Now & Then

NOW





&

THEN

Hannah walking :-)

Hannah is working hard on learning to walk :-)

July 30, 2008 - Hannah turns 1

Today Hannah turns one year old. Yep - exactly one year ago was physically the worst day of my life but with the greatest reward!!!! She is growing so fast and doing so well. This Saturday Matthijs' family will come over for a small birthday party - as she is too young to know the difference :-) She has been working hard on walking, which she can do very easily while holding someone's hand. She isn't too sure of herself when only holding one had, but she can do it. I'll try to catch it on video when Matthijs comes home. Occassionally she will take a step without help, but then sits right down - lol. Meanwhile, she can do a mean "run/crawl" - lol. Monday was her first time staying with my new American friend and her three daughters. She will go there every Monday. She did very well and loved playing with them, eating watermelon for the first time and saying "butterfly" for the first time. I was excited because I read a butterfly book story to her most mornings :-) She does randomly also say, "Hannah, banana, hello, hi, no (more like Nei - cross between the Dutch and English no - ), yeah, bottle, diaper, and of course, mamma, papa, dada, and maybe opa :-) I don't feel the need to rush her walking as she is young yet, but i would love her to start walking so that she wouldn't want to crawl over the ground - lol.

Last Tuesday was her first day at daycare with other kids. She also loves it. She is very social and just wants to be around kids (especially older) all the time, playing. She is busying teething. She already has four full teeth, with two more that just cut through. She has a bunch more in the back pushing through too - busy mouth! This past year has been amazing. It truly is a miracle to see how quickly she grows, changes, learns and develops - i have loved (almost) every moment (delivery sucked)...Matthijs and I look forward to many more wonderful years with her!!

Zuiderzee Museum

Today, after church, we took Ryan on a mini-trip since he has only one week left. We went up to North Holland and visited the living museum. Thats where the town has been preserved and now you can walk around and see how things used to be done. Its on an island and you take a short ferry ride to get there. We were lucky the weather held out and the town was charming. It had small winding paths and no cars. Some homes were originally built in the 1600s/1700s and others later. They were last lived in in the early 1900s. The view was great. All over they had family and children games/toys from the early 1900s, which Matthijs and Ryan seemed to enjoy the most. It was a lot of fun!

Ryan's photos Czech Republic

Ryan was able to get a few photos we couldnt get because of our camera's battery dying or something. One example is this really cool castle just north of Cesky Budojovice. He also got a photo of the part of the trail with nettles!

Hannah chats on the phone

Apparently, training starts naturally early! Shes ready to be sent off to India to join the phone answering industry!

Ryan & Hannah

cute, huh? :-)

"Czech Republic part 2

These photos begin at the very top with the last photo taken and the bottom of the entry below is the first photo we took.

Day 1: We left at 4am and sped across the highways of Germany, which Matthijs enjoyed since they don't have speed limits :-) We stopped along the way at a castle renovated into a hospital (last photo from yesterdays entry). Then in the early afternoon we arrived in Prague and enjoyed exploring the old town center. It was full of shops and restaurants. We saw the famous astronomical clocks, the old churches and towers. The sky was clear and sunny. Of course, when we found the TGI Fridays - yum yum - we had to enjoy dinner - afterall, we dont have that here in Holland!

Day 2: We rose very early and found the Charles Bridge - I had read that it would be peaceful and less crowded early in the morning and it was right. We had it almost to ourselves at around 8:45am and the view was amazing. We could see the varying levels of the city, the castle up on the hill and the river winding through. The castle itself was also great and the crowds didn't really arrive until 11, so we did well - we never even had to stand in a line. We explored the St Virus Cathedral, the old palace, nunnery, St George church, tower and Golden Lane. Golden Lane was originally meant to house the sharp shooters of the castle guards, but later it housed goldsmiths giving it the nickname Golden Lane. In the ealry 1900s artists and poor people lived there until it became the tourist lane full of tourist gift shops as it is now. Kafka, the famous early 1900s novelist, lived in one of these homes. (I am enjoyed his novel, Amerika, in French now - lol).

In the afternoon we checked out of the hotel and headed to the South Bohemia region, which was even greener and more beautiful! We stayed in a small hotel in the middle of a town which we could walk the entirety of in about 10 minutes. The place was clean and the restaurant was excellent (Hotel Kor in Doudlby - for those of you interested in knowing)! We ate dinner there for the next three nights! I enjoyed playing with my Czech phrasebook to speak with our waitresses and I even successfully learned yes (ano), no (neh), please (prossim), and check please (ochet prossim). It was so fun!

Day 3: We got up early and found a bike trail. The Greenway trails are a series of bike/walking paths through the countryside and sometimes on the road which connect such cities as Prague to Vienna and wind through all the medievil cities in the countryside. They were not open and made known to the public until after the communist block fell. We found one and walked the 10-12 km to the regional capital, Cesky Budojovice, where the original budwieser beer comes from. The walk was rather interesting as, about half way there, we managed to follow what we can only assume is the "old path" through nettles stinging our ankles and hiking through tall weeds and bushes - lol. Later we learned the newer path went through the town across the field from us - lol. When we arrived and found the city center Ryan (my nephew) and I excitedly chased down a companionship of missionaries - lol! The missionaries were pretty excited to meet fellow Americans and took us to the tastiest lunch restaurant around. There is a photo below of a dish - we are dying to know what it is called - in case anyone knows??? It was so TASTY!!! They took us there, introduced us to the waiter they knew and ordered food for us. It was great (we were exhausted from the hike!). Afterwards we explored the town square and surrounding old homes. We cheated though and got a tax to take us back to the hotel -lol. I was sick and so we quit early that day.

Day 4: We hopped into the car and went off to Cesky Krumlov! This was by far my favorite - a fairytale! Up on the hill is the beautiful castle and within the valley it surrounds is the old medievil town, with winding lanes and old beauitiful buildings. It also had a river surrounding the inner part of the town full of people on canoes and rafts. The weather was again perfect! We toured the castle which belonged to one of the wealthiest most powerful families in its day - who owned almost all the castles in the region at one point. Eventually, the family died out (they think they grew sterile because of eating off of pewter dishes) and one of the wife's families inherited the castles - they lived there and held onto them until the state confiscated the lands in 1947....One of the descendants is now the Foreign Affairs Minister. It had rooms furnished from the 16-17 centuries and the more modern 19th century. The view over the town (found in the photos above) was the best. I would love to go back.

For our final afternoon, we hopped into the car with our guidebook and drove around the region following the recommended castle route - some of the pictures of the random casltes are above. It was simply beautiful. Once our camera battery died - this was actually on day 2 - and so I need to get Ryan's photos b/c that castle (just north of where we stayed) was the most beautiful, second only to Cesky Krumlov - and fully maintained.

In the small towns, you could see several falling apart buildings with the black smog all over the walls - trademark of the communist era - but the Republic was obviously very busy restoring the old castles for tourist and building better highways.

Day 5: we got up early and enjoyed the southern route back to Holland. It was green, with low ranging mountains and beautiful views of old churches and medievil homes. You could see the modern world had been kept back from the lack of modern buildings -but that was the best part. When we crossed into Germany the old border check buildings were there - now deserted. Seeing the smogged buildings and poor areas made the stories, for probably the first time, of the communist era and the effects of WWII, etc more real for.

All-in-all, it was a wonderful mini-vacation.