Father's Day - 21st. June, 2009

My 'father's day' started when I came down after shower this morning at 1015 a.m.. The breakfast table was filled with the presents from the kids and from Jackie. Ruben painted the fish with the word papa at the corners and wrapped it into the giant self made envelope with a strange face.

Priya brought one my wine bottles to school and drawn two stickers with the following text. One, 'Dear daddy, you are very caring and almost don't get angry. I hope you would have more free days. Love, Priya'. The other with a text 'Malay wine' with a Malaysian flag on it. Hmm wrong combination Priya... Malay and wine, Ha! Ha!

Jackie bought me this T-shirt, which I still think looks like one for woman, but she swears she took it from the male section of the shop. Never mind, who cares!. Moreover she made my favourite Chocolade cake with thick Bastogne cookie bottom. That was lekker!!!

We got ready and left to Jackie's parents place at 1245 hrs where we saw Jan and Helen just arriving at their flat on their bicycles from Nieuw Vennep. We all went in together and later were joined by Bart, Jan, Chant and the dogs. We gave Jan Sr. a DVD, D-Day (War movie about the alliances attack to free Western Europe from Nazi Germany) and a DVD player from all his children. We fixed it after Jan, Helen and Bart left and he was happy with his presents. We stayed there till 1700 hrs with Aty (Jackie's Mum) preparing the cake, soup and the toasties to fill in our stomach. The kids enjoyed playing with the 3 dogs (Nalla, Mellow and Fico).



We decided to take it easy today and to eat out with kids to celebrate Priya's and Ruben's very good school results and father's and mother's day. We wanted to go to Duinrand Pancake Restaurant (close to the Amsterdam natural water reserve dunes) and before dining to walk in the (Amsterdamse waterleidingduin) reserve area to digest the food we ate at Jan and Aty's. We saw a lot of activities in the nature. Swans and coots swimming in the water and cormorants and swallows, falcons and so on in the air. There were butterflies and dragon flies of various colours flying around. Today is the technically the longest day light at northern hemisphere. We had again luck with a beautiful sunny day from time to time thick clouds passing by.


Obviously, Priya and Ruben did not sit too long at the dining table. They took a break to play at the play ground and Ruben came running at one point to inform that he saw two male deers close to the fence. It was a beautiful sight.

After the meal we cycled back home and it was a good relaxed Father's Day.

Malaysian Food Fair - The Hague - 14th. June, 2009

At first I was reluctant if I should go, since Jackie was not totally feeling well with sore throat and sneezing a lot due to the hay-fever. The kids wanted to see what it is like and I have decided to take them for a Malaysian adventure. We cycled to the Zandvoort Station and after parking our horses (bicycles) we took the train to The Hague. The train trip from Haarlem to The Hague would pass-by some beautiful typical Dutch landscapes. We passed through one of it, The canal, the cows and the grassland. Normally around April these fields are planted with tulips. Towns between Hillegom and Haarlem would be a festive for your eyes. Now they are planted with potatoes and summer flowers in small scales and grasslands for winter stock.

We arrived at the Malaysian Embassy after a bus ride from the The Hague central station. There were some crowd already trying all normal Malaysian goodies. I bought for myself Nasi Lemak and Lumpiahs and Curry-puffs for the kids. They both enjoyed the lumpiahs, and Priya went up to the Curry-puffs but no more than that. Even ABC was not getting their interest.

I finished the ABC (ice-kacang) myself and the teh tarik specially done by the Embassy staff.

We met some Indian expats and Mr Pala who is from the Agricultural Ministry promoting Malaysian products in Holland. He brought 3 years ago a container of Durians and now they only had some rambutans and nangkas available for this food fair.

I packed Kuih Udang and bought Rambutans for Jackie. Then we left the embassy terrain and took a tram to the city. It was another beautiful day with a lot of activities in the city centre. We passed-by the Parliament and a cart riding tourists around the city passing over the bridge where on the right hand side of it is the Parliament building. We passed-by a dancing fountain.
Later in another street Norwegian Embassy members were having a cocktail party admiring the sand sculpture. It was quite beautiful.

A group of Brazilian brass band members were performing a Samba beat in the street is next for your entertainment. It was a nice outing with the kids and we saw quite some diverse things.

Around the house - spring towards summer in Zandvoort - 20th. June, 2009

Official summer starts tomorrow. But, during the month May and last weeks of June we had remarkably good sunny days in Holland. That being said, we needed to work in the garden to keep up with the grasses and the plants. Like you see on the pictures below it took almost 4 solid hours to to properly finish-up the mowing work.

Well, when I finished with mowing and cutting the grasses and unwanted plants, I was satisfied with my work. Now the garden was usefull even to play tennis on it. Correct, Arjen? Well Astrid and Arjen visited this afternoon.

The following ones are for Shoba specially since she wanted know the type of fruits which grows here. I made some pictures of the fruits and plants growing in my garden. We have prunes (1st 2 pics.), apple and strawberry. Our Jasmine tree is in full blossom. Tulips season is over but, we had some nice colours in April.