The Last Day

Okay, it is ridiculous that it is now February and I'm still trying to finish blogs from the Christmas holidays, so we are gong to do the condensed version. Well, maybe it didn't end up being too condensed.

Below is a picture taken 14 years ago at this mining town out by the Superstition Mountains that I take Anita to each time she comes. You can see how small Preston and Jip are plus all the other kids. (click on the picture and you can get a close up of it) Well, Anita wanted to go back to that same mining town to take Jip's picture in the same place that she has previously, so on their last day here we headed back out there.Here is everyone in front of the big saguaro in the middle of the "town". But this wasn't the one she was looking for. We walked all over looking for that certain cactus with no luck. We took time out to watch the "gun fight" in the middle of the street.
And then found a substitute cactus to take pictures with. Wouter was the bravest of all and he hugged the saguaro.
Everyone else just stood in front of it like Jeske or

tried to jump. Years ago when Jip was just almost three, Anita had asked him how tall he was going to be and he jumped as high as he could and said, "This high!" while she took his picture in front of the giant saguaro. So everyone played, "How tall are you going to be?" Here's Jip

And Maxim

And my three kids who had a really hard time all jumping at the same time.Do over - one, two, three, jump!

One, two, three, try it again! Oh well.

Finally Anita and I tried and we had just about as hard a time as Lonica, Raquel and Preston did, but we have an excuse, we are older!

For dinner that night we made Anita cook and make us a Dutch dinner of hutspot.

One thing we didn't lack over the holidays was food or hungry people. We had plenty of both and had a great time trying and sharing Dutch and American foods.

Here is the hutspot. Yumm

After dinner all the boys went to Bass Pro Shop to check it out and play at the shooting gallery.

Jeske's last request was a little car but Rob refused her for once and they didn't take it with them the next morning when they left.

Everyone had to come home and pack up because they had to be to the airport at 5:00 am for the long flight home. We hated to see them go and we all knew we had had a holiday that we would never forget. Thanks Creemers and de Vries for coming and sharing your vacation with us. It was GREAT!!!

New Year's Eve and Day

Anita treated us to another Dutch tradition on New Year's Eve by making us oliebollens (translated oil balls). She fried them out back on our grill which I'm quite sure they don't do in the Netherlands. The sticky dough is filled with currents and after they are fried you sprinkle them with powdered sugar. Their name is misleading because they are very good. We enjoyed sharing this New Year's tradition with them.

The rest of the day was spent playing games and eating; every one's favorite pastimes. That night all the kids went ice skating with our ward and the adults went out to eat at P.F. Chang's.

None of us are great party people, so we watched the New Year come in on the TV with all those in Time Square and then headed to bed.

New Year's Day we planned a barbecue and invited Garth's Uncle Paul and his wife, Judy and Mrs. Cooper, Judy's mother. We started early in the all day getting the baby back ribs and pulled pork roasting. Lonica made some great green chili cornbread and Judy brought coleslaw and Paul's famous salsa. Needless to say, we had plenty of food! I appreciated all the help I got from everyone and especially from Scott. I really miss having him around when we barbecue.

We also planned to have a white elephant exchange and I'd told Anita to have everyone in her family bring something for it. They were intrigued by a game where everyone brought something they wanted to get rid of and wrapped it up nice. During the day everyone had snuck into the office to wrap their "gift".

Here are pictures of our group while instructions and rules are given. You can see the excitement building in their faces.

Wouter and Garth look as though they can hardly control themselves. We actually had a really good time opening the wonderful white elephant gifts and "stealing" them from each other.

We were blessed with things like stuffed bears, really small sunglasses, pictures of Lonica, bobble heads, Corvette pins, world maps. But I ended up with the most coveted gift - gloves that could peel a potato in 8 seconds! After the game, Preston had to run get a potato so we could try them out.

As everyone gave it a shot, none of us able to peel the potato, let alone do it in 8 seconds. So if you see the infomercial for these gloves, resist the temptation and don't buy them. As amazing as they sound you WILL be disappointed.

