Queensday

I am sorry for those who have our usual spring now, but somewhere somehow things definitely got mixed up.
We haven't had a drop of rain for 6 weeks now!

Hello!!
This is the Netherlands!

No. No.
Not complaining.
Not me.

We went out today.
To the music, the parc, the stands, bought schaafijs and a pokemon card for 10 cts.

Tomorrow is my last day (of work) before we head of to France.
Busy day.
With bringing the cats to a pension, getting dutch stuff for my niece, packing and so on.
Ciao to all of you.
See you in about a week!

City safari

Apart from beautiful weather, it was such a lovely day yesterday.
Rachel and I did a city safari.
It's like a safari in the sense that you go visit places/discover stuff in your city you normally wouldn't know.

Rachel told most of it in her blog, so I won't do it all over again, but it was really interesting!
We started with a Maroccan lunch, which had me a bit worried coz i am not allowed to drink anything containing color (yes. that is basically everything. also the reason i lost almost 2 kilo's since i had my teeth done 4 days ago).

Then we biked up to a Tarotcards reader.
This was the most hilarious bit.
She started with some sort of indian ritual, burning a leaf of sage and cleansing our aura's with it.
i'd so loved to have taken a picture of Rachel when she had this done, but i was afraid i was disturbing the whole thing.
I must say, the things she explained about the cards we drew (or actually the cards that wanted to be drawn by us!) were pretty optimistic and thus true of course.
See i am becoming a master of juggling all sorts of tasks and MONEY.
And because i have so much fun in doing what i am doing, my business is going to grow in the near future, thus i am going to make even more MONEY.
And as i am at level 20 (1 more to go) in my judgemental development stage, i have come to know myself so well, i can juggle even better and thus make more MONEY.

No, I am not taking the piss on her.

That's what she said.

More or less.

Rachel is going to have an interesting future too.
Uhhmm.
What can i say here?
Let's just say she's loving all the animals and the people around her. Enjoying the richness of Morther Earth.
And loving some even more.
I'll keep it that.
If you want, just look up the meaning of her last drawn card.

The afternoon ended in a Turkish mosque with a drivers teacher explaining all sorts of stuff .
No really, it was interesting!

Time to move on home!

As she had not been yet to hotel New York, that's where all of us went for dinner and although it looks like he already had enough in this picture, this was Robberts first drink:



Gefeliciflapstaart Rachel and many more happy returns!

Tip top

Today.....

I had my teeth whitened.

YES.

Let me enlighten you.

A couple of weeks ago we had our regular checkups at the dentist and i talked to him about bleaching my teeth. You see those 'shops' popping up everywhere and with the amounts of tea I drink, there is room for improvement.
White wise I mean.

Sure, he says. We do that here too. You bite into some stuff 3 times in a row and in an hour you're done.
i must warn you though; we've done it on 3 people so far and it really hurts. All 3 wanted to quit after the second treatment.

My god I thought.

Then again; the result was already there, so in the end it didn't matter, he happily continues.

Let me get back to you on this one I said.

Only to find myself laying in the dentists aid chair this morning.
A cheek spreader filling my mouth, 4 tampons making me gag and her smearing vaseline abundanly over my lips.
"see, the first time we didn't know this and the guy that came here, left with white lips coz the bleach bit into them. He looked ridiculous for weeks!"

Nice.

Try to relax.
Don't squeeze your hands.
So far so good.
I can do this.
For gods sake, i've had 3 children.

"Now, i am going to put something on the border of your teeth and gum so your gum won't bleach too. I mean there will be an occasional spot but that simply cannot be helped"

Get a hold of yourself.

Piece of cake.

'alright, we'll start the bleaching now and when i have smeared that onto your teeth (no biting into anything!) we put a hot light on it'.
Dentist aid puts on her protective glasses, puts a (radioactive i presume) light into my mouth and starts to babble to another aid.

Which makes her turn around, thus moving the light to G knows where in my mouth.
In my mind i see blisters and spots coming up everywhere.

Focus.
Focus.

She does.
After 10 minutes an alarm rings.
Holy cow.
it burns.

"o yes, it definitely see change here, another aid says. We'll start the second treatment right away"

Okidoki.
Let's get it over with.

Man it hurts.
Relax.
Everyone got thru the second one. So will you.

"and then Kenneth asked me where that box had gone. As if i knew. I mean what good is that box to me? I don't have a light at home, so there is nothing i can do with it"
" maybe he just gave it to his brother. Remember the last time he wanted to know where that chair was? Turns out he gave it to his brother".

Phone rings.
One of them is of.

"o so you are at the beach with daddy, that is nice blablabla"

I wish she would stop now.
Seriously.
How much longer is it?

"so I am back. I wish i could be at the beach too. Do you take the lower or upper teeth?"
"you do the lower. Does my lamp still burns? "

YEEES it does, you just pierced my lip moron!

Ok that's it, i am going to make a sign.
I want to stop.

Alarm rings.

'let me just rinse this for you and then you can take a look and see whether you want to stop now or go with the last treatment"

And you know what i did?
I took the last treatment.

Which i stopped halfway.
bit too enthusiastic.

Am i pleased?
Yesss.

It's not exactly what i hoped for.
And it bloody hurts. still.

But.
no gain. no pain.
And on this note, i leave you beautiful readers.

Spelling

These past few days i have been a lot on the net and on the phone calling/ordering stuff for the States.

