Zelfpluk op Olmenhorst Langoed

On Sunday, friends from Rotterdam invited us to meet them at De Olmenhorst, an orchard and farm 25 minutes south. Jill and Matt had sweet baby Malin in May and it was our first time meeting her. It really is hard to remember Jude being that small, though I know he was at some point not so long ago...

Well, Jude's first visit to an apple orchard was a wild success. He thought apple picking was so much fun. He's always liked the page in a book from aunt Aimee, "Goodnight Washington State" where children are apple picking. He was a real ham that morning! 

A little tart, but yummy 

Work it!

There was a lot of fun activities for the kiddos. After apple picking, we picked some pears, had lunch and then let Jude ride on the electric swing ride for little ones. He was holding on for dear life, but with a huge grin on his face. He even managed to walk straight after he got off! Jude was rather dismayed to not be able to ride a pony due to the long line, but Pete took him on a farm ride led by a Budweiser horse (ok, I didn't confirm it was an actual Budweiser horse. Perhaps a Dutch cousin?).

Enjoying his pear samples, getting ready to sign for "more!"

Horse ride with daddy around the farm

"The apple doesn't fall far from the tree" 

When we returned home, Jude proceeded to take an unprecedented 3 hour nap. Pete and I napped too. It was a glorious day! 

Emma and Tom's Visit!

More visits from dear friends. We are really blessed over here. Bowdoin friends Tom and Emma came through Amsterdam at the end of their recent European holiday. The visit was short, but we sure crammed a lot of fun in. They were wonderful with Jude and I know he loved having them around. 

Story time with Uncle Tom

On the Friday of their visit, we had a gorgeous, sunny day. Likely the last for a while :( While Jude and I attended a playdate in the park, Tom and Emma hit up the Van Gogh and Rijk's museum. I'd always wanted to check out Vondel3, a newish restaurant at the top of Vondelpark. Lots of locals savoring the final rays of summer sun. 

Apparently still hungry, we walked the city to get to Winkel 43, home of the delicious Dutch Apple Pie. They were nice enough to share some with Jude.

That evening, Pete's school had their welcome back party in Vondelpark, so we separated briefly, but met up for a perfect evening boat ride. Now that the sun is setting at a reasonable time (~8pm), we had an hour of twilight cruising and then an hour of taking in the city at night. We stuck to the inner canals this time and had an interesting run-in with a tour boat, who won the game of chicken under the bridge. Tour boats are not to be messed with! Though we appreciated the local boaters telling the tour boat driver off!

It is so beautiful here!

Amstel River

Saturday was another big sightseeing day: A visit to the pancake house in the Bos, a stroll through De Pijp and then a visit to the Windmill brewery. After settling Jude in with the babysitter back home, we went for pizza in the Jordaan and were joined by another set of Brooklyn friends, Lehanie and Dave, who arrived that day for a week visit. 

Off to the pancake house

Two sets of Brooklyn friends at once! Thank you so much for visiting!

Our Two-day Weekend

Did everyone have a great, long Labor Day weekend? I hope so! Our truncated weekend was nice, but Fall is definitely here now and I wish we could have had a warm, sunny weekend like so many of you back home. Pete was gone Wednesday through Friday on a school orientation trip to the Ardennes forest in Belgium, so it was nice to all be together again.

We have discovered a great indoor play space for Jude, Balloig. Ball pits, slides, bouncy house, carousels. What else could a kid want on a grey, Saturday morning? The space is conveniently located next to a large movie theater so while Pete and Jude had some catch up bonding time, I treated myself to the 9:55AM showing of Paper Towns ;)

To repay Pete, we spent the afternoon after nap time at Oedipus, a brewery in the ultra hip Noord (North of Amsterdam across the Ij river). Far too hip for us old parents now!

Oedipus Brewery

On Sunday, we drove into the city (free parking on Sundays!) to Museumplein. Amsterdam's beloved Van Gogh museum got a face life. A construction site since we fist arrived last summer, the new entrance smack dab in Museumplein is now open for business. So visitors not wise enough to order tickets online can now stand in a long line with a better view!

The grand opening was celebrated this weekend with a Sunflower Labyrinth complete with 125,000 sunflowers! You know I love me some sunflowers!

We wandered around for a bit, meeting up with friends Paul, Andrea and new baby Ella. Then we legitimately walked in a circle and couldn't find another way through, so we left :)

As you can see from this photo, it has been raining here. A LOT! 

Learning his colors

The sneak peek on the Insta

The "Balance"

Wrapping up a pretty full day of work here in the Netherlands on the US Labor Day. Has me thinking about work and life and work/life balance everyone strives for.

For the first 16 months of Jude's life, I was blessed to not have to contemplate my "work/life balance." Jude was my work and my life. It wasn't the easiest job, but I'd add it to my resume any day.