Day 4 - Zion's and Las Vegas

We woke up in this beautiful setting on Monday morning and after a quick breakfast, headed back to Zions for another hike.
Ever since we had first hiked the Narrows I had wanted to come back and hike Angel's Landing. Luckily for me one of the few trails that was opened was Angle's Landing although not all the way to the top. Here you can see the first switch backs we had to climb. We lost Garth before he got to this point.

As you can see, it was another beautiful day even though we were hiking in the snow it was warm. This was the point that we lost Rob, Jip and Preston.

These short and steep switch backs were amazing the way the snow covered them.

Maxim beat us all to this point but started down before we could get a picture of us all.

Here is another great shot of Anita and I. It almost looks as though we have be cropped into this picture.

At this point the trail narrowed and you had to use chains to pull yourself up with and when we got to the next small set of switch backs, I lost Anita, Wouter and Jeske.

I hiked up to another amazing point where I could tell that I still had a long way to go (when hiking it always seems as though you are almost there then you top out and realize you have further to go) and too many people waiting for me. So another hiker and I took pictures of each other and started the decent together. While the trail was definitely narrower up here, the snow gave you a false sense of security and I think it will be really interesting to hike it again when there is no snow.

Just a couple more photos of this beautiful canyon covered in white.

From Zions, we started our longest day of driving thus far as we headed to Las Vegas. Once we hit the city we hit traffic jams due to construction. Garth got off the freeway and when we got closer to the Strip we hit more traffic jams. Las Vegas is just one big traffic jam day and night!

We were staying at the Venetian and had quite a time just trying to find the entrance. Once we got out of the van and knew we didn't have to drive anymore we were thrilled. Then we walked into the hotel and looked around and we were even more thrilled.

Check out our room that looked down on to the swimming pool.

After a little rest we headed out on to the strip. Here is an outside photo of the Venetian.

Our first stop was the Mirage and we managed to get there just minutes before the volcano erupted so we stood around with all the other tourists to wait.

Here Maxim is pretending to be a Oriental tourist with his peace sign.

We were all rewarded and warmed when the volcano erupted.

From the Mirage, we went to see the pirate show at Treasure Island which has always been one of our favorites. We waited a half hour or so and we were so disappointed. It is longer the family entertainment it once was. The pirates now fight the sexy sirens who sink their ship and bewitch them. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone.

At that point we just walked down the strip looking at all the hotels. Earlier in the evening we had talked about getting some Italian ice, since it is a favorite of Rob's, and when we were in Caesar's Palace I saw a store so we headed over to have some. They had cups displayed of the various sizes and I chose the smallest size and Rob started ordering his family's in the next smallest size. There weren't any prices displayed and when I walked around the counter to pay for mine I couldn't believe that it was $14! And then I noticed that the size Rob was buying multiples of was $17!! I went and told him how much they were and he didn't order any more but he still ended up paying $92 for Italian ice! The price kind of took the sweetness out of the ice.

As I said before one of the nice things of going right after Christmas was seeing all the decorations still up in the hotels. The Bellagio's decorations were absolutely outstanding. Jeske is standing in front of just a few of the many huge presents and ornaments they had on display.

After checking out the inside of the hotel, we went and watched the wonderful fountain show in the frontand thought about the Ocean's Eleven movie.

From there we finished off with New York, New York and then headed back to the Venetian because our legs were tired and it was after 1:00 am.

As we were walking to our room Preston talked Garth and I into walking down to the Encore that had just opened the day before to get him a chip as a souvenir. He was sure that their chips would be really special. I can't remember when my legs and feet had been so tired but we decided to go. We walked though the Wynn which is connected to the Encore and then had to find the cashier cages to purchase a chip. While Garth was buying a chip I thought I'd take his picture for future blackmail threats, but as I was about to take the picture the security guard came up and I quickly took a picture of the beautiful mosaic floor - or so I told him. Actually they were very beautiful. The chip on the other hand wasn't special at all and the ones at the Venetian were much nicer. It was after 2:00 am that we finally drug ourselves back to our room where we slept in as late as possible.

