bike tour of Delft. Because she was on the Chelsea Tour, we stopped at the various recycling receptacles around town and dumped the plastic, glass, and yard waste from our house in their respective sites, then checked out the parks that I take the kids to, shops where I get the groceries from, sampled more cheese from the cheese shops, and took pictures of iconic monuments. I can't believe we never made it to Plan B for ice cream! We came home with a load of groceries, then spent a total of FIVE hours cooking meals in the kitchen. We made a pot of minestrone, two lasagnas, and enchiladas for the family to eat for the next week. 

Waiting for the bridge to come down

Gate at the entrance of Delft

Thursday, mom had heard so much about the boat tour that we had taken in our first week in Delft, that she had to check it out for herself. So Oliver and I accompanied her on a floating tour of the canals. We also spent an hour and half walking through the Thursday Market, petting the Belgian horse which Oliver seems to have an obsession with, and snacking on Krentenbollen, Dutch raisin rolls.

That evening, mom presented the boys a thank you gift of two shields to complete their knight costumes, and me a birthday present - a Delft plate with a windmill scene to add to my plate collection back home. After a dinner of enchiladas, mom and I went out to enjoy a drink. It felt like fall as we strolled along the cobblestone roads. Thankfully, mom shares my affinity for peering through windows at dusk to catch a glimpse of how other people live. I led my mom to a bar that I have been wanting to be a patron, Wynhaven. I call it Joe Bar because it reminds me of a cute cafe on Capital Hill in Seattle, except for hundreds of years older. It was everything that I hoped it would be. We got a table on the mezzanine, overlooking the very old, cool space of the bar. We ordered two Duvels, commemorating the first beer that I ever ordered in a bar, which just so happened to be with my mom in Holland, 5 years ago. How lucky I am to make such fond memories with my mom. I savored the beer, as I did the moment, up on the mezzanine level, across from my lovely mama.

Wynhaven Bar

Thanks for visiting us, mama, and for all of your help doing the dishes, preparing meals, and playing with the kids! You're amazing!

Amsterdam

Line to get into the Anne Frank Huis

View across the canal from Anne Frank's Huis

Cheese Museum: I pay homage to the almighty cow

Where we spent most of our time while in Amsterdam

Amsterdam's rooftops

Posing with our buddy, the boat on the canal.
This one was special because...?

Amsterdam

This resturant clearly did not follow American Health Department regulations

Where we dined for lunch

Catching up on some Lonely Planet: Amsterdam

Not exactly what this castle like building was, but it was in the
middle of Amsterdam and made for a good picture!

Bikes as far as the eye can see

The Rainbow Connection

Apparently my mom is laughing because of how funny I look while snapping pictures of the rainbow. I was bundled up in my raincoat (with the hood on), and a scarf that came up to my sunglasses.

Back in Delft at the city's gate

I survived two days with the kids by myself!

September 21st marked the 10 year anniversary of Claire and Alex's marriage, so I convinced them that they should take a well deserved vacation while I stayed home with the kids. In case it was ever in dispute, let this act of kindness prove as evidence that I am indeed crazy. Take on a job of 3 adults by myself for 36 straight hours on very little sleep? Where do I sign up?!

It actually wasn't all that bad, and in many ways, it was easier than when the parents are home. Because the boys have been enduring an overwhelming amount of tough transitions, they haven't been behaving like themselves. Their emotional frustration that comes with having a new sibling, moving three times in 4 months, and going to school in a whole in new language, demands constant attention from their parents. This kind of stress can turn amiable, adventurous, and resilient children into...(I'm choosing my words carefully)...unbearable fighting fussballs.

They baked their own pizzas!

Anyway, with the parents gone, the children don't have to compete for attention. Instead, I got to be with the boys that I once knew in Seattle. They understood that I was taking on the difficult job of taking care of them all by myself, so they were actually quite helpful, and fun to talk to and plan our days with. Instead of complaining about the meal that I prepared them, they complimented and thanked me for it. And away from her parents for the first time in her short 6 month life, Annika did really really well. I slept beside her crib, and clumsily fed her bottles of milk when she woke up in throughout the night. Unfortunately, I didn't sleep very well. At 4:30 in the morning, Oliver flung open the door, rubbed his eyes and asked me, "Chelsea, um, um, um, um....when's it going to be wake up time?" "Oliver, it's 4:30 in the morning, check back in with me in 4 hours." "Okay," he said, then went back to bed. But at 6:15, both boys were up and playing on their beds, hitting their shadows on the wall. "Chel-sea! Chel-sea! When do we get to make pancakes?!" they yelled happily. At least they were excited to start the day!

Jasper's pizza

Pizza cutter! Do your thing!

Red Bell Peppers and Basil pizza

And this one was for me :)

We filled the day with baking projects, making anniversary cards and banners, and an outing to the Saturday Market to get flowers. We decorated the dining room table with the bouquet of flowers and signs on the wall that the boys had created to welcome home their parents.

The next day, during family meeting, Oliver announced his appreciation of the week: "Chelsea is the goodest person for taking care of us while our parents were on their second honeymoon." The first day that the parents were back home, I spent the entire day in and out of bed. I was so out of it that I had a hard time processing and understanding simple conversations, even asking, "Whoa, are you speaking English right now? 

It's Windmill Time

There is a place in South Holland where there is the largest concentration of old windmills in the world, 19 total, along the canals and you can rent bikes by the hour to tour the land and even go inside one of these windmills. On Sunday, we went to such a place: the village of Kinderdijk ("Children Dike"). In 1740, these windmills were built to solve the problem of flooding in the village. They helped pump excess water from the polders (land surrounded by canals) and into a reservoir to use when the water level lowers. Today they rely on the diesel pumps nearby, but in times of emergency (like in WWII when oil was limited), these windmills are fully functional.

Again, because I couldn't fit in the car, I had the pleasure of figuring out a way to get to the village of Kinderdijk. In theory, I was supposed to take a 'sprinter' train to Rotterdam (a 25min ride south of Delft), walk 3 minutes to the bus stop, and catch a bus to Kinderdijk (30 min ride). But, long story short, I turned an hour long commute into a two hour commute because of some missteps. But I made it there, just the same, and was greeted at the first windmill by two very excited boys. (pictured right)

After having a lunch of cheese, bread, and a banana on the blade of a windmill (detached and laying on the ground), I held Oliver's hand as he eagerly led me into the old windmill. The windmill had been converted into a museum, and was decorated like it would have been in the 1700s, when families would live inside the windmills, with the addition of audio and visual descriptions narrating along the way. Stairs were as steep as ladders, and beds were as tiny as if meant for large dogs. Pictured is the family watching a video inside the windmill.

It was an overcast, blustery day, but the scenery still beckoned to be photographed. Commence sequence of windmill shots...

Where we had lunch (benches are old windmill blades)

Probably insensitive of me to capture this on film, and then to post online...

but what's a day without J&O colliding into each other while playing,

having a good cry,

and earning snuggles from their muma and dada?

It's cool, we all got ice cream in the end.

In case you didn't get enough windmills...

After two hours of snapping pictures of windmills, it was time to make the journey home (in half the time). Oh, I keep forgetting to document this - what I should be taking pictures of every time I see it, is the equally amazing high concentration of bicycles parked at train stations. It's a true test of patience to try and find a safe place to park your bike for the day without getting it tangled up with a million other bikes. I admit that I say my fair share of swear words as I hoist my bike up and try and lock it safely to the bar. No one's that patient :).