Castle De Haar

Yesterday, on an unexpected cold sunday we made a quick visit to Castle de Haar, just half an hour from here. It's the biggest castle in The Netherlands owned by the influential Van Zuylen family but it wasn't until the heir Baron Etienne van Zuylen married this super rich French lady Hélène de Rothchild that they could build it in the über fabulous state it is in for a little over 100 years now. We did the children's tour and there were awesome stories about the parties here with famous people from all over the world and a huge kitchen full of copper pots where the best French chefs would cook up party meals. They had ghost catchers in their bedroom and the lady of the house had an awesome bathroom with the tub sunk in the floor and a cord to pull for calling in assistance for getting out. I wish mom and I lived here! We were not allowed to make pictures but Paul sneaked in a few indoor shots anyway while I distracted the cool tour guide with my whining about being hungry. Well that was over after a big pancake in the castle's restaurant.

 

My first Efteling

FINALLY we went to this infamous theme park called Efteling, it was the wrap up of my first spring break. It was a super cold winter day but it was great, there were no lines and we could just hop in everywhere.... even in the Joris and the Dragon rollercoaster - which mom regrets until this very day ;-) Okay I admit I was a bit impressed with this rambling ride too but I was really excited about being weightless! Awesome! Next time we go, it has to be on a warm summer day because I want to do the water attractions too ;-)

 

Winter hazards

(oeps mom accidentally deleted this post so here s the copy past back) It's winter, very much so with all the snow and cold and everybody sick all the time. So that's how I haven't spend any time with with grandma and grandpa lately and since I won't see them this weekend either, I decided to use the blog to share some stuff with them like some of my Lego works, the cookies I baked and some drawings I did in school today! Oh yeah, and some snowy pics then!

Happy Spring!

Look what mom found on Facebook! You know that cool kids fashion label I model for? They used my pic for their Holiday greetings! Awesome! Happy Spring everyone!!

Kicking Off 2013

HAPPY 2013 EVERYONE!! We hope you will enjoy the new year on our calendar to the full and in good health. We made an audio tape of our 00:00hrs noise but it is just too loud. In stead, let us share our cultural outing of this first day in 2013: we went to see the big traveling Toetanchamon Exhibition in Amsterdam, a dazzling real size replica show of Howard Carter's discovery back in 1922. There was a lot of gold in that tomb I can tell you. Like those Babushka dolls, this young Egyptian king was buried as a mummy in a golden mummy case in a bigger mummy case in an even bigger mummy case and another one - all solid gold - in a stone tomb inside a golden tomb, in a bigger golden tomb in an even bigger golden tomb in an only slightly bigger room next to two more rooms filled with treasures and useful artifacts like a golden carriage or some sort of chess game, and all this hidden in a mountain in The Valley of the Gods.... and not a pyramid. See I've been paying attention! And you are guessing: I want to be just like this Howard Carter guy when I grow up!

In the nick of time

Oeps, we thought we 'only' had to do a December holidays update but we're further behind than that even... What can we say, life is speeding up! So after our last post, we did not go to the swimming pool but to the stormy beach with Paul. I'm always good for some serious outdoor fun!

Then it was time for Sinterklaas to arrive in the coutry and apart from all the restless nights we had lots of fun in school and my grandfolks got us tickets to go to this huge children's television Zapp Sinterklaas show (mom hated it but my and my pal Kit loved to see all our tv-heroes in the flesh). Of course I got spoiled big time by Sinterklaas with loads of Star Wars lego, including an advent calendar. Even our sweet upstairs neighbor had put her shoe for lucky me!

And then it was time for the X-mas marathon... of which we have terribly few pictures ourselves because mom got sick and had to hold on to her chair throughout the X-mas dinners and following days. Hopefully granny and grandpa and Paul have more pics for us to add to my blog to share with you. So here's our pretty X-mas tree that I of course helped decorate. And me (and Bas) working it with my big X-mas present, the Wii-U ;-)

Super autumn

After a pretty great summer we're having a rather awesome fall with tons of sun and leaves in the color of my hair falling from trees everywhere. My favorite 'uncle who is not a real uncle' Joff came over from NYC (with a very belated birthday present) and of course october is the time for fall break. I spend some extra time with grandma and grandpa who took me to amusement park Tivoli for my first roller coaster experience and to the awesome snake exhibition Goddelijk en Griezelig at the Afrika Museum. Mom and I went to the cinema twice, and to Naturalis and I spend a nice day with dad in Artis, and I took a ride in the giant Ferris wheel on Dam Square in Amsterdam (mom suddenly developed vertigo but I was totally cool). To top it off, yesterday we did Halloween. Putting on scary make up and spooking people on our way to Paul's place was great fun but when I saw the grown ups in their goth make overs gathering for the Halloween parade last night I was suddenly done with the zombie game. Slept an extra hour and now we're getting ready for some final fun before it's back to school and back to business as usual: swimming pool here we come!

My first 'Wiebeltanden'

And finally, in the midst of all this summer 2012 rumble, I lost two of my baby teeth in one go! (So I got two new books as a present from the tooth fairy ;-)

The other holiday

Apart from the big home improvement job we pulled of this summer - it wasn't really all that bad - we had loads of fun and sun. We stayed first in our neighbor's home which was cool and then we moved in with Paul for a 3 week holiday in Amsterdam's infamous 'grachtengordel' city centre. We did lots of day trips and quick city escapes to nearby beaches and the swimming pool so it was all the water and sun fun a boy could've wished for! For grandma's birthday we even went to the best zoo in the world with the biggest playground ever in Arnhem. Here's some snaps of all that!