We headed back to Mesa the next day and we were all very happy with all the sites we had seen. The trip had turned out perfectly.

Day 3 - Antalope Canyon and Zion's

After reading several blogs and talking to the clerk at the hotel, we decided not to pay the $20 to $35 tour fee for Antelope Canyon and to drive out to the check in station ourselves and just pay the $6.00 Navajo permit fee.


Upon arriving at the in check station we noticed lots of vehicles but no one in either office (typical of Navajos). We saw two vehicles take off down the dirt road and after waiting a little while, we decided to follow them down the road with the sign that said, "No unauthorized vehicles allowed beyond this point." Since Antelope Canyon is on the Navajo Reservation, we didn't really know what to expect.


The road was down a dry sand wash and we were afraid if we stopped we would get stuck in the deep sand or that we would be ambushed by Indians coming over the hill because we weren't an "authorized vehicle". We made it to the entrance of the canyon and it is amazing what is inside this little crack in the Earth and that this beautiful slot canyon was made by just water and wind.
We noticed that there were a few tour groups there and several other vehicles but couldn't see anyone we could pay our permit fee to, so we headed into this breath taking canyon. As we all oohed and awed over the walls we separated from one another.

Anita and I lagged behind the others taking pictures and all the sudden we had a Native American come up to us and ask how many people we were with and what vehicle we had come in. He then informed us that we needed to pay him $35 a person and leave right now before we got into trouble. We explained that we didn't have any money and would have to find our husbands who were way a head of us. He followed us through the canyon as we tried to slowly meander through trying take pictures and he kept pushing us telling us not to take pictures and that we needed to hurry before we got into trouble. I kept wondering what kind of trouble we would get into and just who was going to get us since no one was around.

When we got to the other side, Garth and Rob had been approached by another Indian tour guide for money. They told him they would pay and then he said he didn't have his book so they had to wait. After we taking some pictures on the other side of the canyon, we lost both of our "tour guides".

Here are a few more pictures of this amazing place. The light is the best in the summer because the sun shines directly down into the canyon but even in winter it is was still beautiful.

Anita and Jip

Garth

When we got back to the other side, all the tours were gone - no one to pay our money to - so we headed back to the check in station. At the check in station we parked and waited but no one was around and no one asked for any money so we left and headed for Glenn Canyon Dam. Excited after the adventure we had had on the Navajo reservation and the awesomeness of Antelope Canyon, we couldn't wait to see what the rest of the day had in store.

The fountain out in front of the Glen Canyon Dam's visitor center was covered in ice and of course the boys couldn't leave it alone.

We headed across southern Utah to Zion's National Park and once again the landscape was covered in snow from the recent storm.

The boys made fun of Anita and I because we kept saying how beautiful it was and made Garth stop the van so we could take pictures or run back up the road to take pictures of frozen waterfalls. Winter had made this normally beautiful land, beautiful in a completely different way.

The winding road down into the park was slick, treacherous and slow going but we made it without incident and were awed by the beauty we encountered. After a quick stop at the visitor's center for some souvenirs and some hiking advice we headed into the park.

Even though it was late in the day we decided to hike up the narrows as far as we could go. Years ago our family had backpacked down the narrows, spending a night in the middle of it. By the time we reached the end we were dirty, wet and tired. This year hiking up was completely different, no packs to carry or streams to wade through. The waterfalls were frozen as they ran off the cliffs and the snow was so deep we didn't dare venture of the trail...

and it looked like a winter wonderland. There were very few people, other than the Indian ladies in their sandals and sarongs which we thought was really weird, and all you could hear was the Virgin River. As you can see the snow was plentiful and deep.

