See, i've really been there

Like an eagle

Once a year T. my collegue and i think of a 'big" event to do with our employees. Last yr we went ski-ing in the south of the Netherlands, this year we decided to take a flying lesson.

In the morning we took lessons in the flying simulator (where pilotes-t0-be learn how to do a landing with no visual control outside; in other words; you can only rely on your meters coz you're in heavy fog).
That is hard !
Depending on the work the co-pilote is doing for you (he has a total identical set of meters and stuff) you can barely put it on the ground. There's just an overload of information. No kidding you have to look all the time and at the same time at at least 5 meters !!

Big fun though.
The first 3 of us couldn't keep the plane on the landing strip and ended in the grass.
Minor detail our instructor said.
By now, we would have been dead already.

After that we visited the DDA (Dutch Dakota Association) where from one of the volunteers we learned a lot (i mean A LOT) about DC-1's and DC-2' and so on.

And then after lunch it was time to try the real thing. We all had little Cessna's for 2-3 passengers,
After 2 flights, where we changed places, i felt really sick.
There's always this funny guy who needs to proof something.
This time it was our instructor.

It all started when he said quite casually to my collegue in the front, "well i haven't done this for about 15 yrs, but not to worry, normally i fly a 737 with a big airline"
OK, let's pretend he was joking.
Then while up in the air, he said; do you know how astronauts must feel weightless? I said no, but i have an idea. And he showed us.

See, all you need for that, is climbing reeeeel steap in the air and then putting the nose of the plane in the opposite direction. For about 3 seconds you're loose from your chair.
But everything inside you is loose too. And rapidly falling out of you.
I swear my uterus was between my legs.

Then he said (while i was sitting beside him at the wheel)
O i think we forgot to check whether your door is closed.
And then opened it.
At 1100 feet.
I. Absolutely. Kid. You. Not.

If i remember clearly, that's the point where i asked for the sickness bags.

Kept it in though!
Big girl.

We had a half-hr break where i convinced myself i could take the last flight back but there were several of us who decided to take the car back to our starting point. (and one of them threw up in the car on the way back.
The new car of my collegue.
Way to go Lucia!)

That did mean, i could swap places to another pilote !
I am glad i did fly back tho. The view was really really pretty.
It was a bit foggy (and COLD!!), but still there was so much to see!
And from the air it looks like we have so much land and water, while here on the ground i would say we're almost "full" with buildings, cities and stuff.

After a drink, some snacks and a real certificate to proof it all, we went home.
Next year, it will be our 5th yr anniversary.
Anybody got ideas?

I know i am not supposed to say this but

sometimes i think my kids are complete and utter...
well, morons.

I mean M. is 6 yrs old.
It's not like he doesn't understand Dutch or is hearing it for the first time.
Nor is he hearing "you guys be careful now, i don't want that water outside of the tub on the floor" for the first time.

So I go upstairs to brush C.'s teeth, read her a story and then i hear laughter.

Laughter is not good.

You may think otherwise, but let me tell you, laughter from 2 boys in a tub is not good.

And when i open the bathroom door, M. 's face goes from red to white and i swear; there's about 5 towels worth of water on the floor.

Another example.
Of his brother this time.
Last Sunday we went to pick up C. who had stayed 2 nights at Toos'.
On the way back we wanted to visit a pancake restaurant but decided to visit a playground/some woods first to let them blow off steam so they would have calmed down when we went to lunch.
Now the boys picked up several sticks (swords) and wanted to take them home.
No way José.
Okay, you can throw them in the back of the car then.
And that's what T. did.
Only he didn't close it properly

So last Wednesday i planned to do the groceries and couldn't open the car.
At least not with the distance control from the key.
Ehhh..
Couldn't start it either.
Couldn't close it anymore. At least lock it.
Shitterdeshitterdeshitshit.
What now?!!

I called R. who said the battery was problably empty.

Ok.
so no groceries today
That evening at 7.30 pm R. came home.
Thing is tho, the cables for jumpstarting were in the back of the car.
The back that couldn't be opened coz the distance control didn't work anymore.
AARRGGHH

So off he went to a tankstation to buy new ones.
After about 7 minutes the battery was full enough to start the car again and after i had driven about 20 minutes it was almost full again.

