The making of...: June 2006

They say 40 is the new 30 and boy do I believe them

the man known as R.

Last Saturday I celebrated my 40th birthday.
Man.
I can remember my mother turning 40!

It was a beautiful day and we all met in the Beatrixpark in Schiedam. R. and I had been cooking the whole preceding afternoon and that very morning and luckily everyone was hungry.
We set up a tent, spread out the blankets, the kids enjoyed themselves in the nearby playground and talked about life.

Thanks to Richard for showing of (:) his new camera and sending me all the pictures you see here.

picnic

Per

Timo with selfbuilt table/rocks

Allrighty, me

Gerdieneke

Emre with his tooth barely in

Annemiek & Merle

A rash, hearing problems and a messy street

A couple of days ago, C. Developed a rash on her left belly and back. As these things always happen during the weekend (or holidays) we could only visit the doctor last Tuesday. And then ofcourse he was at some course and we had to visit his waarnemer.
He thought she might have an allergy or develop chickenpocks.

Chickenpocks!
She still has the scars in her face and on her back from when she had those.
And an allergy?
Hardly likely!
But ok.
we're going to the pharmacy to get some lotion to put on it.
First day everything ok.
It seemed to stabilize and not spread any further.
Maybe the guy was right.
Next day she screams hell and murder when we put the lotion on. Some of the blazes have gone open and we remove the stuff as quick as we can.
This morning however she got new ones, so R. has been back with her, this time to our own doctor. It's a bacteria. We have another cream (we have to remove her shirt and skirt/trousers when the cream needs to dissolve and she rapidly seizes the opportunity to shake her behind, singing "billen shaken, billen shaken") and I hope this one helps.

Ok then another case of the doctors.
Better said physical challenges.
You know how I can go at R. for putting the telly very loud or ignoring me when I ask something?
He did a hearing test and you can feel it coming:
at his left ear he lost 30% and right is slightly better.
Now with him regularly driving a motor he had some earplugs tailormade and when he went to pick those up, took the kids with him and did the test.
That evening he was behind the pc to do some stupid computergame the kids also love to do.
I can't figure what's so exciting about a little creature eating things and winning lives and then you have to battle against other things, but ..
I went up at 9.30 pm and heard some feet running up the second chase of stairs.

then I went into the bathroom and M. crept up behind me, admitting he and his brother (having heard the well-known beeps and noises from this game) had been sitting on the chairs the WHOLE evening with an excellent view of the pc in the other room.
Yeah, M. said.
Daddy cannot hear us anyway....

I think we have to pick up the sign language lessons Abigail once taught!

Oh and the street.
It's simply ridiculous.
It is a complete and utter chaos.
One half of the street is "done" meaning that cars drive over it.
But we cannot park in the whole street.
Our half is without any tiles but with some sort of canyon to crawl over every time I bring the kids to school.
I tell you our side is even lower than sealevel and for the other half you'll need a ladder first.
I kid you not, it's beyond ...beyond ... can't find the word.

C. at her best

This is how we found her this morning when we came down.

Oh yeah.
And these stripes are also on the carpet and the chair.
She hid (under the blankets of our bed) for a good 10 minutes when she heard R. bursting out when he saw it.

Meeting Dennis van der Geest

T. trying hard to follow the warming-up

Today was THE day.
The day the boys were going to follow the clinic Dennis (worldchampion, Elco his brother, European champion, their father Cor and another European worldchamp (in another weight class) Ben Sonneman were giving.

As it was also a fundraiser, they had clearly hoped for more children, but with the 200/300 that were there, it still was quite an event.
They started at 2 with some warming up, then they divided the groups into same ages and practiced throws and they ended with Dennis "fighting" 10 kids.
That was hilarious. They had 5 children over 12 yrs and 5 around 5/6 yrs.
Even with the bigger kids there was no real fight (although some of them were clearly very good). The man is 125 kilo's and in the prime of his life.
He was just picking up kids and throwing them in the air.
He even held his brother Elco above his head one time.
It ended about 3.30 and then we had to wait for the amount raised (slightly over 8000 euro) to be announced, the children were getting a drink and you could get into line to get autograph.
R. Volunteered to be in the line but even after half an hr was getting nowhere.
By then the kids (who were still running around like madman) were exhausted and we called it a day. We sneaked by the whole line, (Dennis was the last one), got his autograph and went for a pancake.