A lovely birthday in Amsterdam

Managed to have a bit of a sleep in thank you to my lovely family and got woken with gifts and a Starbucks coffee - perfect! James had bought me a beautiful coat in Toulouse for my birthday so I enjoyed wearing that in the cool mornings. Penelope had chosen a lovely bracelet and earrings for me which all came wrapped up in cute little boxes.

We had decided to head out to the Dutch village of Zaanse Schans today so we could see windmills and clogs and we were not dissappointed!! It was a 20 minute train ride and so worth it! Yes it was touristy but as we were tourists we could cope! What a neat thing to be able to see working windmills and clogs being made.



A view of Zaanse Schans from the bridge.


Hannah and Ellen


The entry point to the village.


Jasper with his chocolate treats.


Clogs!!






This sign made me giggle!!!


Some gorgeous Dutch houses across the river


Real working windmills.


After a bit of a wander around we decided to have some lunch. Unfortunately the restaurants here weren't quite so up with the gluten free thing so no GF pancakes sadly - even the soup had noodles in it. We made do though with salads, chips, cheese and ham plus the kids had eaten a fair amount of chocolate!

We decided to head back to the train station via the windmills but realised after we had passed them all that we couldn't actually cross the river going that way. So we turned around the walked back past the windmills. Hannah got very tired and James ended up piggy backing her part of the way - which I was oblivious to as we had got ahead and I had not heard my phone ringing with James ringing to say wait up - oops! Eventually we all got back together and walked to the train station and headed back to Amsterdam. Malcolm and Chris had finished at their conference for the day and so we all decided to meet up at our place for dinner later. We went home and had a bit of a rest and then I popped out to have a coffee. I found a great little cafe where the waiter said he'd make me any coffee I'd like so I said a flat white would be nice and so I gave him instructions on how to make one and it was pretty good:).

We had a lovely evening with homemade Indian curry, a bottle of New Zealand wine and a DVD for the kids then Jasper went to Zack and Tobi's for a sleepover and Ellen stayed with us. I was a bit anxious that Hannah would feel a bit left out as Penelope and Ellen were getting on so well but they went straight to sleep and were all fine.

A perfect birthday.

Just thought I'd pop in these photos of my gorgeous Pen from the previous day as posted this blog on my iPad so it has different photos on it!


Sitting on a bench made of books .


On the canal boat.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad