Construction work

Incredible that it has been less than 2 weeks that our home extension-building-project had officially started. It feels if we are in the dirt for months already! Well, on the positive side, we are making good progress (and the constructor even more). The foundation is almost ready, a big plate of concrete with little walls on top. Next week we will have a ground floor!

Last week was a lot of digging, we were dealing with waste water pipes and excess ground to remove. The weather has been great, it is like summer has finally started.

But this weekend, there is not too much for us to do. So we went with Dide to her baseball game, the season will end next week. And Dide had the greatest action of her season by catching a fly ball in the outfield. Everybody cheering and we were proud. And although Dide will not admit it, she was proud too. See picture below.

And some pictures on the home construction .........

Cheers!

Home extension

After many months of preparations we have finally started with the work to extend our home!

First we threw a party to say goodbye to our "old" house. We brought lots of cookies from our trip to the UK, so we organized an English High Tea.

And the next week it started. We decided to first insulate part of our garage to change it into a children's playing area, remember, we have no basements in The Netherlands. We will move our old kitchen here, so lots of storage space and running water, great for kids painting. With help from friends we did a lot of work in weekends and evenings. All the work behind the walls like electricity, insulation and the actual construction is already hidden, but it all cost tons of time!

And then, yesterday, the big digging started. Because soil is so wet and soft here, we need a hole of about 1,20 m (4 feet) were concrete will be put, otherwise the house will start floating. We decided to rent a "little" machine and do the work ourselves, again with the help of family (they must love us!).

And this is the result of all the work. Next week the constructor will start! We will keep you posted.

Long weekend to see the Bullifent family in England

We drove to northern France for a 2 hour ferry trip to Dover, UK.

We left home 3 AM, and sailed at 8 AM. The weather was nice, like the rest of the weekend. We have been extremely lucky, everywhere in Europe it was miserable, but we were partly sunny all the time, almost no rain.

Jessica and Saskia in the playground.

And our 4 kids in Sheffield city center.

British!

Playing in the city fountains here.

And a hike over the moors.

The pictures below were taken in and around Leighton Buzzard. I remember all these places from my own childhood, and now Dide and Ties are opening the locks like we did before.

Old memories .........

When you zoom in you can actually see the Plantations between the trees (at least at our computer using the high resolution pictures).

We also visited Cambridge, just a few hours, enough to get an impression.

And on the way back. What is Ties thinking about?

White cliffs of Dover.

Now all vacations are really over. The kids have only a few days left before going to school again. Radboud is back at work and Saskia will start her new job soon. Oh, and we have a home reconstruction coming up.

Summer vacation 2011

Today we got back from our summer vacation of 2011. A bunch of pictures to give some impressions.

We started in Disney Land, close to Paris. This was to celebrate the 40th anniversary of Saskia's parents.
Big fun, Dide and Ties loved it.

And after all that commercial entertainment we went on camping. Our first night stop, we lost the soccer ball and needed to get it back. It had already floated away all across the river.

And on our second campsite in the French Pyrenees, we were spoiled with some great food prepared by our hosts and Ties was challenged for playing a game of "petanque", the most French game on earth. I am not sure if Ties has won, but he was doing great.

And as we learned last month, Dide and Ties like exploring tree tops.

Obviously, some walking and climbing has to be done in this part of the world. Beautiful world.

And this was our campsite. Small place with farm animals.

One of our day trips, playing in and with water is always great.

And so is ice cream.

But then it is time to walk again. It was not too hot, but still it makes you tired.

On our way to Spain we only hit 2 trafiic jams (2 hours and 3 hours, unfortunately)

We visited the Dali museum north of Barcelona.

And stayed in Barcelona for a couple of days. Dide is enjoying paella on the picture below.

And one of the parks full with Gaudi sculptures.

A view from our hotel room viewing the Ramblas, which is the Magnificent Mile of Barcelona.

Fountain shows on music when the evening falls.

And the family at a metro stop, we used it a lot to see as much from the city as possible.

One of those things was the zoo (we like them and often visit zoos abroad).

And finally, we went another 500 miles to the south of Spain where we had a very relaxing week in an apartment near the see. Here it is alway nice weather. We were told that this has been the wettest July month ever in The Netherlands and we missed it. How great is that?

Dide and Ties are still with their grandparents in Spain, we drove back in 2 days and have just arrived. Crazy traffice, but we got home just a day before the real madness begins, black Friday is a day we did not want to be out there on the roads. Time to sleep now. Speak to you all soon!