Since we were at the end of the canyon where the walls began to narrow, we wouldn't be seeing the sun on this hike. While it was cold, the walking warmed us with the exception for the occasionally hit from a snowball, heaven only knows where they would have been coming from. We had a great time hiking, talking and enjoying nature. It was hard to believe that we were in the same place that my family had backpacked out of years before. We finally got to the point were we couldn't go any further and had to turn around. As we headed out of the park towards Springdale we had a great view of the sun setting on the snow covered cliffs of Zion's. I think this park is aptly named.

One more shot of this beautiful place before we went in search of our hotel, dinner and the famous Bumbleberry pie all in Springdale, Utah.

Day 2 - the Grand Canyon

Flagstaff truly was a winter wonderland while we there - a really, really cold wonderland but beautiful none the less. After waiting forever to get our breakfast, we headed though Williams to the Grand Canyon. Here's a great shot of our comfortable van, Rob and Anita were so smart in renting it.
The roads were great once we got out of Flagstaff and until we entered the Grand Canyon National Park. I don't think any of the entrance fees that are collected are used for snow removal and they had had about 3 feet. We saw two accidents and three cars that slide off the road into snow banks. It was crowded with visitors and the road conditions made it dangerous and adventurous.

Anita, Rob, Maxim and Jip had been to the Canyon before but not with it dusted in snow. It was another gorgeous day with a bright blue sky. It was cold but sunny, so the sun warmed us up as we hiked along the rim.

With our family missing five people, Garth and I and Preston look so small and especially with the Grand Canyon as our backdrop. What we lack in numbers we make up for in personality and fun though.

Here is one of those pictures where Garth says, "I want my picture taken right here." He is in the El Tovar Lodge in front of their huge Christmas tree. One of the great advantages we had leaving the day after Christmas was that everywhere was still decorated for the holidays.

Garth drove the van back along the rim while the rest of us hiked and played along the 2 1/2 mile rim trail. The weather was crisp, the snow sparkling, clean and beautiful and the scenery was spectacular - after all we were at one of the Seven Wonders of the World.

With that combination what more could we want? Well with four teenage boys the obvious answer is a snowball fight. There was a continual shower of snowballs much to the dismay of the other tourists we encountered. Here is another great picture of Anita and I at one of my most favorite places on Earth.

This shot was taken as we left the Canyon and headed to Page for the night. I had never been to this end of the Canyon except when I went down the river and the perspective was completely different. It was different to look down the length of the Canyon instead of across it.

As we drove across the Navajo Reservation, Rob and Anita were amazed at how spread out the homes were and how the Navajos live alone in the middle of nowhere. We stopped at the famous Cameron trading post, picked up a few sovereigns and got into to Page about 9:00pm. Another great day on our road trip!

Our road trip - second stop Sedona

Friday morning Rob and Garth got up early and picked up the 12 passenger van we would take on our road trip. Our first stop was the outlet mall in Anthem (okay, we didn't get too far out of Phoenix before stopping) but after we all made a purchase or two ...
and grabbed some lunch we spent the rest of the day in Sedona.

There is no place on earth like the beautiful red rocks and blue sky of Sedona. As you can see it was dusted with snow and it was cold!

Garth's cousin, Royce, has a house in Sedona and we took advantage of the parking and bathroom facilities there. We then took a quick hike near his house to the top of Tea Cup, encountering snow and hail on the way which added to the adventure.

As the clouds raced across the sky and played peek-a-boo with the sun, the views of Sedona's rocks continually changed. The snow added its own special touches.

Last summer Anita and I went through all the pictures that we have together from over the years and realized that we have very few. We decided that we would remedy the situation while she was here this time, so be prepared.

Here are just a few more gorgeous shots from the top of Tea Cup.

Chimney rock is way in the background of this shot of Jeske.Wouter had wanted to go down Slide Rock but unfortunately it was closed. We really wanted to see him brave the freezing water but alas he will have to wait until his next trip. Raquel and Dave came with us on Friday but after dinner in bitter cold Flagstaff, they took Dieter and went home.

For the first day of our road trip we had spent a bunch of money, enjoyed the beauties of Sedona and nearly frozen to death in Flagstaff (that's where we spent the night), what more could you want in a day?

