City Life

Prepare yourself for a photo overload.  We have been busy adjusting to city life and I have taken loads of pictures in the process.  Moving into our apartment near the city center, I had a couple of immediate thoughts:

1. I knew it would be a convenient commute for Ryan and therefore we would (hopefully) see him a lot more.  That is a huge plus.  

2. I seriously questioned whether me and my 4 suburban children without a car (ryan uses it usually) would be able to adjust to a new urban lifestyle. 

Like everything else about our life here, it has been an adventure.  So here's what we've been up to lately:

I bought a bakfiets.  This bike is the best thing ever.  I really cannot sing it's praises enough.  All 4 kiddos have a seat (with a seatbelt) in this thing, and we go everywhere with it.  We even have a rain cover for it.  It is WAY more convenient than driving a car here (not to mention much cheaper if you factor in the cost of parking, let alone the possibility - or impossibility - of actually finding a parking spot and being able to quickly parallel park in it before someone else snags it).    Because Rotterdam (and all of Holland for that matter) has very organized bike lanes with light signals and everything, I actually had to learn how to ride properly in the city.  They don't require a license or anything like that, but it is a little tricky.  SO, Yes, sometimes I feel like I'm driving a rickshaw at the Rangers game, but this is my preferred mode of transportation in NL so far.

Doing a little weekday shopping with the girls.

Ry and kids at a stoplight

The kids and I have spent more time outside here than we ever did back home.  I think we all took our outdoor space and nice weather for granted in Texas, and now we know if we don't take advantage of every sunny day and every fun park we see, we might miss out on an opportunity.  The kids aren't thinking this, of course, this is just the only explanation I have for it.  Anyway, it's been fun. 

Kaydree riding her bike with Carv sitting on the back, Dutch style.

Playing in the sandbox hidden beneath the tree outside our house.  The neighbors built this in for the neighborhood kids to enjoy…so nice!

Another shot of the tree & sandbox

My friend Dayana (who has lived here for years) showed us this hidden treasure, an awesome park hidden in the middle of the city.  Apparently there are quite a few of these that are surrounded by other buildings and schools, you really have to know where to look I guess.

Climbing Carver

K swinging in the sunshine

Somehow they convinced that poor Dutch kid to swing them while they just laid back and relaxed.

Carv, pretending to be Batman if I remember right.

The grass is fake, but the kids (and the honey badger) don't care!

We live one street over from this canal, isn't it picturesque?  I love the bridge.  I try to convince the kids to go play there on the tree swing whenever I can.  It's never crowded and so peaceful, but they usually want to go to one of the bigger parks.

C making a run for the tree swing so he can have it first.

They tried to fit everyone on at once, but they couldn't quite do it.

One of the things I LOVE about Rotterdam is the amazing architecture and art you see almost everywhere you look.  The city was heavily bombed during WWII, and people from all around came in to rebuild the city.  As a result, it is a very diverse city with lots of different people and foods (restaurants, bakeries, specialty shops, etc.), and a great mix of old buildings and really modern ones.

This statue in the city center is called "ongebroken" or "unbroken"

I like this one too, you see sculptures like this everywhere.

Even the dumpsters are art!

Near our neighborhood they have spray painted cars everywhere.  They look really neat.

"Delfshaven" the area where we live

Carv's favorite, Joker on one side and Batman as a little boy on the other.

 Since nudity is no big deal in Europe, sometimes you have to watch out for the "art work".  There is a painting of a mother with no shirt on on the street adjacent to ours.  Every time we drive past the kids scream "CLOSE YOUR EYES" or "AAAGGGHH, THE NAKED LADY!"  Kaydree even suggested that we paint a shirt on her for Family Home Evening some time.  I've tried to explain to them that some people consider the human body to be a work of art, but that we don't consider nudity to be appropriate.  Yep, they still think it's weird every time they see something questionable.

We came up with a rating system for all of the artwork we see.  Each of the kids will rate things on a scale of 1-10, depending on how much they like it.  This is a 10 for Kaydree…

Bunny sculpture that floats on the pond in Vroesenpark.

Sunday evening bike ride to see K's favorite sculpture.

By the Rotterdam R

Finally, here are the littles all dressed up to go to a princess party for some girls at church.  We've been so blessed to make friends quickly here.

Carver would NOT dress up as a princess OR a prince.  Spiderman worked for me.

So if all of that doesn't entice you to come visit us, we are taking a boat trip to Kinderdijk to go explore a bunch of windmills this weekend.  It should be beautiful, awesome pics to come.  We are brave, I know, to get back on a boat with the kids after Amsterdam.  But we're going with friends this time, so I'm optimistic.