Continue with the work socializing

I got it into my head that I REALLY wanted to see the Kekeunof in the Netherlands. I had no one to go with me the first time I went. I was so desperate to go that I thought I would call up Chante, a mutual friend from work, who I had talk to about a handful of times. Well the Volcano changed my plans for last year, so I geared up to go and nothing was going to stop me this time.

I left Thursdays straight from work and met up with Chante at the gate where she was able to get a business class ticket and I was not, but once we got on the plane they kicked her back to coach. For 8 hours we shifted around like cattle until we arrived at Amsterdam. It was great for the first thing we did was take a train to the Hague (UN world court is based there), where we took a tram to Scheveningen the sea side resort of the Netherlands. It was rather quaint, but dead since the North Sea could freeze your bum off right now. They had this great hotel which reminded me of Salt Aire and just confirmed my thought that people will do anything for a beach and water to swim.

After we checked into our hotel we made our way into the heart of Hague where we went to the Mauritshuis which is the musuem that houses The Girl with the Pearl Earring. I never really liked that picture until seeing in person because someone finally explained why it is such a great painting. The pearl is only two brush strokes, and your eye completes the rest of the detail. That and it is one huge pearl for only two strokes. We got to see other famous Dutch artist as well, but that was the highlight of the museum.
We then jumped on a tram and made our way out to Zoetermeer where we spent some time browsing a supermarket for lunch. I totally indulged in my cheese fetish and Chante admitted her fetish was bread, so we picked up a really great loaf and sat in the local park talking and eating for two hours. After that wandered around looking for the temple, and found it just in time to start a session which we both promptly slept through most of it because of our jet lag. We then returned back to our hotel where we found a great cafe to have a traditional dinner of frites and crispy mash beef followed by the biggest ice cream waffle creation. Somehow it ended up being 11pm by the time we hit the hay.

The next day was the reason we came to the Netherlands. The Kekeunof and the flower parade! We left the Hague and to the train back to the airport where I would interrupt Chante and say "Oooh look at the flowers!" From the airport we stood in an hour line to get on a bus to go to the Kekeunof once there it was mobs and mobs of people so we thought to find a place for the parade. After standing for two hours and the parade still hadn't come (it's route started nearly out by the Hague and ended in a suburb of Amsterdam) There was no crowd control and it seemed to be ran by people who were in their early twenties and this was the first time they had ever done this. It was funny to see the Dutch/ Germans get upset when the Asians would get in front of them because they would make this deep heckling growl. The Asians were completely insane because the would break the barriers and run into the road and would not move even if there was a tourist bus trying to get through the line. I was afraid we wouldn't get into the park so we decided to leave the parade and go to the park.

The Kekeunof is not what you think it is. You think you are going to see tulip fields going on forever, but actually it is more like Disneyland for flowers. Flowers in all sorts of creations and rows. Informational buildings dedicated to certain species of flowers. All very good and wonderful, but I wanted to be blown away by so many flowers that my head would explode, so we ditched the gardens to find the fields (which we saw in the park and spent twenty minutes trying to get there and over the mini river). The fields were incredible and you it was fun to walk around them and see how everyone acted. Once we were finished I found more frites to eat and we sat in a two hour line to get back to the airport. We heard that a million people come to see the parade (which I didn't get to see) and 700,000 were in the Kekeunof area. It was a lot of waiting and Chante and I realized that we had spent most of our day waiting in a line. Once we got to the airport we lucked out and our hotel was in the airport so we fixed our travel arrangements home, bought some candy with our coins and went to bed.

Dinner of the Month

This month I tried to do a little twist on my inviting "strangers" into my home. I was invited. or invited myself, to one of my captain's home for dinner and to meet his family. I was kind of excited to have Daniel meet him because my captain is sarcastic like Daniel is. I was so excited because I had heard so much about his wife that I couldn't wait to meet her. I'm sad I didn't get a picture of her. We got to play games with his family and have family home evening. We played knocking Samuel the Incian, playmoble Lamanite. My Captain's girls attacked poor Samuel with marshmallows until our rice crispy wall was knocked down.
Daniel and I had a total blast, and I am glad that I meshed a little work with personal socializing. Does that mean I will learn how to brown nose my way to the top of my company?