Christmas Day

Christmas morning was a nice relaxing one this year. Lonica and Scott stayed at his house and opened presents with the Rowley family first. We got Christmas breakfast ready and when Scott and Lonica made their appearance at our house we were ready to eat - most important things first.

After filling our stomachs, we rearranged the livingroom and set about opening presents. It was nice because we could relax and not feel rushed because no one was starving for once.
Here is a group of present unwrappers ready to begin.

Preston was in charge of dishing out the presents and then we had to wait our turns. Dave seemed to have an unusual number of presents to open, thus the pile at his feet.

Raquel is happy with her new Belgium waffle maker.

Anita loved the letter from my mother and the Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer that was in the beautifully wrapped package.

Garth would be very happy with his new golf bag and he and Rob would make sure it was used over the break.

After all the damage had been done and we declared Dave had received the biggest gifts...

We headed to the family room to open the stockings. Have you ever seen a longer row of stockings?

Preston seems happy with the things in his stocking.

As does Jip, Scott, Wouter and Lonica.

Raquel and Dave are going to play with their Sock'em Rock'em Robots that fit on your fingers.

All the kids got Silly String in their stockings, so when there was a break in the rain, of course they had to have a Silly String fight.

With Preston and Wouter ganging up on him, Jip got it the worst. You can see all the luminary bags that Preston needs to clean up down our street.

The rest of the day we ate left over and played some of the games we had gotten.

Or built computers that we had gotten parts for.

Or model new aprons that Lonica had made for us.

Or played on new laptops that we got.

Or just laughed ourselves silly trying to talk like a pirate, a CB operator, a witch, or with a French accent, or tell a lie or pretend your are signing every thing you said. We had a great time playing Curses and would highly recommend that game.

It was a great Christmas and fun was had by all.

Christmas Eve

After a day of preparing food, delivering and lighting luminaries and wrapping gifts, we all sat down for our family's big Christmas Eve dinner. One of our traditions (aside from having the exact same food for dinner each year) is to have a gift wrapped on each of the children's (or in our case now - adult children) dinner plates, it is always a book and we open them from youngest to oldest. Here we are in anticipation of opening the gifts and especially eating! Jeske started off by opening her book ("The Night Before Christmas") and then got sick and had to miss the rest of the dinner. I didn't realize what kind of reaction that book would have on her. Luckily she felt better the next morning and no one else got sick the remainder of their visit here.
As you can see in the background, Jason made a brief appearance.

After dinner we take a traditional walk through the neighborhood and gaze at all the beautiful luminaries. But this year before we got a chance to go, there was a knock at the door, the door was opened and candy thrown into our house and a bag was left on the doorstep. Sinter Klaas (Santa Claus) and his helper, Black Pete, had found our house clear from the Netherlands!

Here is the bag of presents Sinter Klaas left and you can see him in his traditional red Bishop's robe. In the Netherlands, Sinter Klaas, Pete and Sinter Klaas' horse live in Spain and sail to Amsterdam sometime the end of November and then come to every one's house on December 5, the night before Sinter Klaas' birthday. Christmas Day is much quieter there with family dinners and church attendance; all the presents and celebration are done earlier in the month.

This year Christmas Eve was a beautiful night and not too cold so we took a good long walk amongst the lights and luminaries. All our Dutch friends were in awe at how beautiful it looked. It is a wonder that a paper bag, some sand and a candle can make such a beautiful spectacle. After our walk, Jip distributed the presents from Sinter Klaas. Amazingly, all the presents were from the Netherlands.

How lucky our family was to learn and share Dutch and American traditions with Rob and Anita's family.

Luminaries

A tradition that has been added to our family's Christmas traditions has been the making of over a thousand luminaries for our neighborhood. Years ago Jason and his friend Christian started the luminary business and it has been passed on to Preston now. In the month of December, he spent a great deal of time putting out fliers, ordering and purchasing supplies and folding bags. Yet it seems that every year most of the family gets roped into helping him.
Most of the day on Tuesday and Wednesday everyone helped Preston get the luminaries ready. Scott, and Anita and Rob's boys and Preston hauled in a ton of dirt to put in the bottom of the bags and Preston then got some friends to help carry all the bags upstairs and out of the basement.

