11-17 June 2011

On the morning Ginger and Jed flew to Hungary, we went to Delft. Here I am buying some cute little ceramic Dutch houses at the open antique market they have every Saturday. We bargained and got a good deal on six of them.
Ginger bought some blue and white coasters from the same dealer.

Here are my six little houses, lined up at home for a picture.

It was a chilly morning so we hung out in the Centrum of Delft at the Bagels and Beans shop to warm up a little.

This is the old church(Oude Kerk) in Delft that kind of looks like the leaning tower of Pisa - it really does lean.

So now it's a week with Scott, Megan, and Becke! This is a picture of them at the Grand Place in Brussels. On Sunday morning we picked them up in Antwerpen and took them to our old ward, as Scott had served in this very ward as a missionary 18 years ago. He recognized two people. They didn't recognize him as he's changed too much. His Flemish was great and he could talk to everyone. It was so fun to introduce our family to our old friends. I especially loved seeing some of our friends who had gotten baptized and how strong they are. Victor, an African man Loel baptized two months ago, had his girlfriend at church with him. She came over to the sister missionaries and asked, "Could you come over and bring your little calendar with you so we can plan out when I can get baptized?" We were so happy! This Antwerpen ward is so amazing for missionary work - such a strong fellowshipping ward.

I wonder how many pictures of family eating Belgium waffles by the Grand Place that we have? We never get tired of taking them there and experiencing them again and again.

The next day was Brugge - such a lovely day, wandering around together.

A pretty window in Brugge with the reflection in it.

This is the church where the Michelangelo statue "Madonna and Child" is - this is the back of the church with the beautiful stained glass windows.

A cool old metal bike in Brugge with cute Becke by it.

I love these funny trees with the knotty leaves that look like fists.

Becke and I visiting in Brugge.

Megan and Scott at the Lake of Love with a chalet in the background.

Becke in all her glory - at their little computer in the apartment we stayed in in Brussels. We loved this 3 bedroom 3 bath apartment.

A gorgeous sunset from the window of that Brussels apartment.

One morning in Brussels Scott, Megan and Becke helped us move furniture out of the old mission home into our two mission vans. There was a lot of furniture that couldn't fit in the new mission home so it could all go to missionary apartments. There was really a lot of nice stuff, but we couldn't fit it all in and so the Saldens had to go back a few days later with two vans and get more.

Scott and Megan were huge helps - thanks to their muscles! They spent about 3 hours helping us that day.

Sister Salden and I showing how packed one of the vans was with all the furniture. We were able to use a vanity and chair in our apartment and a variety of other things. The Saldens were thrilled to have all of this for the missionary apartments.

I figured this might be one of the last times we saw the old mission home in Brussels - here's Becke in front of it. It's such a beautiful home.

Here's Loel in the Anne Frank cafe where we waited for Megan's family to do the tour. We had been on the tour several times. They enjoyed it. Amsterdam was a rainy, cold day, but we still had fun with our umbrellas.

We had seen this dish when we ate at a couple of pannenkoeken houses. It's called "baked eggs", but I think they are just fried. It's three eggs sunny-side up, over thinly sliced ham, over three slices of bread - with a small salad on the side. We tried it the other night when we took Scott, Megan and Becke to the White Swan in Broek in Waterland. It's delicious.

We went to the cheese market again with Megan's family. We learned some new things. This market has been in existence since 1382 (yes - 1382).
In this picture the quality experts are slicing a round of cheese in half.

They look and feel the texture.

Then they take plugs of cheese out of it and feel it again and taste it. They were cutting plugs of cheese and passing samples to the onlooking crowd.

There are several crews like this that pick up the "trays" of cheese and take them for weighing. The rounds weigh between 12 and 13 kilograms (26-28.5 pounds). That could be up to 225 pounds of cheese plus the weight of the tray.
The cheese is weighed before the final price is negotiated.

Typical little houses in Alkmaar, some dating back to the 1500-1600's. The one on the right looks like the little ceramic houses Paula bought last week.

More little houses in Alkmaar. You can see they are literally on the canal.
We had "Carin's Boutique" in Mannikandam and here we have "Dani Mode" in Alkmaar. (You have to look closely at the downstairs windows in the house on the right.)

Paula loved this little house with the red door.

Megan, Scott and Becke in Alkmaar.

Megan wanted to see a windmill up close. In the 11th hour (Friday afternoon), she finally saw one up close.

Scott wanted to ride bikes as a remembrance of riding bikes on his mission. We dropped them off in the seaside town of Katwijk onde Zee(cat-vike on the sea), on the coast of the North Sea, and they rode bikes for about 2 1/2 hours. They had a great time. We found a market nearby that we visited and liked and plan to go back.
It was a great week with them here. Scott was always so enthusiastic about everything as it brought back so many memories for him.