OK.
Now our latest addition; C.
She cut her own hair.
A few weeks ago i saw she had some sort of a pony.
And at the side some shorter streaks.
Now what she did was, whenever something hang in her eyes, she cut it.

i rest my case.

Halfway there

R. passed his second motor exam.
That's great isn't it!

He had to do the special movements today; out of 14 you have to do 7.
Amongst others he did the emergency break, precision stop, the 8, and the slow and fast slalom.

3 more weeks now for his final exam on the road.

Speak up y'all

I am not so frantically anymore as i was in the beginning, but at least once every other day, i check to see who visited my blog.
Now there's always my sister in Rumania, there's Myf and usually Abigail (but i am guessing a lot of people link thru to me from your site otherwise you'd be spending A LOT of time reading what i have written ;)

There is also someone from the States who has been with me on and off. Can't see any link tho, so i don't know how he/she found me.
Then occasionally i have a bunch of people from Malaysia. I reckon this girl is to be held responsible for that but then again...

I sometimes have lost souls from Great Britain, Canada and France.

And i am craving to know who you all are!!!

Make my day ppl.
Speak up and leave a message.

I'ts getting cold in here, so put on all your clothes

Ok, so we don't have piles of snow like they have in Japan,
and my sister will probably laugh coz it's been -10 (degrees Celsius) in Rumania for some time now, but...
The russian cold (-30 till -50; how extreme is that!) is coming our way and at night it's already -5 or -8. That's pretty cold in the morning when the kids go to school !

Can't help being bored easily, i am a gemini :)

This is the last picture i did for my photography course. I had an assignment to take pictures of or ones that had to do with highways.
The course ended (without me being there but that's another story) and i had registrered Jamie an i for an art history course. Unfortunately that one was full so i am sort of thinking of what to do instead.
Some might tell me just to relax, but there's so much out there to do and experience.

2 of T.'s friend practice capoeiera which i find very cool
Then i'd loved to learn to park my car in between 2 others using the handbreak. I once saw this on Top Gear and if anyone knows someone to teach, tell me !
I am thinking of getting an MBA
I still have a secret dream of running (half) a marathon once in my life. Fact is i hate running but still...

But i also need to bring LFF back to life.
I've been to my webmaster couple of days ago and the end of January he promised me he'd start working on the last things (instead of 2 persons having to be a paid member we'll bring that back to the one that is initiating contact, you'll get an email once someone in your new country has registrered, and were going to do something with Google Earth (very cool too)
If that's done, then i'm finally half content about the whole project.

For now; i've bought some books about Hungary and Romania and Bulgaria coz we're going to spend our summer holiday in eastern Europe. A region where we (apart from when we flew in to visit my sister) haven never been before so planning some sort of a route and things-to-see list will keep my busy.
For now.

O sole mio

C's got her hair cut and
*drum rolls*

R. has passed his theoretical exam for the motorcycle!
Next week he gets to do the special movements (slalom, emergency break, cirkel and so on) and if he passes that one, the week after that the final exam on the road.

Random converstation at the breakfast table

T.: i want to have a new name: Wolf.
But the teacher at school said that you guys would have to pay for me again then, because now the name at my wardrobe says Timo.
So i thought you could call me Wolf at home and then at school i am still Timo

M. is by now crying like a wolf and tries to attack his sister (who has changed the chairs and sits besides him)

C. holds a piece of bread in front of his mouth so he can bite into it.
Then out of the blue she says "loser" to M.

T. asks if he can have braces.
Coz Chester and AJ have braces too and they can stop ultrasound laserbeams.

Can anyone pass me the peanetbutter?

Another one bites the dust

T. can ride a bike.

Now he doesn't know how to stop or get on, so R. is running besides him like a madman (we told him it's easier to keep your balance if you have a bit of speed; T. translated that into; I have to race and make my daddy sweat) but no sidewheels and absolutely loose.

YEAHHHHH

The difference between men and boys

is the price of their toys.

Thou shall not procastrinate, procast something, help me out here

It's one of those days.
I've done my mail and answered some (incoming) phones but that's a small bait for 2 hrs work.

