Slept till 5.30am this morning...not too bad!  Way better than 4am!!!  First I'll begin with telling about my day at Tante Gerry (Mum's sister) and Oom Gezinus' house on Tuesday.

When I first got there, my cousin Linda (their daughter) was there too.  It was really nice to see her again.

We had a cup of coffee and a Hazlenut Tart which was very nice considering I'm not a sweet tooth.  Apparently my mum really loves this particular cake too, so when she reads this, she may be a little jealous!

Maddi had 2 really good sleeps there in their bed (we spent the whole day).  We had a really nice day together.  They showed me videos of our family and old photos of eg. my opa's mum and dad etc. I also showed them some videos and photos from Australia.   We also talked a fair bit about the situation in the churches in Holland which was interesting.  We probably could have spent a whole week doing all of that (as I've found with other family members too) but time is short!

It was interesting to find a link back to Australia again - their son Anteun is married to Geertje whose mother is a sister of Mrs Brinks in Armadale!

We had a nice lunch together with Maddi.  Oom Gezinus had quickly gone and picked up some normal croquettes and also some "croquettes with goulash" which were like croquettes but tastier.  All in all, it was a very nice day, especially because I knew them a bit better than most as Tante Gerry has been to Australia 3 times and Oom Gezinus once.

I was going to cook dinner that day for Oom Ben and Tante Bertha, but they had already started making it as I was back late afternoon.  We had chicken satay sticks (you kids would've loved that), boiled potatoes, peas and applemoes.  We also had "shoe"with it which is not really a shoe, but sort of runny gravy.  It made the potatoes taste really good.

Now back to yesterday (Thursday).  On the way back from Clara (where Tante Gea lives) there was a shop that was calling my name, so I went in and tried patat (chips) special.  It's chips with mayo, a sort of BBQ sauce and raw onions.  It was quite yummy, but next time I'll try another one.  Maybe Patat Oorlog which is apparently chips with satay sauce...

After I got back to Tante Bertha's I put Maddi to bed and did some work on my blog.  I was also hoping to fold some washing I had done, cook dinner and do all the dishes but Maddi had other plans:).  So instead we went for a walk into Hardenberg and looked in some more shops.  It was a really beautiful day yesterday by the way.  On the way, right near a busy road, was a paddock :

Bianca wanted to see what bikes looked like in Holland so here are some pictures for you, Bianca :

This is what it looks like outside some shops - it's easier to ride your bike in Holland than take the car and park it.  They probably only use their car if it's raining too much, it's too far, or they've got lots of shopping.  Lots of bikes here have bags that hang over the back wheels and a lot also have a basket or even a large crate on the front.  Kids ride on the back or on a special seat at the front.  They also have special "hats" (they look a bit like a shower cap) for their bike seat so their pants don't get wet if it's raining while they go inside.  Some people also decorate their bikes.

When we got back home, I started cooking dinner which ended up being Alli's pasta.  Alli dJ, if you're reading this, the Dutch also love your recipe!
Once dinner, dishes etc. was finished we went to Oom Wims (Tante Berthat and I).  He lives about 100m away.  I brought with me a USB that had the videos and photos on it that I had made of Tante Gea.  He seemed to really like it so that was good.  It was very interesting at his house.  He is really interested in antiques and showed me some really interesting things.  He also gave me 5 old dutch books that school kids used to read from in Holland.  They are similar to the "Dick and Dora" books that we had when we had kids.  Very nice.  Here's a photo of me and Oom Wim.  He's a really nice man :

Today I hope to visit Henny Templeman in the morning and then it is my cousin Peter (from Mum's younger sister Aly and her husband Bertus) Veurink's wedding this afternoon.  Tomorrow I may be going with my Tante Roelie (another sister of my Mum who has been to Australia once) to Germany and see her son Gerben (he stayed with our family in Australia for a while).  Sunday will hopefully be a peaceful day :) and on Monday my cousin Frea (daughter of Tante Roelie) is going to pick me up and drive me to her sister Irma's house 2 hours away (both Frea and Irma have been to Australia).  I'll be sleeping at Frea and her family's house on Monday night and then on Tuesday morning back to Oma Botter's!