Oh my gosh we are home!!!!!!!!!!

We left the hotel at 8:00AM Amsterdam time, which was 12:00 AM Utah time. We got to the airport in great time. I did a little last minute shopping there, cheese and a little fluffy sheep for the princess. We got on our plane, in our comfy first class seats, and proceeded to be fed to death! I was so bummed I didn't have my camera, I had Mikes that was missing the battery, because I swiped it earlier. so we started of with OJ or champagne, then had a little thing of almonds. Then we were served what ever beverage we had ask for before the flight took off. I had ginger ale. There was a menu in our seats, when we got on. So we had to order what we wanted then. I had quiche, Mike had french toast. We had appetizers prosciutto wrapped cantaloupe, cheese stuffed grilled zucchini, shrimp (I gave mine to Mike yuck), and a bowl of fruit. But it was good fruit, mango, blueberries, kiwi, and some kind of orangey red melon that was delicious. They brought out our main course , and after that offered us our dessert. I was so full, I thought I would pop! I had my dessert later, it was just to much. But then there was a cheese plate, Mike and I shared. After napping and watching some fun shows they brought out a little lunch burrito, I couldn't eat it all. Then we landed, rushed through customs. We had a little beagle sniff us out for fruits at the baggage claim. He caught some cute little old man, with an apple and banana in his suitcase. We had the German shepards and other dogs sniffing us as we got off of the plane. We made our way back into airport security, and off to the private lounge for the traveling guys. Those lounges really help. You are in a crazy loud airport, then when you go into the lounge it is so quiet and peaceful. It's a nice little break from the craziness. But then we had to get on that horrid flight. After a 9 hour flight and an hour break off of the plane, we were on again for another 5 hour flight. I thought I was going to jump out of my skin, just trying to sit in that little seat for that long. I told Mike I was not doing well. I finally had to grab the earplugs and start watching "Walk the Line" that was the movie they played. It did help me to get my mind off of my panicky feeling. We finally landed in Phoenix and back into a quiet club we went. Then I decided I might be hungry, I wasn't sure. But I missed crunchy things over there like popcorn, and tortilla chips, also peanut butter, and ICE! So we had some nachos, well I had the nachos Mike just kinda watched. His brain had just shut down and he was almost a zombie. We hopped on our plane to Salt Lake and we were asleep before we knew it. We would come in and out of consciousness, we were in first class again and on the very front row. The flight attendants just left us alone. Then I needed water, it was so dry I was choking to death. We couldn't land because of wind so we had to circle back around and try again (circling in a plane makes me very sick). When we finally landed the flight attendants said "you guys look like you have had a long day!" We explained to them our day, that we were into our 23rd hour of travel. They were excited that we were in Amsterdam and ask if we had gone to museums and such. We headed down for the bags, Mike rode out and picked up the car, then came and got me. We got home sometime after 12:30AM and were in bed by 1:00. The kids short sheeted us and we were to tired to notice:-) So we traveled over 24 hours yesterday. And it is good to be home!!!

Here I go again.....

So I loaded all of these picture once before and wrote the post to go with them. Then right as I was going to push the button to save. I lost the enite thing. So i'm starting all over again. The post I lost was charming and whitty and the best post you could ever read. But I'm to tired to do it all over again!:-) So a few of us girls met at 8:30 to go to the flower market and have breakfast. As we walked down the streets the were so empty and quiet. the people here party late into the night and don't get up early on Sundays. The market wasn't ready
they open kinda of late also around 9:30 or 10:00. So we had a fun little pancake breakfast. this would be my apple pancake. I took a picture of it and not the fun ladies I was with.






We where supposed to be at the Rembrant House by 10:00. It was a nice little walk through town. And as we walked we picked up other ladies from our group. This is a park on the way. This is called Rembrant Square, the statues are from his famous "Night Watch" painting.