I think Jeske was glad to get all those bags out of her make shift bedroom.

Usually the luminaries are put on our patio and the cement slab in the backyard, but due to the threat of rain this year, they made their way into our garage. The bags received a cup full of dirt and a candle and were then ready for delivery the next day.

After making deliveries on Christmas Eve, Preston realized that 1,180 bags weren't enough, he needed almost 70 more. So all our Dutch visitors helped fold and fill more bags plus the bags we needed for our house.

Even Rob got into the act. We were all relieved when the weather held all day Christmas Eve and we were able to enjoy the beauty of luminaries in our neighborhood that night when they were all lit.

P.S. For those of you who don't know about luminaries, it is a Mexican tradition and they are supposed to light the way for the Christ child on Christmas Eve.

Jip's Birthday

Anita and I thought it was quite ironic that Preston had his 16th birthday while we were visiting them in the Netherlands and then Jip had his 17th birthday while they were visiting us. So on the 23rd of December we took some time out to help Jip remember it was his birthday and celebrate with him. We made him sit in the seat of honor (on the rock fireplace) and wait until everyone was ready to watch him open his gifts.
Here is the proud mother and step brother. She definitely doesn't look old enough to have a 17 year old do you think?

The crowd is assembling and waiting with anticipation for the exciting moment. Can't you see the excitement in their faces?

Okay, there were only a couple of gifts so we moved on to the best part of the celebration, the cake! Raquel had made a white chocolate, raspberry almond cake and we were all excited to eat it. We had to get a picture of the birthday boy with his cake.

Then we sang "Happy Birthday" rather poorly as usual, Jip made a wish and blew out the candles. It took him a couple of times to get the candles out because we had put trick candles on it. He finally sacrificed his fingers and put them out that way since the kitchen was filling with smoke.

Jip we were happy to help you celebrate your birthday here in Arizona. Thanks for sharing it with us.

Gingerbread Houses

This is the beginning of a long series of blogs on our Christmas holidays with all of our family plus Anita, Rob, Maxim, Jip, Wouter and Jeske who finally made it to our house after spending hours and hours in airports and on planes.

On Monday morning, Anita made a brief appearance and then spent the rest of the day fighting a 24 hour flu or something. We all felt so bad that she had had such a hard time getting here and then spent the first day in bed. But after 24 hours of rest, she felt weak but better and was able to enjoy the rest of her trip.

Garth and Rob spent the day golfing and they had a great time, so we wanted to show the rest of the kids a good time also. I took Wouter and Jeske shopping in the morning for a few last minute candies for the gingerbread houses we would make and to make sure we had food they would like. They enjoyed the stores and Wouter told me that he wouldn't be able to find his way out of the grocery store if he got lost. They were both impressed by how big everything is here - cars, trucks, streets, stores... Before starting the gingerbread houses, Wouter helped me make some carmels and peanut brittle, he is a natural candy maker.

Over the three prior days, Lonica and I had made prepared all the parts of the gingerbread houses so that after lunch we could have a girls against guys gingerbread house building contest. I gave a few explanations of how to put the house together and then the competition began!
At first Maxim said that he didn't think he would help but just watch, well that didn't last long, he came up with some of the best ideas for the guys, who got off to a fast start getting their house put together while...
the girls discussed and took some time deciding on how to decorate the roof and make the path to the house.
And then spent even more time on the detail work on the sides and the front of their house.

We were quite please with our ice skating pond, sledding hill, Rice Krispy trees and the over all results when we turned the light on inside.

Wouter worked to the bitter end and all the boys were sure they had won with their campfire, palm tree, cactus and directions for Santa.

Here are the boys with their final product

and here's the girls' final product.

We never really did pick a winner, just figured all who participated were winners. Or do you want to choose?