Trip to Amsterdam

A few weeks ago we drove over five hours to the Amsterdam airport where we parked the car and took the train to visit Marc's aunt Tineke and her husband, Richard. The last time we had been there was in 2009 when Marc had an architecture internship for the summer. We stayed with Tine and Richard for three months when Tobin was eight to eleven months old. I didn't realize how neat it was going to feel coming back after six years and seeing everything again. A lot of memories came flooding back.

Anybody home? It can take a few minutes for them to get to the door since the house is so tall and deep.

Richard informed me that the house turns 400 this year! Talk about wishing the walls could talk. Its crazy to think of how many families have lived in this house. The original kitchen in the basement has the same old Delft tiles on the walls! This house is on one of the four main canals in the city which means its kind of a big deal. We think its pretty special to have family who live in such a cool city and in this prime location that not many tourists get to experience. Thanks for staying in Holland, Tine!

The stairs going down to this kitchen and the stairs going up to their family room and kitchen are ridiculously steep (you can use your hands to help climb them) and they go up and down several times a day. Tine washes the laundry in the basement and climbs four flights of steep stairs to hang it to dry on the roof. They are almost in their 80s and still walk and bike everywhere in the city!

Eating breakfast in the dungeon, er, kitchen. I agree with Toby...its scary down here!

Old school kid chair with a harness. With one little push he would fall backward, hence the laundry rack behind him. Aiiiii...

Richard still has plenty of toys that his sons played with in the 70s. The boys loved them! Doren is forever making car/motor boat noises.

They treated us to a trip to the Zoo. We had so much fun watching the sea lions show off.

Baby babble is an international language.

Richard took us to a replica of an old ship. The boys were convinced it was a real pirate ship.

Then we went to the beautiful library where I used to take Tobin all the time.

Behind Doren is a huge, intricately detailed "mouse house".

Brother love in a reading nest.

Tine found a Korean restaurant just to make us happy! Poor Richard did not know that Korean food is almost all spicy, which is not his cup of tea. But we liked it!

Sophisticated woman that she is, Tine has no qualms about being silly to entertain our loud, wild baby.

We finally got to meet Tineka's granddaughter, Lieve (pronounced LEEF-UH). Isn't that pretty? Her mom is Marc's cousin.

Tine is an excellent cook, specializing in Indonesian dishes.

"Gather round, ladies! I'm very entertaining."

The view from their upstairs window. You can barely see the second full rainbow in the upper right.

I love it when people reenact photos, especially the ones on Facebook of grown children posing in the same photos from their childhood. It was so fun trying to recreate these photos below.

Tobin above in 2009 and Doren below. I wish I would have brought that shirt because we still have it.

Tobin on the left and Doren on the right. This time in the same shirt.

Father's Day breakfast in bed in 2009 with Toby in the top left. Poor middle child Jonah is getting left out since Doren is a baby like Toby was when we were here, so he gets his own photo with Dad. It would have been so cute to get all three of them here at the same age.

Dank u wel, Richard and Tine! Its always great to see you and your beautiful city!