Lake Lipno, part 2

Here's more fun we had...

We thought Clark was bigger?

There was this cool bobsled track - we did it 5 times...
Get your motor running...
Just jump!

Lake Lipno, part 1

We had a great family trip to a place called Lake Lipno last week - we went for a few days with the Syvertsen family. It's about 3 hours south of here, actually where the Vltava River that runs through Prague gets its start. We took our bikes and rode on the nice paths along the river, and every day we followed that up with a dip in the indoor pool. The resort was basically empty, so we had lots of peace and quiet.

Sporting our shades...



At one point we heard a noise - look what it was!

We miss them already!!!

The Family Von Davis

We're taking reservations for birthday parties, music bars, weddings, and corporate events...

Oh yeah...

Did I mention I've stayed up late watching some TV in the last week? Go Duke!!!

van gogh

Lucy and Clark really loved the van Gogh museum. They also really learned a lot while we were there, like brush strokes, and lines, and color. All week they have been practicing making pictures like van Gogh. We bought these amazing kits at the museum shop that had a copy of van Gogh's room and then a canvas with the lines printed on it so they could try to replicate it. It also included a variety of paint brushes, 8 tubes of paint and and extra canvas. Today we busted it out and started working on van Gogh's room. It was a bit hard trying to get the right colors so we only did a portion of it and then moved to the blank canvases. They loved them. They painted for a solid two hours and have already asked when can we paint again.

Here they are hard at work on van Gogh's room...
Lucy's masterpiece...
Clark's masterpiece...

Mani-pedi

The girls got their nails done - we set up a little shop with lots of colors. Lucy did her own and I helped Piper. She chose pearly pink for her toes and blue and purple for her nails. Lucy chose lots of colors, she was a rainbow!

Easter

He is Risen!

We had a wonderful Easter day, full of fun and fellowship, chocolate and church. We started the morning off with 3 very excited kids, ready to see what the Bunny had brought...

After checking their baskets, they looked around the house for any stray eggs...

Then it was time to head downstairs for another hunt - this one was organized by Papa and you had to follow a string all around the room, picking up candy and treats along the way...

Then it was time to get ready for Easter brunch, and it turned into a beautiful sunny day. The kids had ANOTHER hunt outside, and it was a fairly civil event - no yellow cards were handed out, which is surprising given this rough-looking bunch... (just kidding - they're so cute!)

The ones hanging in the tree were off-limits...

While the parents looked on taking pictures...

Then it was time to quickly recover and head to church for Easter service! It was a wonderful day all in all, and we rejoice at the new life that we have been given!

More fun

We loved having Papa and Yaya here. The best part about their time here was just being together doing the daily happenings. Going to the park, reading books together, playing games, playing Beatles RockBand, doing the egg puzzles, eating dinner, going to the zoo, hanging out and just enjoying each other. We miss them already!

Amsterdam Day 3

Day 3, our last full day in the city, was spent at another park and the Van Gogh museum. We expected to fly through Van Gogh in about 30 minutes with the kids, but the museum has a great scavenger hunt for kids - they had a big paper and clipboard and had to do things like find certain paintings, imitate Van Gogh's signature, and figure out his brushstrokes. All of us had fun working on it!

Took this stealthy picture with my phone (since we weren't supposed to take pictures inside)...

Then we walked to a park to find a restaurant we'd heard about - KinderKafe, where kids pick the ingredients for their food and basically make it themselves. We liked the idea, but it wasn't as fun as we'd hoped - it felt more like work!

Then a quick walk through a tulip market...

On our way to a really cool underground play-place for kids, called TunFun. We'd heard about it from some friends here who recommended it - it's basically an old subway station that's been converted to a massive complex of slides and climbing gyms. Very fun...

Overall we had a GREAT trip and lots of fun together!

Amsterdam Day 2

The second day we rented a big 9-passenger van for us to drive to the tulip gardens near Amsterdam. Even though it's not the peak season for tulips, it was a beautiful complex with lots of flowers and fun things for the kids to do.

We also took advantage of having a car and drove around to a few small villages to see windmills and walk around.

Amsterdam didn't know what hit it...

...when the Davis family arrived last week! We all went with Papa and Yaya for a fun-filled 3 days. Needless to say we were a circus wherever we went - public transport, airport, tours, museums, shopping. But we had a blast! The biggest challenge was making sure we did not get hit by flying bikes in the bike lanes.

Get out of our way!

The first day after we got there we went to a pancake restaurant followed by the Anne Frank house/museum. The kids have been obsessed with Anne Frank ever since - and it really was a cool, and somber, place to walk through.

Enjoying the pancakes and chocolate dip...

Shopping at the bookstore at the Anne Frank house...