Busy little girl!

For the past month our so Tessa has really been on the move. She is walking herself around the furniture and crawling up the stairs. She's also been really busy getting herself into things that she's not supposed to (such as splashing in the dog's water bowl and pulling dishes out of the dishwasher!). The other day I left her in the living room for a couple minutes and she figured out how to climb into her brother's chair. Needless to say that chair has been relocated to the storage closet for a while (until she figures out how to get OUT of the chair too!) We're having so much fun watching her explore - she's really keeping us on our toes!

Last post of vacation pics!

These are a little bit out of order....here is Tessa is her "cradle" the airplane provided. As you can see she thought the cradle was more for playing than sleeping. At least it got her out of our laps for a while. (we just had to keep her from trying to stand up in it!)

Isaac in front of our airplane for the trip back to America.

Of course we had to get a shot of this...Isaac in front of a windmill.

This is the view from John's aunt Katrien and uncle Ben's back patio. Beautiful, isn't it?

John visiting with several of his aunt's and uncles. It was great to get to see so much family on this visit!

Tessa just being cute!

Winnie had this bib for Tessa to wear. If you can't read it - it says "My auntie spoils me".

We visited a seal rescue museum, which is a sort of working seal hospital that rescues injured or abandoned seals and nurses them back to health for release back into the wild. Here is a window that the kids could watch them swimming around.

Ok..I think this is the second to last one...

Bear with me....I am getting to the end of posting our vacation pics. I think that I have one more following this one. Seriously, though, this is only about 1/10 of the good photos that we have from this trip - so lucky for you I'm good at editing!

This photo was taken on a day trip we took to visit John's aunt and uncle. We got stopped by a policeman right before a round-about who spouted off something to us in dutch that we didn't understand. Just as we were trying to figure out what to do, all of these sheep started crossing the road. I guess we weren't in trouble after all!


Tessa and cousin Hetty (she's waving a teething biscuit - we discovered these on our trip and she LOVES them!)

We went on another day trip to visit John's aunt Tineke. Here are the 4 of us, Alice, and Tineke at her house.

Tinkeke has a beautiful home on some gorgeous property. Here is the view from her yard.

Alice and her sister Tinkeke.

John and Harry headed out for some mountain biking (still trying to figure out how they call it mountain biking when there are no mountains in Holland....)

The boys (Harry, Derek, and John) checking out the surround sound.

This is just a cute one of Tessa playing, but you can really see her 2 bottom teeth!

Happy 25th Winnie & Harry!

We were so excited to be in Holland to help Winnie and Harry celebrate their 25th wedding anniversary. They hosted a wonderful evening of dinner, drinks, music and fun at a quaint restaurant not too far from their town. Here is the happy couple!


And me with my sister-in-law Winnie!

Hetty, Alice (Oma), Emily & Alisa

John & I

The crowd enjoying the evening.

Derek and his girlfriend Roelien (hope I spelled that right! :-)

Winnie and Harry's friends performing a song that they wrote about them. This was really cute - especially after Winnie translated it so that I could understand it!

Winnie & Harry & their 4 kids.