A Quick Tour of Amsterdam

On the way back from our Thanksgiving trip to Poland, Sidney and I had a bit of a long layover in Amsterdam.  We looked around the airport for a while, even taking in the "mini-Rijksmuseum" with several Dutch masters displayed and described.  We tried the play area, but it was a little small for Sidney.  I finally went to the "Amsterdam City Tour" desk and inquired about their layover tours.  We found out we had enough time to do the tour, and after stowing our carry-on luggage in lockers, were escorted out to our tour van with one other person to take the tour.

Our first stop (actually, the only "stop" where we got out of the van) was one of the classic Dutch windmills.  It was a bit drizzly and there was a cold wind blowing in from the sea, so Sidney was not quite as happy about getting out as she normally would have been.  We were able to get a picture of the two of us in front of the windmill.  This particular windmill was built in 1636.  It serves as a private home, but is a functioning windmill as well.

We then drove into town past the main train station.  There were lots of bikes, and it reminded me a bit of Copenhagen in that respect.  Next, we headed into the city and across the canals.  There were lots of houseboats, as you can see, and they were in various states of repair.  Our guide mentioned that in addition to the numerous houseboats, lots of people own regular boats as well, as traveling the canals on a warm weekend afternoon from place to place is quite popular.

We drove past Anne Frank's school, as well as her family's apartment during this part of the tour.  This apartment was not the place where her family hid - that comes later.  We also saw lots of classic Dutch style houses, and were reminded of the little houses they give on the KLM flights in business class.  With all of Kimber's traveling, we have quite a collection of them.

As Amsterdam is a city of canals, it is also a city of bridges.  Some of these bridges turn into bicycle parking areas, as you can see on the next bridge up the canal.  The bikes tend to not park on heavily-traveled car bridges, though, which is good because some of these can be quite narrow.

We made passes by several well-known sights and areas, including the palace and some other sights.  Sidney took a little nap at this point (she woke up at 4:30 so we could catch our flight out of Warsaw).  This was good, because we passed through the red light district and past several "coffee" houses during this part of the tour.  She awoke, however, just in time to notice a large "rainbow" flag on one of the houseboats and point it out.  Our guide was kind enough to tell us there were several rainbow flags in that part of Amsterdam, which (fortunately) Sidney did not question as to why.

It wasn't long before we reached the house the Frank family hid in.  In this picture, you can see it down the street (crowd in front) with the church in the background.  This is the church Anne Frank mentions in her diary as being able to hear the bells of and see the tower of from their attic hiding spot.  You may also note there are barges in the water out front doing a shoring-up job on the canal wall.  In the other picture, you see the front of the house.  It is odd to see these things in person.  Unlike much of history, Anne Frank's diary makes the historical events of her time period personal, and to see these in person really bring it all to life.  When we got home, I got Sidney's biography of Anne Frank out and showed her a sketch inside that showed her looking out a small hole at the church.

Other places we passed included the "I AMsterdam" sign (Sidney's personal favorite), the Rijksmuseum, and the second-most important sight in Amsterdam (after the Anne Frank house)..., well, you can see it in the picture.

We returned to the airport after this, and had enough time to grab a quick lunch before going to our gate.

Amsterdam is certainly a place one could spend several days visiting, but if you happen to be going through Schiphol (that means ship hull in Dutch because they used to build ships there) Airport, take advantage of the city tour.  It doesn't take long and is well worth the cost.

Update on Small Things

Well one caterpillar didn't make it and we thought we had lost the other one.  The larger one just disappeared at about the time it should have formed a chrysalis.  We talked with the friend who gave us them and she said the caterpillar will go quite away from the bush to form the chrysalis, sometimes half the distance of the yard.  Well after a week of searching we were rewarded.  We found this most lovely chrysalis on the fence.  It is amazing.  It appears you can see the wings forming. And you can also see where the caterpillar sewed the chrysalis together, the thin yellow and black line.  So we wait now and hope to be so lucky as to see the butterfly when he or she emerges.  I would guess we have about one and a half weeks until then.

Kimber has also been planning her and Sidney's trip to the Grand Canyon.  We will spend two days in the St. George Utah and Zion Canyon area, two days in the Grand Canyon area, part of a day at Hoover Dam and a day and a half in Las Vegas. Kimber has the car arranged and half of the hotels.  Still working on the other hotels and maybe a show in Vegas. Making progress. She and Sidney are excited.

Our lives are amazingly quite, but still busy right now.  No travel for January.  We will be visiting some friends beach house this weekend and it should force Kimber to cool her heels and let her food heal more.  She now has some stress fractures and is exceedingly frustrated with the lack of ability to get on her feet fully.  At least for now she can still bike.