Since I need to call patient in the US, I am working odd hours. On the two days of the week when Jude is at daycare, my work day starts around noon (for those early rises who want to be called at 6am!). Then I work 5-6 hours so that when Pete picks Jude up from daycare, my workday is over and I can spend time with the family. This means that I have two mornings free to myself while I am waiting for people in the US to wake up. That is 6-8 hours every week. Of free time for myself! When we sat down to figure all of this out, I was so excited thinking of all of the things I was going to do with that time. Go to museums sans baby, craft, blog, get my nails done, explore Amsterdam. So what have I done with my time for the few weeks that I've had it? Grocery shop, cook, clean, go to appointments, run errands, etc. Today's chore was a visit to the tax office to figure out what the heck I am doing with my business. With a scheduled appointment to 'get tax help in English' no one was there to help me. Labor Day indeed!

The other two days that I work have been harder. I am on Jude duty from 7-4 and then have been working from 4:30-10:30pm with a short break in the middle to eat and help with Jude's bedtime. I didn't anticipate how exhausting this schedule would be. Or how the lack of any time to myself those days would necessitate all of the chores and errands I have to do during my morning free time the other days.

So the schedule needs some tweaking. The balance needs balancing. One of our babysitters is available during the day so we are thinking to have her come a few hours in the afternoon on the days when I am home with Jude. Then I can start my work day earlier than 4:30 and finish in time to have dinner with the family and be done for the day. Better schedule for me, but less time with Jude. The balance is hard even when the situation is relatively easy!

Who can resist this little squeeze!

Changes for the Durneys: Jude at Daycare

The other big change for this fall is that Jude is now in daycare.

In June, anticipating the need to have time to myself to start looking for a job, I started inquiring with local daycares about enrolling Jude for two mornings a week. Our number one choice, Compananny, only allowed full days and financially this wasn't an option. So I toured two local Dutch daycares and while Jude would likely have been perfectly happy there, neither sat right with me. I was excited about the idea of him in a Dutch daycare so that he would really be immersed in the language, but at one, the owner continued to email me in Dutch knowing that I don't speak the language. Google translate is good, but not that good and if we couldn't communicate about something as simply as the days and times to enroll him, I knew that communication about real issues down the line would be a disaster. The other daycare was better, but a drive from our house, which I wanted to avoid. Not feeling great about the choices, I delayed and put off responding to the contract emails. 

Then when my job offer came through in July, the number of hours I would be working justified Jude spending two full days at daycare so I quickly emailed our first choice and got him a spot on two days. For all the time and energy spent fretting over these things, it is amazing how it all works out in the end. 

Apprehensive Jude. Smiling on the outside, apprehensive on the inside momma. 

I have really mixed feelings about Jude being in daycare. While I want the time to myself, I still did not feel ready to give up being his primary caretaker. One month in, he is doing well. Still sad when I drop him off, but not wanting to go home when we pick him up. He is learning lots of things. How to use the potty= good. Grabbing toys and yelling "nooooo"= bad. Next year, Jude will be enrolling full time at the nursery program at ISA. Yes, I guess it is official that we are staying at least another year (assuming Pete's school year goes well) :) So this 2 day a week set up seems to be a good step in transitioning to full time school next fall.

I appreciate my time with Jude more now that we have some time apart each week. Days at home goofing around are still the best!

End of Summer Days

I can't wrap my head around it being September already! It is always so hard to say goodbye to summer. Pete's been back to school for a few weeks now and Jude is still trying to figure out why daddy isn't home anymore ("dada?" "dadadada?" "dadada?") :(

All the more reason to enjoy a beautiful end of summer weekend together.

UitMarket, Amsterdam's festival ushering in the new cultural season was held on Museumplein all weekend long. On Friday evening, after the science department BBQ, Pete and I walked through the party and enjoyed live salsa music under a full moon in front of the Rijks museum.

On Saturday, we drove to Het Wed, a man made lagoon in a nature preserve near the sea. Nice sandy beach and shallow water for Jude. He is still obsessed with buckets full of water and dumping them. Still working on dumping forward and not soaking himself :)

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Sunday morning I took Jude to the goat farm while Pete stayed home to get work done. I love seeing his new developments each time we go. This time, he really wanted to feed the baby goats with the bottles. He went around to each goat, shoving the bottle in their face until one finally took it. He loves the big feature at the playground now where he (with mama's help) climbs up a wall, crosses the wobbly bridge, climbs some more and goes down a really big slide. I can't believe how big he has gotten!

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In the afternoon, we drove to Muider to visit Muiderslot. I wish I could tell you more about the history of this castle, but unfortunately we kicked ourselves out of the guided tour after Jude made it clear that standing around and not getting to touch anything was NOT for him :)

Tiny drawbridges (most that need to be hand-cranked) are everywhere in the Netherlands! 

Waiting for the turn-style draw bridge to swivel back in place so we could cross. Muider had a really cool canal locks system.  

Small, but beautiful.

Ready to storm the castle!

In a lovely setting along the Ijmeer. Jude pointing out the "moos" and horses.

Tower beams

Missing out on the guided tour was a bummer, but we found another section of the castle to visit. This had rooms with games and dress up! Win!

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Horse obsessed Jude was thrilled about the jousting game!

What a joker!