This is in his house. We found out at the end of the tour that we couold take pictures without a flash. So I only had a few. This is Robin in his bedroom. Behind her is his bed. The beds back then were very short, because the people slept sitting up. One reason was because people would come and kill you in your sleep. So they would sleep with a gun or a sword in thier hands. But also they thought if they laid down flat all the blood would rush to their heads and they would die.
They had painting from some of his students, who a few where quite famous, also from his teacher. The lady at the very bottom of this picture is listening to a recorded guide to the house. We had a very fun and passionate young woman who LOVES Rembrant. so we really enjoyed ourselves. But there were like 4 levels to the house and we went up and down twice. I should be in good shape when I get home.

This is an actual Rembrant. They said he painted you as you were, flaws and all. She has a chubby face and some red splotches and he added them right in.
This used to be a gentlemans club. It is the building that the "The Night Watch" was painted for. They said it was to big for the space. Rembrant was not as well known as he is now, so they cut a guy off of each side to make it fit. Nobody has found those lost guys yet.
We were walking through part of the city to go to a very trendy restraunt for lunch.














Th
These are my fun friends, one of the other ladies could not wake up that morning, so we missed her.

This was our very yummy salad.

Below was our entree...Salmon,

if you know me at all you know I do not like fish. But I ate it. The pasta under it was awesome, and actually I ate a lot of the fish. It wasn't so bad.

This was our heavenly dessert, white chocolate mouse and berries.
The public bathrooms over here are more private that the ones back home. Each stall is almost like a closet, with the divider wall, almost floor to ceiling. I feel sorry for the dutch when they come to the U.S. and use those tiolets, with just half of it covered, and spaces inbetween where poeple can look in at your face.

This restroom is a co-ed restroom. I had never used a co-ed restroom before, so I was a little nervous. I ended up having one of those "most emberassing moments" happen in this bathroom. Call me when I'm home and i will tell you, I don't want it posted for the world to see:-)

After our lunch we headed out for the shops. We shopped till we dropped. Three of us pooped out at 6:00PM and two were still going strong!

We ran out of toothpaste so I ran to a drugstore. Look what you can buy over here. I should have priced them out! It just made us laugh.

First day of the tour.....

So I'm trying to catch up on the days I missed. Here in the Netherlands the Queeen gets to choose where she would like to live. The current queen choose another place, but her mother choose to live her. So the current queen was raised here at this palace.
It is a very speciel place for the Dutch people, they have fond memories of this royal home. It started out as a hunting lodge hundrededs of years ago. Then Napoloean's brother was the king here for 4 years. He added on to it. Over the years others added to it, so now it is a lot bigger. But it is narrow front to back.


This was a little "challet" it was a play house for the princesses. They had a lot of random art out there, thats what the strange statue is on the porch.

I love this little bridge. It made me want to have a picnic. It was like you were in a little fairytale forrest.
This is just a bridge over the pond.

We had lunch there. This was the reserved sign. I just loved how they say it. The "g" make an "h" sound.
We had a good tomato soup. But the way these spoons hooked over the handle of the bowel was pretty cool.
They also gave us a little cheese sandwich and samon (I gave it away),

and maybe a half a cup of lamb stew, I actually ate that.

Every night we try to talk to the kids.

The princess is getting used to seeing us on the computer screen. She reached for grandpa the other night, it was so sweet. She also will grab a book or a toy and hold it up to us to show us.

This day was pretty crazy I left the room at 7:45 AM after all of our tour stuff was over we ran to the Purse Museum. Took a taxi to Mike's Boss's Hotel, where he took his guys, his wife, and myself to dinner. We had a really good time. They were having a huge party in the same hotel, so we sat at the table for 3 hours. I have to say it was my first 3 hours dinner. But it's fun if you have good company. So then we rode the tram back to the hotel,and got to the room at 11:15PM.

It was a good day.

6th Day.....

So to start out I have to say that most of our family is in Texas also some very dear friends, and they are in the path of the hurricane. So i want them to know that I'm praying for them and hoping they can keep their electricity, water, and roofs!