Finally, Kimber thought you might like to see the building she works in.  A friend snapped these pictures. The building is made of pink granite and it 41 floors.  Kimber works on the 37th floor so there is a nice view.  The Marathon Tower is one of the taller buildings in Houston.  Houston buildings aren't tall because it is impossible to have sufficient footings in the soil we have here.

Small Things and Big Things

We will start with the small things and end on the big things. Anticipation is great.

First small thing is that Sidney learned to tie her shoes. And ever so briefly tie shoes were preferred over flashy shoes. That lasted about two days. It really was easy to teach her, taking only a 15 minute lesson.

Second small thing. She has learned to swing by herself. She has always loved to swing and to swing high. That meant a lot of work for the pusher. Now she can propel herself as high as she wants. Next her mother will teach her to properly jump out of a swing. She is going to learn it from someone and it may as well be mom.



Third small thing. We have two new "pets". They actually live outside and will be with us only briefly. We came home from church with two monarch butterfly caterpillars last Sunday. One of the choir members brought them for Sidney and knowing we have the plant in our yard that they prefer to eat. They like butterfly weed and are working on ours now. They are two different ages. One will go into chrysalis in a few days and the other in about two weeks. They will each by in chrysalis for three weeks before emerging for their approximate three week lifespan as a Monarch butterfly. There is a popular book called "The Very Hungry Caterpillar". Well these guys eat constantly and grow daily. The larger one ate two leaves of his transport plant during the sermon. They also look the same front and back which Sidney finds entertaining. Hopefully we will get pictures when they go into chrysalis and if we are lucky, when they emerge.




Fourth small thing is that we have started doing a little painting around the house. We have been living with the contractor colors and now are starting to make it a little more ours. The first project were are niches in the living room and pillar and bar in the kitchen area painted a rusty red color. That will be followed by one kitchen wall of the same color to tie it all together. I think our bedroom will be next.

So the big thing! We just used some of our frequent flier miles to book tickets to Australia. We are super excited. We will be there for three weeks in late summer. Something we have talked about for so long is about to become reality! So we will keep you posted on how plans progress.

Christmas Cruise

Happy New Year everyone! We hope that your new year is starting off well. We also know it is tough to get back into the routine of work, school and life.

This is our Christmas Cruise blog post. We spent the days leading up to Christmas and Christmas on the Carnival Magic traveling to Costa Maya Mexico, Belize City, Roatan Honduras, and Cozumel. A very warm and unwintery Christmas.

We boarded the Carnival Magic on December 18. The ship departed Galveston at 1600 for two days of sailing to Costa Maya Mexico. We ate our first meal in the dining room that night and met table mates and new friends Karen, Keaton and Kaitlyn. We hit it off wonderfully with Sidney and Kaitlyn becoming fast friends and our family’s enjoying every meal together and planning for future meetings.

We spent two days at sea during which Sidney attended Camp Carnival for some time and swam and played for the rest of the time. She loved Camp Carnival with all of their great activities. The camp leaders are all trained or certified in childhood education and it is a very well run program for kids of all ages. Sidney had a blast. It was a bit cool for swimming during the first two days as we had significant winds. They were unable to open the ropes course on the ship for most of the two days due to the wind. Night one of the cruise is also when the nightly “animals” started showing up in our room. The pictures show the dog and elephant. Others not pictured were a frog, swan, bear, bull, and monkey (who was hanging off the ceiling). Sidney thought these were the greatest things ever and proceeded to collect their eyes (yes, totally Sidney).

We arrived in Costa Maya on day three. Now we have to tell you, there isn’t much there. We would not return given the option. We had not pre-booked an excursion here so we just wandered off the ship and picked up a taxi to a local beach. It was an all inclusive deal where you get a lounge chair each, free beverages, access to the beach and all the facilities and equipment there. Sidney and Kirk swam and snorkeled and Sidney built sand castles. Mom watched the world go by and unwound. Kimber just isn’t so beachy. We stayed for about three hours and were done. We ate dinner alone that night at the Italian restaurant on the ship. It is a little extra money but a nice change with excellent food. While we were eating, a colleague from when Kimber worked at the Texas City Refinery walked in. It was a pleasure to see Darrell again and meet his wife.

