Mom's favorite activity in Berlin

As many of you know Mom came to spend Christmas with me. On Christmas eve we arrived in Berlin. The very first day we went right to the Christmas Market around the corner from us. The entire weekend we stopped in lots of these Christmas Markets. Some had "hills" to sled down. One even had a ferris wheel.

BUT the best thing of the christmas markets was the gluug, the food & of course for Mom the shopping!

It started snowing this week. SO for now no more bike riding and lots of cautious car driving and potentially relying on Job to come and fetch me from the chalet. Then yesterday I woke up and it was REALLY snowing. I think we got over 4 inches. While it was beautiful to see it is wicked cold outside right now and not really conducive to car driving, cycling or walking. Luckily all I had to do yesterday was some laundry so the rest of the day was spent “going to the cinema” compliments of Shiloh and the stack of DVD’s she sent over. Fun times!

A Chalet Christmas

In honor of Mimi coming next week I decorated the house for Christmas. I went and got a tree from the Keerst sellers. There are farmers set up on the side of the road selling trees. For him it was a non English transaction and for me it was a hand signal phenomenon. Luckily asking to pet one’s dog is universal and I got to visit with the German shepherd that was on the lot and belonged to the farmer. At first my tree looked a little sparse but I got inventive and put my swarrt peet’s into the tree, some cards I received from friends and did a tad bit of ornament shopping. I admitted to Chris that I miss our beautiful fake tree—and all my gorgeous turquoise and pink ornaments. Luckily I even got more authentic German ornaments last weekend from Silvia when we went to her house for the Christmas markets in Germany!

Sinterklaas Celebrated at Work

* This occured over 5 December's weekend

Job advised all the CS agents to leave their shoes on their desks over Sinterklaas weekend. That Friday we dressed up as “Sint” compliments of Carmen. She had gotten these little children headbands at the HEMA. We even got Wout into the boat hat! While we were gone that weekend SinterJob came by and left treats and candies for everyone at their desks in their shoes. The Monday after Sinterklaas day we munched on all sorts of goodies, a very tasty day at work.

Flair for my bike

One of the ladies from work, Katty, brought me a bicycle bag to use while I am cycling. It is really helpful because on one side I can slide in my purse/lunch and the other side my puter and then I am off to work. The other day I got stuck in my first traffic jam in Venray and it was on the bike! We had to stop @ a RR crossing and probably 5 cars stopped and about 20+ cyclists. When the bar finally rose everyone took off and I couldn’t scoot across the road to turn left!! These cyclists are hard core over here….so I rode with the flow and eventually made a U turn, it was kind of funny! Next time I’ll have to go ahead and get on the far left hand side of a stopped group so I can turn easier!

cool vehicle sighting

Take a look at this tricked out mercedes---pretty funny! It even had the monkey hanging in the window!

Celebrating the holidays with kids!

This past weekend was an all about kids weekend for me, which was pretty fun because you know how I love the little people. On Saturday I got to attend the Sinterklaus party for the children of art.com employees. It was a great experience for me to see the kids and how much they love Sinterklaus and Piet. The children played and colored quietly until we all heard a knock on the door. “Piet/Sinterklaus” they all began whispering to each other and their parents. They calmly walked to the door just as it opened and the guests of honor strolled in. Sinterklaus and the Piets shook children’s hands and accepted small gifts from the kids. After the “meet and greet” all the kids assembled in the corner and Sinterklaus took the seat of honor (Job and I had a tiny laugh because the chair for Sinterklaus was our naughty chair—every time you sit in it it rocks to the left or right violently if you have any sharp movement. Luckily Sinterklaus sat very still. Sinterklaus then talked with the children and then passed out gifts. Then he announced that Piet had misplaced his book of all the good children in Holland and asked the kids if they would mind signing the book again to help him out. The kids queued up and signed their name or had their parents help them. I even got to sign the book since I am a good girl in Holland.
Sunday I got to go to a Sinterklaus party with my friend Lisseth and her family. The party was in a rec center in her village Hoorst. There was a huge skiff full of dirt, a big swing that was shaped like a boat, ropes for kids to climb to the ceiling and of course tons of Piets dancing around and playing instruments. The best part of the party was Sinterklaus arrived in a sidecar on a motorcycle! Jim and Chris would have loved it!

