How was your day, honey?

Our day was full and I wouldn’t exactly call it a day of rest, which is what we originally planned.

Charlie and Christian had friends sleepover last night. For some weird reason I was excited to get up early and have coffee and make them all pancakes, scrambled eggs and bacon. I remember how happy my Grandma used to be when she made food for us. I had that same feeling today. The little boys had so much cooking with me and flipping pancakes in the air. We were all laughing together and breakfast was fun.

While enjoying breakfast, we also watched the men’s final Australian tennis championship. Wow! They are so strong and powerful, focused and intense. I loved watching Murray and Djokovic play and wish I could play like them! The games lasted for almost 4 hours…kinda like running a marathon. At the same time, since I can’t sit still, I cleaned up breakfast dishes and began making my first pot of pea soup, or erwtensoep as they say in Nederlanse. In order to make it, you boil dried peas with bacon and a bay leaf and salt for 45 minutes. While they are simmering, you chop up a carrot, an onion, a leek, celery root and fresh parsley. All of the veggies are then added to the pot for another 30+ minutes until they are nice and soft. Then I took a hand blender and puréed it all together until it was thick and creamy. Meanwhile, I boiled the rookworst ( sausage) to add to the soup.

Barbara and Dennis joined us for a late lunch and we finished the whole pot less one small cup! I didn’t even have time to take a picture to show you! Luckily everyone loved it because my kids had never tried it before. I’m so glad they love another Dutch dish!

We had quite the busy day. After everyone left, Jeff and I went for a run together in the slush. It rained last night and this morning, and our winter wonderland turned to slush. The white covered ground came back to life again and the top of the canal was flowing with water, although you could see ice still a few inches below the water. To think that we were walking on the canal last night and now it is unsafe is crazy to me. Running was a bit challenging because some patches were icy and slushy, but it felt so good to run again. (Sorry – no pictures to share)

Finally, Jeff and I went out for a quick (romantic) date night to study our Dutch. Seriously, we listened to our Dutch CD in the car and drove around to find a place that was open on Sunday to grab a drink and do our homework. We found a great local bar, and made friends with Ike, our cute Dutch waitress who was thrilled to help us learn. She was so much fun and kept coming back between helping other guests and telling us the informal equivalents to the formal sayings we were learning. We liked the atmosphere of the local pub and restaurant that has been in Amstelveen for 125 years, but OMG, the place smelled like an ash tray and no one was smoking. I think it’s because of all the heavy wood and rugs as table cloths that have absorbed years of smoke and never have been cleaned. It reminded me of my Oma and Opa’s house growing up, because everyone used to smoke indoors with the windows closed in the 1970’s!! When we came home, the kids told us we stank! They were right,unfortunately! Too bad, because we really like the place and want to hang out there more often. We’ll see…

Have a great week, y’all! Dream big