I have to run to dinner so I will come back and finish. I left the room yesterday morning at 7:45AM and we didn't get back to the room until 11:15 PM. sorry I missed blogging yesterday. My mom said she missed seeing the day. I will post it after this post. But that would make it before this post if you are reading it after.
We went to a town call Leedam today and went to a place where they make glass. The picture above is the outside of the building and the balls floating in
the water were big glass eyeballs. We went in and had coffee or tea ( I brought my own:-) and a petit fore. It's really fun to go on these tours. I had my little drink with 2 very nice ladies from England, one lady from Hong Kong(I think thats what she said) and my new friend Janie.
They made fun stuff there. They made all of these lamp shades. They didn't show up so well in the picture. But some were very pretty.

This Vase was in shades of brown on biege. It was very pretty.
They had alot of eyeball stuff. I need to ask somebody tomorrow if they know what the eye thing is all about.
This guy worked so long and a long stemware goblet. And just as he was finishing it, it shattered. We were all sad for him.









I just put some shots of some of the pretty glass things.

So this picture is for my dad. He is a mason by trade. I have noticed that they lay the bricks here in strange ways, if it is not a straight wall.

These were just a few of the very

"POSH" ( a word all of the English ladies are using) homes we passed today.

I loved the English garden that they had in their front yard.
We were all going crazy on the bus every time we passed a windmill. It was raining the last two days so we have tons of desperate pictures through rainy windows. So the guide and the bus driver took mercy on us and drove us to a windmill so that we could quickly get out and take a picture. This one is somebodies house.

We were all so happy to get to see it, but we were a funny sight. There were women all over the sidewalk with cameras shooting away. I should have taken a picture of that. By the way this windmill pumps water.

4th day ....

It is really late here and I have to be up early in the mornig. We start our tour group tomorrow, we are going to a palace or something like that. Today we had a little reception and this guy was our waiter. I kept on looking at him and thinking he looked very familor.

Then I figured it out. He looks like Nathans young Mens President. I told him you look like somebody back home, do you mind if I take a picture of you. He said that is fine. So I took the one above. But he said "no, you take it with me." So there we are me and a brown version of Nathans young mens president. His wife reads my blog once in a while, she might not agree:-)

We had a crazy day so we jumped on a canal boat to ride around. We were sweating our guts out in the morning, but by the time we got on the boat it was overcast. We got off our boat to cross over to another one and it started pouring rain.
I had to laugh because all the people with us tried to squish in under a 1 foot over hang. I myself just stood in the rain. The man in the tan jacket told me to come under his umbrella, I said "I lived in the dessert for 17 years I am rain deprived!" I stood in the rain and loved it. The hot lady in the green top is a "snow bird." She was around 35 or 40. To all the lay people that means she has herself some money. She got an umbrella and came out and stood by me. She was so sweet. But her umbrella was dripping into the zipper of my waterproof bag. When I got back to my room I found out my phone had been drenched in water. I ripped it apart and used the blow dryer. I dried it all up and it works just fine. But the water tag on it has turned "blood red." I just had one thing to say about that, "Thank you Heavenly Father!"

This is a bad picture of 7 bridges in a row. they said lot's of photographers come there for that shot.
I finally got my mayonaise fries. I love mayo, I think it is delicouse. So I figured these would be yummy. Wrong they were icky. I think the mayo was actually salad dressing or something. I did think it was funny that you eat them with that little fork. I fed a few to the swan in the picture up above, and his buddies. But had to throw the rest away.

I loved this little flower, it was like a hot pink that went down to a purple. Robin told me what it was and evidently they are in the US also. So I didn't discover a new flower sitting there on somebodies porch:-)

This is one of those tiny cars. It had 2 shaggy yorkies in it, they were just happy to be there climbing on their master. I took the picture for Beautrice.

