ice skating

January was a pretty cold month and we managed a good week or so of temperatures below freezing. Kralingseplas froze over again and we could go ice skating!

 

Dylan, testing out the new skates

 this takes a bit of getting used to

what fun!

a snow(ice?)ball

where's Travis?

aha, spotted him!

there he is

happy Dylan

serious Dylan

woooooah

 all fall down Dylan

Dylan hitching a ride behind the ice cleaner

our gorgeous, outdoor, íce rink

cold front

On 5 February it was officially declared a cold wave (as opposed to heat wave, koudegolf!) in Holland. 10 days in a row below 0, and 3 nights in a row below -10. It hasn't been this cold, for this long, since 1997. Pretty chilly...

Here we are standing on the the Kralingseplas. This is where we swim in the summer!

Definitely time to strap on the ice skates. Dylan on skates for the first time.

snow!

It's been below freezing for ages and after about a week of it, it finally snowed! Reason enough for Travis and I to walk to fetch Dylan from school Friday afternoon. The 15 minute walk home took us an hour... loads of fun!

Brrrrrrrrrrrr!

 Dylan?

 a snow dance

 follow the leader

 look, my footprints!

 and of course,

 snowballs

 thrown at Mamaaaaaaaa!

our white Christmas

I nearly forgot to post these photos. We had a lovely white Christmas and managed to fit in a bit of sight seeing before everyone left back to warmer places.

That meant fun on the sled on Christmas morning!

Great, wintery views from the Euromast! Gotta love Rotters!

A visit to Maastricht, to see the Christmas market and then on to...

... het Drielanden punt. The place where 3 countries meet.

By then I think our visitors had had enough of the cold, ice and snow! They were very pleased that we had organised a white Christmas though...

winter has arrived

a walk in the park

and again it snowed a bit in the Netherlands. I decided to take the boys to opa en oma, where we went for a walk in the park.

Dylan and opa made tracks in the snow:

and while opa and Dylan looked at the boats from a hilltop

Oma and Travis walked around the hill, to avoid the cold wind

Opa used to go to this park with Danique, when she was his only grandchild... and this is where they always had to play:

 

brrrrrrrr!

Ok, so we weren't expectng the whole white Christmas thing this year, but we did get a taste of it this week!