Day four brought us to Belize City. Now this we really enjoyed. We had an excursion that took us to Mayan pyramid ruins followed by lunch and a trip down the River Wallace. We had a great time. The guides were extremely informative and made the tour very pleasant. We learned a lot about Belizian culture and Belize City as well as about the ruins and the river. Sidney loved climbing a pyramid and of course scrambled to the top with ease. After the ruins we had a traditional lunch of chicken, rice, beans and plantains. Kirk had a local beer and I tried some blackberry wine which was quite good. Lunch was followed by a trip down the River Wallace where we saw crocodiles, iguanas of all shapes and sizes, Howler Monkeys, insect eating bats, and at the river mouth, manatees. It was a great trip. The wind blowing through your hair and making it nice and cool and seeing all sorts of wildlife. We really enjoyed Belize and look forward to a return there to possibly spend more time.



Day five took us to Roatan Honduras. This was another stop we found rich in culture and activities. Our excursion here was a catamaran sail and snorkeling. We sailed for about an hour to our snorkeling location, then snorkeled for an hour. Sidney did great. She is such a trooper to try new things. She got cold toward the end so she rode one of the kayaks back to the catamaran while mom tried to swim as fast as the kayak. Fortunately some nice folks on the catamaran helped get her wrapped up and comfortable because mom couldn’t keep up and arrived several minutes later. We didn't take the good camera snorkeling but we did take a waterproof camera and Kirk was able to get this picture of Kimber and Sidney.
We enjoyed a fantastic meal of chicken, rice, pasta salad and rum punch after finishing snorkeling. We rode a bus back to the ship but actually enjoyed seeing more of the city and local spots. Again, we would love to return here to spend more time exploring. That night we ate dinner without Sidney in the steakhouse. Kimber had lobster and Kirk had New York Strip. It was a fine dinner and Sidney enjoyed going to camp carnival again. The pirate look is how Sidney came home from dinner. We also went to a magic show that night. We didn't have the best seats and could actually see a lot of the "magic." For the engineer that was still very interesting and quite impressive.


Day six took us to Cozumel. This was also Christmas Eve. We didn’t have plans in Cozumel and just spent some time walking around. Kimber had been there some years before for a friend's wedding (Jinni of previous posts) and wanted to see how the city had changed. It has grown significantly with many new tourist attractions, hotels, shops, etc. There were seven cruise ships there and the Cozumel Kimber remembered would not have handled that. We walked around town and then did some tide pooling on the way back to the ship. We found many of the usual tide pool finds including many crabs, snails and urchins. But we also found one small sergeant major fish and a tiny octopus. These made Sidney’s day. She loved them. We brought home a few shells for Sidney’s collection.

Christmas was spent at sea and brought a few gifts from Santa. He left a note that because mom and dad had to carry everything off the ship and that we would be home tomorrow, he left everything else at the house. We spent a relaxing morning eating and swimming. Sidney then went to Camp Carnival for the last time. The afternoon brought a huge surprise. The kids at camp had been practicing to perform in a musical with the performers on the ship. Sidney came home and said she had a solo in the show. There were actually two shows so that was our entire afternoon. Well the kids got up to sing about two thirds of the way through the show. Two of the performers held microphones on front of the kids two at a time while they sang a song. We thought this was the solo. But at the very end of the show, Sidney and Kaitlyn had a duet of several lines entirely by themselves. It was amazing. Of 1300 kids on the ship that the two girls who had never met before and ate dinner together every night would end up doing a duet together. Mom melted of course. It was originally supposed to be that each of the girls would solo in one performance. But Kaitlyn was very nervous and Sidney worried about Kaitlyn. So Sidney suggested a duet by both girls in both performances. Sidney was worried that Kaitlyn wouldn't get to sing if she was too nervous. What incredible girls. And we loved listening to them both times and then celebrating with them at dinner. The lead performer also commented between the shows on how good of a singer Sidney was and how enjoyable. We are so proud.

December 26 brought us home. Disembarkation was not so much fun. We did eat a relaxing breakfast but the line through passport control was outrageously slow. We finally made and got home to reality. Santa had left the remaining presents at the house so we did that and spent a relaxing day at home before Kirk went back to work.

Now we are all back at work and school. It has been a long week and we are ready for a weekend. Here is one last picture of Sidney at the beach. What a beach bum.

The Tooth Fairy Visits

Sorry, no good pictures but the Tooth Fairy will come for a visit tonight. This is her first visit, bottom right front tooth. The Tooth Fairy thought it would be good to leave a few dollars folded as origami. There is a butterfly and folded box with note. Not sure how the Tooth Fairy will top that with the next few teeth. I think she needs a better plan or to get really good at folding dollars. We will try to put up a picture tomorrow.