Caroline and I booked a flight to Chicago for Abigails and Joels wedding and that was basically the only thing that went right.

The hotel i tried to book in Abigails place was full and the one that had vacancies had bad reviews.
So i tried to book one in Merillville, the place where they have their reception and i swear from the dozen that were shown on the net, i apparently booked the only that was barely in Merillville and more important, in some sort of ghetto neighborhood!
Had 5 (FIVE) good reviews AND it was called the Country Inn.
I mean, how is one to know?

Allright then, got that one cancelled and Abigail booked a hotel very near their place. Hoorah!

Then i tried to order something from their wedding list.
When i got to filling in the order form my zipcode and dayphone were not accepted, so i called the store.

And that is where i get to my point.
Spelling.

In Dutch i know almost instantly the names you say for letters.
Meaning Isaac for an I, or Marie for M.

In English though, it is a lot more difficult for me.
Our I is pronounced as ee and in english as why.
Your e is ovbiously an ee but in dutch an a.
Your a is in dutch an e.

Yes.

My name is Ineke Pompen
I am pretty confident about spelling my first name but when someone repeats it fast, i am left in a blur with all the "whys" and "ees"
What proved to be worse is that i don't know the Names for the letters.

See, this lady wanted to know if Pompen was with an M or an N.

First a M from Mary and then a N from...

All I could think of was Negro.

Really.

No ofcourse i didn't say it, but i was frantically thinking what is it then?
Come on now, what starts with an N?
The women on the other end must think i am a total nuthead.
Nuthead!
No i can't say that one either.
An N, give me an N !!

New? she said.

Why didn't i think of that?

Abigail, should you receive a package in a couple of days from Robbert and Eenika Ponpem, I tried.
And failed miserably.

Sex ed

Compared to some cultures i guess the Dutch are pretty open when it comes to nudity/sex etc.

We have tv programs about women giving birth, we have a program where couples get tips to improve their sex lives (and then later on show whether they got the message or not), we have adds with (almost) naked women and so on.

When Morten was about 3 or 4 he had this 'what's it made of/where does it come from' period.

There was no escaping it.

And he asked when i happened to be having lunch with 2 other co workers who dropped dead all of sudden not wanting to miss out on this one.

People are made of an egg and a sperm I said.
And took another bite of my sandwich.

Luckily so did Morten and in the years to come all 3 (though in different stages)slowly began to crasp the concept of love and making babies.

Not totally though.

And some things are simply to gross when you are 7.

On one of these weekend mornings Morten wanted to know what "tongen" (French kissing) meant.

This was too good an opportunity to let go.

Robbert and i showed them.

Thus ensuring they will not be doing it till they're 45.

Marathon Morten

Yes Ladies and People,
Above you see one of the young heroes that ran 1 kilometer today in the official Rotterdam marathon.
At the last moment Robbert decided to join him and ran along and now the 2 of them think of running 5 K next year!

we just heard on the news that somewhere this afternoon the marathon was ended by the mayor. 19 people were already not feeling well because of the heat (do you believe this, almost 30 degrees / 86 F today!) and with the Vierdaagse in mind where last year somebody got a heartattack in the heat and died, no risks were taken

2e Paasdag 2007

Second easter day (yes ladies and gents, we have an official 2nd easter day) was mainly spend at tennisclub Aeolus where Morten is a member.

Yes.
This is a giant bunny adjusting its nose.
And leading the children to the parking lot for their egg hunt.

Morten arriving with some of the results.

The whole group was divided in 2 and while one of them was outside, the other half did some colouring inside.

Teacher John explaining the rules while the bunny attentively listened.

Looks promising, doesn't it?

Robbert and i have been trying to convince Morten that as soon as you are a pro (meaning you make any sort of money due to sports activities) it is an unwritten rule, you give half of your revenues to your parents.

Or buy them a house abroad.

So far our attemps were fruitless.

Then again, he is a looooong loooong way from winning Wimbledon.

The easterbunny naming the winning candidates.

For the first time this year, i have put my (trouser/tight-less) legs out in the open.

So far i haven't heard of any planes crashing due to unforseen laserbeams.

Don't forget; at the end of this week Erwin Kroll promised us at least 20C (70 F)!

1e Paasdag 2007

Ok.
I am warning y'all; extremely high-on-photos-post.

Today was a lovely day.
In all ways.

Lenny had a rather stressed beginning with discovering she missed a bag.
And ofcourse THE bag with both cell phones, creditcards and passport.
Why is it that if one of your bags is missing, it's never the dull one.
The one, well it's pity, but nothing-is-lost-one?
Anyways.

After some frantic phonecalls to friends and restaurants she visited yesterday, she heard a familiar ringtone.
Hey...

The bag was behind the door.

Around 10 the first family members dropped by.
The soon-to-be-ex-Romanian side to be precise (noticed how i am all into - - ?)

I'll let the pictures speak for themselves.


This is what you get if you call my pictures crap Rachel.
You'll only be posted more.

My favorite male cousin.

Robbert sniffing one of the cats.

Don't ask.

And then it became time for some action.

Now i could tell you what Rachel and my sister were talking about.

But i know Rachel would maybe not appreciate.

Better said some else around her might not.

On the other hand, calling my pictures crap, calls out for action.

I won't.

Yet.

By now, i've done 3 loads of laundry, kids have been in the tub and we're having a sandwich for dinner coz everyone is about sick with chocolate eggs.