Fuelling Up On Family

10/09/21

 

That morning we had to get our covid tests taken care of, to have them ready come flight time, and after those were done, we drove to meet up with the parents, to visit Mikes uncle for a bit.

Lake got to swap cars, and go for a ride in the convertible with Opa as we left there, heading for the great grandparents house 😏

They have a dog, Rose, whom Lake thoroughly enjoyed, giving her open mouth kisses on her nose and all 🤪

More family came, and some afternoon visiting took place. 
After which, we left, and did some more family visiting 🤪 
Making full use of our second to last day 😉

We visited, were served more cappuccino’s as well as some peppernuts, and filled up on a little more family time, whilst it was available 🙂

After getting back to the house, we quickly freshened up, said goodbye to Lake, as he was going to spend the evening with his grandparents, and we were going to go out for our sixth anniversary dinner date ☺️

The sky and airplane trails mixing with the sunset, put on an enjoyable show for us as Mike drove us to  Doetinchem, a town I’d actually not yet been to.

We parked, and then walked the streets to get to the restaurant Mike had seen online. 

Though we passed many other interesting looking  places to put on our ‘to eat at’ list 😉

We started with a tasty appetizer platter.

Shrimp, fried shrimp, bitterballen, olives, bread, spicy broccoli soup, ribs, carpaccio and dipping sauces. 
The ribs were very tender, and so tasty. The crispy fried shrimp was enjoyable, Mike got all the bitterballen 🤪 
The actual whole shrimps, creep me out a little bit, so while they were good, they were also a little bit tricky to get down 😂 
The pleasant carpaccio was topped with cheese shavings, pine nuts, and arugula and the broccoli soup was really good, all be it, confusing 🤪 
The little shots of soup were swallowed, and at the start, the flavour was just ‘broccoli soup’, then it turned to ‘oh, a really nice broccoli soup’, which then turned to ‘oh wow, that’s a hit of an unexpected  kick!’ 😅 
We cleaned up the remains of that platter, then waited for our main dish to come.

And waited. And waited 🤪

It ended up being over an hour for our main dish to come, which maybe isn’t the most insane of waits, but it felt like forever 😂 
The appetizer was for sure more of an enjoyed moment then the burgers that followed, but it was fine and we ate them, and departed 🤪

 

10/10/21

 

The slanted ceiling in our room was often the cause for many a head bang, but the window there, also often afforded a nice morning view 😉
It was the typical Sunday morning. Prepare, eat, out the door, an hour or so drive to church.

That Sunday the sermon was actually spoken in English, by a family friend whom we know from the states 😅
So, Oma Inge took Lake to the baby room, and I got to sit and listen to one more, entire service, since Lakes birth 🤪
We mingled for a good chunk of time after service ended. It being our final day to see any of them, and wanting to get in one one last hello, and goodbye.

I also had my first ever, completely bilingual conversation 🤪
Meaning someone spoke Dutch to me, and I answered in English and I think we actually managed to make sense. Don’t ask her 😂🙈 I do live with a slight fear that I was answering her, completely wrong 🤪 It is an odd realization, knowing that you can possibly get the idea of what someone is saying in another language, but not having the words to answer them back in it. I guess it’s not that strange, especially for those who’ve grown up speaking multiple languages but for my little brain, it felt interesting 🤪

Not long after we got back to the house, Mikes sister and her kids also arrived.

One last group bike excursion was taken by Opa, Oma and their group of grands, while we stayed back with Judith and her youngest, who wasn’t feeling the biking vibes 😉

Our opa and oma joined in on the visit not long after 💗

It was a lovely time, spent soaking up the last of the visiting and eating, being served our favourite broccoli tart and of course, one more after eight crème dessert for Mike 😉

Aunty Judith thought she’d do something nice by giving Lake a bath with his cousin, and it was going fine, until the ‘fun’ blue bath coloring was added 😅  
There was no calming him down from the shock of that, so the bath was quickly evicted 🤪  
Memory made 😂

A time of song ensued before goodbyes and goodnights were said.

Lake loving the guitar and songs, all the while doing his best to imitate the actions that went along with them ☺️

Mike always postpones the packing for as long as he possibly can, which drives me a little bonkers.
But he’s much better at it than I am, thus I just wait until he deems it time 🤪

We started that night, mostly due to my harassment 🙈😅