Queens Day

Today we all dressed in orange to join the millions of Dutch in celebrating the Queen of Holland's birthday. We walked past hundreds of stands with people selling their goods and came away with one purchase...a soccer trophy Jari just had to have. Our house is already over-cluttered and though I saw plenty of games I would have loved to buy, our game-cupboard is also bursting at the seams. And yes, we play a lot of games, but yet another choice just didn't seem quite worth the euro today. So, it was more just a walk around people watching day, which was plenty satisfying. We also managed to climb the Weert church tower, and after the 60+ meter tinyspiral staircase took my breath away, so did the amazing views from the top. We even managed to look into the south-south east direction and see the church tower of our own village, which was quite exciting for some rather odd reason. I loved looking over the roofs of all the buildings I regularly walk by, and even discovered yet another parking lot in the city which I didn't know existed. Now to try and figure out how to get there. The rooftop of McDonald's, which is housed in a very old building, was beautiful, different colored shingles creating a diamond pattern that you never see from below. Every visit in a tower I have taken reminds me why the panting is worth it!

We went to a building center to grab a few bags of potting soil and managed to get in on special Queen's Day bargains, so we came away with 6 bags instead of 2, but we always manage to use it up getting our plants potted....and considering they were giving away as many 1/2 dead flowers as you could carry, we're going to need it all!!! We all carried a few out to the car, and I'm sure we'll have their dying blooms perking up by tomorrow evening! The boys loved getting to pick out their free flowers.

We ended the evening with a BBQ by oma and opa, where the guys and I played soccer as they try to get me into shape. I always enjoy playing outside with them where they can burn off their energy and I can "let" them win and be happy, high-fiving each other as every mama loves to see.

So, Happy Birthday, Queen of Holland. I hope you enjoyed your special day as much as we enjoyed ours.