Spring Break

For spring break Daniel and I went to Dallas to see my brother and have Cooper's Barbque. We first had lunch with my brother who took us to an upscale Tex-Mex restaurant. We then went to the Nasher Sculpture Museum because that is my favorite medium of art and they had a Rodin there. I love his sculptures above any others. It also had a great Picasso. It was a cubists rendering of a painting that he had then sculpted. One of the neatest things I have ever seen.


We headed to Fort Worth for the best barbque in the world. I had the original on one of my overnights, and heard they opened one in Fort Worth, so I insisted that this is what we would do for Spring Break. I knew that Daniel would love it just as much as I did. Once in Fort Worth we saw the cattle march where they let Texas Long horns walk down the main . After we oohed and awed over that we set out to eat the best prime rib and brisket in Texas (Daniel could not get over the brisket). Even though we couldn't get out of Dallas the next day and had to drive to Shreveport to get home, Daniel was still glad that we made the trip.

I have a new hobby

I have learned to knit! It started out as a discussion with my yoga teacher and then she had a class set up called "Knit to Relax". I knit to relax which surprisingly happens. I usually don't mind ripping things out and starting over. Other hobby projects it usually is a 20 minute decision and a bit of frustration as well as some screaming involved before I decide to redo what I've done. Sometimes I do let my mistakes stay and we are suppose to call that character. I have made scarfs, dishrags (my favorite), a sachet, and I am working on place mats. My ultimate goal is to make premies hats and give them away. I realize that I'm not really doing this knitting thing to make more crap, but I do love to do it. I guess in first grade making fun of the TV show "Sewing with Nancy" really helped though because my teacher was surprised how quickly I picked it up. I use to get a piece of string and my pencils and use to pretend to knit, and tell you how to do it. Apparently it was funny because my friend always asked me to do it. I guess I got some sort of muscle memory from it because my arm knew what to do even if the stitch was a foreign concept.

The best part of this experience is Frankie my little 4 year old friend. First time he saw me doing it. He said, "Annie whatca doin'?" "I'm knitting" "May I watch you do that?" "Sure Frankie." He sat right next to me on the couch and watched until he got ornery because he was getting his toenails clipped because it was sitting still, and had to go to bed. The next time I was working on a cable stitch. "Annie whatca doin'?" "I'm learning to knit a cable so I can make a hat for you. Let me hurry so you can see what it is that will be on your hat." "Okay. You don't have to hurry." About fifteen minutes later "Annie, Are you done making my hat yet? Dad, did you know Annie is hurrying to make a hat for me?" "Frankie, I'm not making your hat yet. I have to learn how to make a cable first." "Oh." Then it was time for Frankie to go to bed and he told his dad that he couldn't go to bed because Annie wasn't done making his hat. It makes me laugh every time I think of it.

Second Visitors--kinda

I did many things in February, but I was so busy I couldn't post in a timely manner. Some of the things would not be fun to post as well such as going to a new dentist and finding out that I have three cavities and a tooth died, so you have to get a root canal. Much pain, and drug induced sleep got me through that, but also left me little time to write poorly written sentences.

The best thing that happened this month was Daniel's Birthday. It was such a great year that I insisted that he celebrate it for two weeks. First we started off with a small gathering on his actually birthday on the super bowl. I think the kids were more excited to blow out the candles and have cupcakes than Daniel was.

(picture to follow)
The next weekend we had a party (which totally would have been in my house, but I invited too many people. I just invited myself to my friends house to host this party), it was Thai cooking theme party. We cooked everything that we made in Thailand. It was great to gather people around.