20-26 August 2011

Here is Conner, buying more pens from a flea market, this one in Delft. We went there on Saturday and had a good time exploring the city. Too bad the flea market was shutting down when we got there. Conner LOVES flea markets! (Loel: I love flea markets, too, so this gave me an excuse to go.)
Before the market, we went to the temple with Andy Thomas from Antwerpen who was taking out his endowments and asked Loel to be his escort. It was wonderful to be there in the temple with him. I loved it. Gail loved being there, too, and listening to the session in Dutch - we had our headphones, but they didn't always work very well. Conner enjoyed doing baptisms while we did the session. We ran into several other friends from our old ward and stake and had some wonderful reunions. Victor, a man that Loel had baptized a few months ago, was there with his girlfriend doing baptisms. (Loel: One of the real blessings of this mission has been the opportunity to watch the commitment and progress of new members. Andy has received a mission call to the England Manchester Mission and will go to the MTC in England on 15 September. Paula told him that we want to be involved in his progress for the mission every step of the way. Andy asked her if we could arrange to serve a mission in Manchester.)

These are two nice guys we've made friends with each time we go to Delft and bring different family members by the flea market. One of them is from Texas, the other from here.

This is a cool house we liked in Delft.

Conner in front of one of the many canals in Delft.

We went for a walk along the North Sea on Sunday morning in the town of Katwijk. There are all these little beach bungalow things along the beach.

And a famous place for taking your picture.

We had a lot of fun on Sunday night going to dinner at a very nice member's home along with the 3 office elders, Gail and Conner, and an old missionary and his fiance. This is the sunset we noticed on our way home from their house.

Gail and I pretending to ride bikes in the Netherlands! This is one of the Brubakers' bikes in front of their house, but both of us were too timid to ride it as it was pretty unsteady and kind of hard to ride. Conner wasn't very happy with us.

Gail loved the Mission Home- here's a picture of one of their guest bedrooms upstairs, looking out the window.

Another picture from the living room window, looking across their back yard canal into a neighbor's yard.

The Mission Home's back yard, right along the canal.

We were there with our entire zone for a service project - helping several neighbors with their yards. Here's Conner, working along side the other missionaries - there were about 35 of us in our zone. They worked for over 2 hours.

This is the Mission Home's newly planted front yard.

Just part of the wonderful lunch we all prepared for that day! Pres Brubaker grilled lots of hot dogs and brats in the back yard.

Monday was Gail and Conner's last day so we went back to Amsterdam to see the Rijks Museum after doing the zone service project. This is a pretty famous touristy place outside the museums - It says "I amsterdam." Gail and I are sitting in the front.

A Vermeer painting in the Rijks museum. Unfortunately, I missed it on my audio tour - very disappointing!!! So I took a picture of a picture in a gift shop after to pretend like I had seen the original.

Another very cool Vermeer painting that I missed in the museum! We all were walking around individually with our headphones on. So I snapped a picture of this from a card in the gift shop.

Just a cool building I liked in Amsterdam by the museum park. After the museum, we went to the Amsterdam Chapel to attend a young adult dinner and activity. We stayed for dinner but then went home to pack as Gail and Con were leaving the next day. It wasn't hard to say good-bye, knowing we'd see them again in a couple months.
One day this week we went back to Brussels to get a car inspected and I went to my favorite hairdresser's for my last appointment. Loel decided that driving in Brussels was worse than dodging bikes in the Netherlands. (Loel: We've also been really spoiled by all the people that speak English in the Netherlands. The first five people I talked with in Brussels didn't speak English. Somehow we survived for 12 months.)

13-19 August 2011

Last week we introduced the festival that went all week in Rijnsberg. Saturday and Sunday were the last two days. Saturday morning they had a small car show. The Dutch like American cars like this 1960 Cadillac. It's all original, including the paint.

This is a beautifully restored 1930 Model A Ford.

And an impressive 1930 Rolls Royce.

We invited two other Senior Couples for lunch and to watch the flower parade from our balcony overlooking the town square. These are Elders Anderson and Beckstrand.

We were expecting flower covered floats similar to the Rose Bowl Parade. As you can see, the flowers were in huge arrangements on cars...

more cars...

and vans...

and trailers...

and more trailers...

and bikes...

with some really good brass bands. The parade lasted about an hour and the flower arrangements were HUGE.

After dark the street lights come on and different parts of the town have different light decorations.

A few families decorate their individual homes.

The evening ended with fireworks over the big canal that runs along the edge of the city.

Great fun.

On Sunday, we left for church and a large semi was pulling up in front of the apartment. When we returned home, they had set up a stage and about 200-300 chairs. In the evening there was a devotional service with a children and youth choir and several preachers. That wrapped up the week's activities. This evening the doorbell rang and a gentleman brought us a bottle of wine as a gift for the inconvenience to us during the week.

Monday was my birthday and Paula prepared her normal delicious lunch, which included a homemade carrot cake.

We only had one candle, so we started a tradition that on your 70th birthday, you start over. It was pretty funny having the elders and the president try to spell out 70 with their arms - they did it backwards and we were all laughing very hard (Paula speaking).

We left the office after lunch and picked up Gail and Conner at the airport. We drove to Naarden, a little medieval city near Amsterdam. the old city is completely surrounded by water that was installed after the Spanish were driven from the city. The fortifications are in the shape of a six-sided star and look really impressive from the air.

We took a boat ride around the city on the canals surrounding it.

There were some pretty little secluded areas.

This is a good shot of the wall and water surrounding the city.

Tuesday, we went to District Meeting and then drove to Haarlem. Kim Stichter, a young lady in our branch, agreed to be our guide. This is underground storage for bicycles at the Haarlem train station. There a more bicycles than cars (maybe people) in the Netherlands.

We went to the Corrie Ten Boom house and took the tour. It was last tour of the day and went longer than normal, but the guide was excellent with lots and lots of detail.

Gail had a chance to stand in the "hiding place".

This was a cool church in Haarlem with fascinating rooflines.

Kim and Conner.

Wednesday we drove to Brugge. This is one of the many old 16th -17th century bridges still standing.

Gail and Conner in Brugge, the Grote Markt.

Friday morning we went to the flea market in the Morrales district of Brussels. It's a unique experience.

Cartoons are significant in Brussels and the Cartoon Museum is not far from this part of town. The trash is pretty typical of this part of town, too.

This is from the Petite Sablon Park, with the Church of Notre Dame du Sablon, in the background.

Cool cookies at a candy shop at the Grand Place.

Suckers at the same shop.
It's been really fun having Gail and Con here. He actually received his mission call back at home and is waiting until he returns to open it. We hope he comes here!!!
We also stopped and visited Anya's family on our way back to the Netherlands, which is always nice.