Happy Thanksgiving Venray Style

This year I worked on TDAY, gasp!! It actually wasn’t bad at all because the employees announced they would like to celebrate “this American holiday called Thanksgiving” with me. I must confess I was dreading having to help cook for Tday because I was a little tired post Malaga & we were still very busy at work staying late working on our project! But I did it anyways and I’m so glad I did because it turned out to be great fun! Doing the prep work at my chalet was NOT a great idea. I have this teeny tiny kitchen and no suitable tools; I spent the night after prepping dreaming of Wustoff, Kitchenaid, Cuisinart and Fiesta Ware! Prep involved me making sweet potato casserole from scratch and doing the pie crust. I must say, this was probably in the top 5 great pie crust making experiences for me, and I consider myself a pretty good pie gal! The night before TDAY I went to a coworker’s home, Wendy. She is British lady (has a grown daughter named Elizabeth!!) that has lived with a Dutch man named Carlos for many many years. They are an adorable couple. We spent the night drinking copious amounts of wine, doing the cooking and eating very yummy Chinese takeout! Thanksgiving Day we had a huge feast and the décor looked extra fabulous thanks to my work BFF Tia! Tia really helped us out by mailing tons of decorations and supplies any TDAY chef would consider essential. Experiencing TDAY Venray style made me realize I am so thankful for my old friends & my new friends and this great opportunity to experience life abroad! I hope that you enjoyed your holiday too!

View from the Hotel

Isn't this just gorgeous???

No more peddling

We’re not in bike country anymore!! Saw few bikes. This is the land of mopeds and crotch rockets!! Jim and Mom—saw a couple on a Harley late on Sunday and thought of you two. Chris—sorry didn’t see any guys on a Harley with their little dog strapped to the back!

Our "Favorite" Ad in Malaga

Doesn’t this ad make you want to run out and buy this perfume?? Owning this perfume = you get to lick yourself excessively like a dog! We were amused by this ad and of course it was ALL OVER town!!

Attaché- my new favorite profession

I always thought this word = briefcase and I guess it does. It also has another meaning.

Per Wikipedia….
Attaché is a French term in diplomacy referring to a person who is assigned ('attached') to the administrative staff of a higher placed person or another service or agency. Depending on custom, 'attaché' may be modified to correspond to the gender (e.g., 'attachée') or number (e.g., 'attachés').
The term normally denotes an official, under the authority of an Ambassador or other head of a diplomatic mission, who serves either as a diplomat or as a member of the support staff. He monitors various issues related to areas of intervention. To this end, he undertakes the planning for decisions which will be taken and makes all necessary arrangements, manages the agenda, conducts research for the study of particular matters, and acts as representative when necessary.
Sometimes an attaché has special responsibilities or expertise, often specified by that field. Examples include a cultural attaché, labor attaché, legal attaché, military/defense attaché (or more specifically, naval attaché, air attaché), press attaché, agricultural attaché, commercial attaché, and science attaché.
A related use for the term is in the phrase attaché case, similar to a briefcase.--- SEE I WAS RIGHT!!

So we got to meet the attaché for the Dutch government stationed or rather attached to Spain. And get this—he is from a town that is REAL close to Venray, small world. I asked him what he thought about living in Spain, the country Sinterklaus and Helper Pete are from and his thoughts on how the Dutch threaten that the kids will be kidnapped to Spain if naughty. I think he enjoyed that question. Jen and I also asked him what the main function of his job was and he did confess that being an attache meant attending copious amounts of parties such as the one we were at that night. I think I could totally handle a job that required excessive party attendance!! I also made sure to say hello and goodbye in Dutch.

Having Flair and Proud of It!

I caused a little giggle at the party when I commented to some of the guys that Jen didn’t have nearly enough flair as the other guys did. They got a kick out of that and laughed even harder when I told them about how I refer to all of Chris’ army signage as “stickers.” So here are the seamen pointing to their “flair” and loving learning Bea’s words for all things military.

Paula Dean Welcome to Malaga

This post is for all the foodies I know!!

Here is a picture of the head chef on the Anzio. He made these scrumptious little cheesecake tarts. Jen and I loved them soooo much and we had to know where he got the recipe. Guess who his inspiration was? The queen of butter, he looked this recipe up online and decided to give it a whirl for the Malaga party. Paula Dean would have been proud of him!

