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?