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Late October we celebrated Will's fifth birthday with cake and a lunch time picnic at Collin's beach. Both Piet and Emma had chosen to stay home from school. As it was overcast, the beach was not crowded.
Early November we went camping for two nights with friends at Patonga. While it was a lovely time, we felt two nights is too tight, so for next time we go for three nights again. A special memory of the weekend was the kookaburra in the tree, which managed to grab a duckling - twice. Poor ducklings! Otherwise, we had too little time to take pictures.
Sinterklaas
We started celebrating Sinterklaas a few days after he arrives in the Netherlands. The kids are watching the daily Sinterklaas news - due to a logistical mishap, children in the Netherlands were getting empty presents in their shoe. We put out our shoes mid November, adding some
drawings in a big clog. Piet discovered he had really outgrown his Pietenpak and became very grumpy. Only when we discovered it fitted
Juultje perfectly he turned around.
Emma was dressed as a Piet as well - they are no longer black in the Netherlands - while Piet managed to scrape a
Sinterklaas outfit together. We
sang and whistled a few songs before going to bed. The next day, the each found a
DVD with a little rhyme in their shoe.
Deviating from the Dutch custom, we opened the main load of presents on the morning of 6th December. Piet and Emma both got a large bag. Piet's bag has a cub scout logo. Phoebe came for a sleep over while her parents went away for the night. The same week, Emma and Piet's classes participated in the school dance concert.
Later in December, dad worked from home in the morning to see first of all the assembly for years 3 to 6, where Piet received an award for academic achievement in English. Later that morning, dad was also able to attend the assembly for Kinder to year 2, where first of all Piet did his last performance on the baritone with his training band. He did not enjoy the band sessions in the last few months as they involve too much waiting around. We reached a 'compromise' in letting him skip about half the training sessions. During this assembly, Emma got a generic academic achievement award. The assembly was concluded with a recorder (blokfluit) performance by year 2, which dad unfortunately had to skip in order to catch a ferry. Piet and Emma were both very proud on their medals.