I suppose this is their version of the "dollar store". But here 5 euros is around $8 in the US.
I felt bad taking this picture. But I wish I could have taken it from the other side. This guy had that handy stick propped up under his head. it had 3 little branches on it that fit around his face perfectly. He just used it to prop his head up while he slept.

Well it's after midnight, but I just wanted to put a few things up. I have to be up, cute, and ready to go by 7:30! Hey Jay Leno is on at midnight here. The first night we were here another man said there was a naked exercise program on at midnight. Thank goodness we have been going to sleep early!:-)

P.S. Remeber I have no spell check!

3rd day here...

Down the little allies are little restaraunts and such.

One thing you all should understand. I do not spell well. So I love spell check, it's one of my favorite things in the world. Well here in Amsterdam, when I log into blogger, it comes up in Dutch. I have to try to remeber what is where until I pull my own thing up then it goes back to english. But as a result there is no spell check here.


I really don't have time to explain all of the pictures. Mike is showering then we are going out to dinner. I know all of you are asleep right now so I have a few hours. But when we get back I have to fight Mike for computer time, something about work and e-mail, job stuff:-)


This is the oldest house in Amsterdam. It's in a religous area. It's next to a hidden Catholic Chapel and across from Scottish Reform Prodistent church.


These houses look like the are tilting becasue they are. It supposedly it makes the streets a little wider when they build it that way.


This little shop was called a fairytale shop. It had a lot of little things. Even some fabric with little red riding hood on it. The stuff in the was very retro looking to me. Stuff that I would have seen, in a shop when I was little.


I had a picture of shoes for Erin yesterday. Well here was a cute little pair for the Princess.


This guy looked crazy coming down the road on that double high bike. He had huge gages in his ears also.


We went onto a little antique shop. It had a whole lot of silver items, and some old china and such. It was cool to see all that old stuff.


We went to this little tiny tulip museum. They said that tulips were gather and put in the Sultan garden. That the were named after the Slutans hat. I think they called the turban, a tulband. They said the word tulip was actually a mistake.

This was just a wall of all of all the different tulips. We were thinking of getting some bulbs, but they told us that we can order them from someplace in the US. They only had 3 different kind that were certified to go to U.S. or Canada.


I thought this house was crazy. It's across from the Ann Frank house. Look what a sharp corner that house comes down to.

This was just a shot of the church and Ann Frank house.





There was a shop with crazy stuff in it. It had a lot of colorful cows in the windows.

So the Princess thinks that dogs are called wha, wha, wha

so I thought it was funny when I saw these little dog banks

called Whaa, whaa.

So it might be a little hard to see. But there is a little tound fan in that window. It's like they cut a circle in the window and mounted it. I started noticing a bunch of them. I thought they were interesting.






We got a little lost today, so we were able to see some fun stuff. Like this statue, I think he was in such a hurry he forgot his head.

I saw a few people riding with their dogs running along side on a leash. The American dogs that get to ride in a car with their heads hanging out the window, don't know how good they have it!

We passed this bike shop and they had a section of colorful bikes. We could resist taking a few shots of them.





We came across this bakery, it smelled really good and we went in. I bought a loaf of bread. Their loves of bread are fairly small around here. Anyway I choose a walnut bread, it goes well with cheese.

It was soooooo deliscouse. Now if I just had the walnut cheese I found last year, that would be fun. A walnut sandwich.




This sign was infront of a park. I think it mean no drinking. I wasn't sure.

We also came across an old windmill. You just don't see many of them around here. There are just a few left, and there are picture of them everywhere.
I noticed today that men around 40 and over wink at you. Everytime I was someplace and my eyes met a mans he would wink at me. I thought that was nicer that in the US. When your eyes meet somebody elses, they either smile or ignore you. But here it's like you have your own little personal contact momment. I got winked at 3 times today. When I was a little girl and would be out with my parents or something,

I remeber if I glanced at old men they would wink at me. Some would wink, a few times, back and forth with each eye. So I would blink my eyes back at them and think I was winking back at them.

My feet hurt, but it was a good day!