Anzio Time

Day 1 in Malaga was Navy training 101. It did remind me mildly of Grandpa Smith and his “permission to come aboard” comment when everyone went to visit the Constitution in Boston. I arrived at the port around 11am and almost lost my passport to some nutcase security guard. He wanted to take it somewhere to see if I was on a “list” and of course I managed to tick the security guard off when I snatched it out of his hands. Luckily Jen and 2 of her fellow officers came and rescued me and off to the Anzio we went. Here are some thoughts on the Anzio:
- it is massive and we climbed all over the ship and I even scurried through holes, I felt like a kid on an adult sized jungle gym
- the color theme seems to be grey and more grey..in fact the boys were very busy painting the sides of the ship grey to make it extra beautiful (??? Pink is much more gorgeous) for when they pull into port in about 10 days in Virginia
- the space is cramped- Jen lives in this teeny tiny room with 2 other girls. The room is smaller than our red room guest room! These three girls are on this ship with hundreds of other seamen, they are all males
- the medical clinic has some pretty strong views—make sure you take a look @ my pix of that plaque—yikes propaganda time!
- Anzio has a kick ass telescope you could see people on their porches from oh so far away

- When you are in port you fly the flag of the country you are visiting (this is only in "good" countries I think)
- If you are in charge of the boat you get to sit in this very high lazy boy on the sea seat, since I was a special guest I got to climb up into the seat!
- Sitting in Jen’s room I began to feel a little woozy and we weren’t even moving on the high sea
- The “board room” had the BEST lime ice cream from Italy for us to enjoy after lunch, yum yum—while it wasn’t goodberries it sure was tasty
- Jen is like a celebrity on the ship—everyone says hello to “Chaps” it is endearing!
- It is the best damn ship on the sea—I learned this fact after sitting through a hail and farewell the next night—this was the statement of the evening.

Simple Pleasures

Jen and I stayed at the Malaga Centro hotel and loved it! I arrived the night before the Anzio docked. The first night I got in I just chilled in our swanky room and it was fabulous!! The bathroom was too die for—it was what I would imagine would be in the“Growing up Gotti’” house. The whole room was marble and this is the best part…..a built in sound system so when you take a soak or a shower you can listen to “Top Latino 2000esqe music” on the radio. Jen plugged her iPod in and jammed to her favorite tunes but I left it on the radio since I’ve always had a penchant for the Latino musicJ After my first soak imagine my surprise when I went to climb into bed--- it was like Christmas—I had sheets!! Yippee, I forgot how much I love sheets. Here in the Camp de Witte Vennen we don’t really have sheets although the housekeeper insists I do. The “sheets” here at the Camp remind me of a mattress pad—very fuzzy and a little not fabulous. Needless to say I had the BEST sleep in Malaga and thoroughly took pleasure in the simplest of things—sheets and tunes.

Off to Spain

Hi All-

Tomorrow I am en route to Malaga, Spain! Yippee, can't wait!

I'm going to meet up with Jen Hill, our good friend that officiated at our wedding! As many of you know she is in the Navy and her "big boat" the Anzio is going to port in Malaga and I'm going to be there to greet the boat when it arrives.

We are really looking forward to our girls weekend in Malaga. Things on the agenda--- eat LOTS of tapas, drink GOOD spanish wine, SHOP, and just general lady of leisure tooling around types of activities. I'll update the BLOG next week with some pixs of our weekend away.

How to say Blah in NL

Bladibladiblah is “Dutch” for Blah Blah Blah. It just sounds so much better and so much more singsong like I love it. I heard this the other day between 2 grown men which made it even cuter sounding! Now I’ve been saying Bladibladiblah at work much to the amusement of my coworkers.

Baby paraphernalia here is SO MUCH better than in the United States. The items look more functional and just all around cooler. Forget about Babies R US….. I think if we ever have a little person in the Ellingson house we’ll have to return to NL to go on a shopping spree for the nursery. Here are pictures of my 2 favorite baby stores. I’ve been shopping at these stores in honor of upcoming Baby Nash-Floyd and also our little nephew David—and just snooping around because I love to see baby items for sale!