Hannah's first horseback riding lesson!

Hannah wore through her winter boots and still needed something better than sandals. So, in May we went to the shops and these are what she chose. LOL. They are very hip right now and she loves them!

They are so cute, right? Today was Hannah's first riding lesson at the stable I ride at - just around the corner from our house!  Christian was going nuts wanting to ride as well. Poor guy - have to be 5!

She rode the adorable pony Bam Bam - love it!  It was seriously the cutest thing! We made a deal with Hannah, if she liked it enough to continue until she turns 6 (so one year from this past Monday) then she can keep taking lessons and we'll buy her the stuff. So, right after her lesson we went over the the tack shop and bought pink and grey riding pants, BEAUTIFUL children's riding boots and a lovely riding helmet (black with pink hearts and a pink horse on it. lol). She was very excited!  So was I - a dream come true to have a child who rise as well. She may change her mind at 6 yrs when she can do field hockey, but I'll take the year.

Here is a glimpse of her lesson. She was nervous but a trooper and did some trotting. She will have a few more private lessons to build her confidence and then switch to a group with other kids her age (I know she is excited about that part b/c she already has friends who ride there). Loved every minute watching her. Her instructor is also mine. I love this.

Our Nesselande House

Here it is - finally after almost a year, here are pictures of our house here in Nesselande, Rotterdam, The Netherlands :-)

Sonnenberg Landal Vacation - Germany

Earlier this month we had a lot of fun spending the weekend at a Landal family camping resort in Germany. We were in the Eifel region and enjoyed visiting a community zoo (so made me think of We Bought a Zoo!), which Matthijs and I had visited our first holiday in The Netherlands with his parents many moons ago - lol. We also drove to see the Cochem castle on the way up and saw a castle in a small town by the Eifel National Park on the way back. The nature and everything was wonderful!

The Landal place offers "cabins" that are more akin to modern, clean apartments/duplexes than a cabin (nice kind of "roughing it" - lol). There was a LARGE heated indoor pool with a castle themed slide. Then we enjoyed playing bowling in the indoor bowling alley decorated as a castle win cellar. Evenings were spent in the family restaurant which lined the HUGE indoor CASTLE playground with HIGH FUN slides, an entire catsle to climb, run on, slide down, swing around - you name it! There were also trampolines, balls, an indoor wall which you could climb like a mountain and even had "cliffs" and stuff. We also rented strollers and took the kids on a 3 km nature hike around part of the moutain - sooo lovely. We saw little mice - lol. We fed the park's tiny deer, played soccer and had a blast at the outdoor playground as well. Sadly, we ran out of time for the miniature golf course. All of this for a few hundred euros! These places are awesome and scattered through out GY. They have a fun and entertainment crew which offered class courses for ythe kids, hosted disco time, and painted Hannah's face. The kids loved every moment. Then, just before bed we enjoyed family board games. Do they have these in the US? they should.