This is what I have to do today:
* make an appointment with P. to get on with LFF (don't get me started, I've blocked that from my mind)
* finish a mailing about controllers
* get rid of at least 2 Intermediairs, who after A. left have been piling up for us to being put into Mamut, our CRM system
* go over to the bookstore to order my 3-monthly item or I'll be sent some shitty choice of theirs
* prepare 2 interviews I have tomorrow
* compare the jobsites rates that we have now

But.
The office is absolutely clean and I am absolutely up-to-date on Sarah, her sister, Abigail and Joel, Kelly and this bouncer.
Who else?
Well, Kirsten and the mother of 2 premature born twins

See if you can resist.

Grammar

Last night we had a vivid discussion with Jamie. She said that in the States they are not taught "the rules" of grammar.
Half of the highschool graduates would not know what a verb is.

is that unbelievable or what?

Something totally different;
Although C. has shoulderlength hair now, she doesn't let me do anything with it and i am thinking of cutting it.
Not short, but something more convenient. The hair she has now is great as long as you can work it into a braid or ponytail.
What do you think?

Insurance update

We're heading towards a court procedure.
The insurance company doesn't want to pay and we are left with no other options.
So today Robbert went to see Oscar Hammerstein, one of the more famous sollicitors of our country in his super-expensive office at the Keizersgracht in Amsterdam.
As it turned out Hammerstein had also lived at the Beukelsdijk (!) and rode a motorbike, so the 2 of them talked of almost anything but the case.

He did say it looked like nothing could go wrong (where have i heard this before) and he would be glad to take on the case.
Oh and next time i need to be present coz women have a positive influence on the case once it gets to court.
At your service mr. Hammerstein.

Bird flu

It's been quit for a while but now 14 people in Turkey have been diagnosed with bird flu of whom 9 for sure have the deadly-for-humans-one.

Is this the plague that is going to mark 2006?

One down

After having been to the Bird Market in Antwerpen, eaten Brussels (sic!) wafels and drunk hot chocolate, seen the dogs, cats, birds and squirrels and wandered around a bit, we went home where M. bumped into my rear end.

Y'all be warned!

He lost his first tooth by doing so.

M.'s blog

This morning during breakfast he said Rot mama to me.
That is basically the same in any language so doesn't need translating.

But take a look at his weblog now.

I was downstairs when he said he had written something really nice and i had to come up and see.
Then he said even if he called me a rot mama he still loved me and i said i had the same.
Sometimes he drives me crazy and i am very strict but that doesn't mean i don't love him anymore.

*sigh*

5 minutes later he almost strangled his brother.

Cats

This afternoon, Martijn, Jamie, the kids and i packed in all the cats stuff and drove to Utrecht to bring them to het asiel.
Martijn was rather emotional and i felt rotten too, but in general i think it's for the best.
Really.
At het asiel i saw so many mentally normal cats, Siemen and Plien were never going to get used to our household.

Some pictures to go with the last posts

Making movies at de Kunsthal
M. helping Jamie with a Dutch book
The boys looking at the fireworks being unwrapped

Filmpje

Among others we have been to de Kunsthal to see the longest Christmas sling (which M. and T. help made) and the exhibition about Charlie Chaplin.
Part of that exhibition was to make your own movie.

You had to move for a camera for about 5 seconds. Those pictures were print out and then you had to cut them and put them all behind each other, wrap a elastic band around it and flip thru your own movie.
A big hit i might say.
I've looked up to see if they are on the net but they aren't and will add that in an update tomorrow.

BTW.
Siemen is missing.
We came home today and he was out of the room
Minor detail now that they are being picked up tomorrow.

Woohoo, Jamie is here

Last Sunday, M. and C. accompanied me to pick up Jamie from the airport. Her plane was exactly on time, maybe even a little early!
And that after 3 days of travel.
Speaking of wanting to be with us (DUHHH)

I have taken this week off in order to show her around, accustome her to our way of things, have some fun with the kids and so on.
Yesterday was a drizzly rainy day and after i showed her the shops, the schools, my office and so on, we took the kids to an indoor playground where they could loose some energy.
And they did need that!

This morning i err. - i would have like to say taught her how to ride a bike, but i think she's been fooling us. She said she didn't know how to ride one properly and after some initial trials on my bike yesterday, she stepped on her own this morning and rode off.
Right.

After that we took the bus and tram to the market where we did some shopping for the risotto and the foccacia that she prepared (with a little help from the children) tonight.
The kids appreciated the bread the most, with T. going on about the black pickles in the rice and M. assuring him he could hardly taste the herbs.
Still, they did OK and i loved it, so simple case of too bad.