Omas in Amsterdam

We are so blessed!  During Thanksgiving week, we had TWO grandmothers (omas in Dutch) come to visit us.  We had so much to show them and we also wanted to soak them up as much as we could!  What a fun week we had!

The boys were anxiously awaiting the arrival of Grammie and Granna at a busy airport! 

After a long overnight flight, they made it, and we introduced them to big city living.  Bus ride, suitcases down the sidewalk and all! 

After they got refreshed, we took them to eat Dutch pancakes and to the Royal Palace in Dam Square.
On Monday, the boys wanted to show the omas our new beautiful zoo!

That night we brought them to a wonderful restaurant right across the canal from our house called Moeder's (mothers in Dutch).  The restaurant loves to celebrate mothers!  There are photos of mothers covering every inch of the walls and spills over onto any spare ledge that can be found.  We let the restaurant know that our mothers were visiting so they decorated the omas' chairs and they sang a dutch song for them while presenting them with an icecream fireworks dessert.  Then we left photos of them to be displayed. It was awesome, and now we can see their pictures each time we go to Moeder's!!

The next day we went to the recently fabulously redone Rijksmuseum!  Grammie decided to leash Bateman.  :)  That night the Grands minded the boys for us while Richard Carey and I enjoyed a rare date night!  We did dinner and a movie.  The movie theater was cute!  It fit around 50 people maybe and the screen was the size of some people's large screen tvs.  We had a great night out!

On Wednesday we had tickets to the Sinterklaas concert at the beautifully grand Concert Gebouw.  We didn't know any of the songs, but Bateman was so excited to be there.  The Grands enjoyed it too!!

Bateman got to sit on Sinterklaas' seat after the concert!

That night we took a cruise around the canals while enjoying pizza and ice cream.

Louis even enjoyed a beer! :)

The next day was Thanksgiving so we read Thanksgiving stories, and we even had a thanksgiving puppet show of sorts.  We didn't have a turkey, but we had a tasty chicken!  It was a great feast celebrating ALL we have to be thankful for, including our extra special visitors.

Friday was another Amsterdam exploration day.  We walked by the Westerkerk, west church, on the way to Amsterdam Central Station where we took the ferry across the Ij river.  Richard Carey wanted to show our moms his route to work.  It was cold and it drizzled on and off, so they got a full dose of typical weather.

That night, the boys and grandmothers made a beautiful candy wreath to hang in anticipation of Christmas.

Grammie and Granna had to leave early the next morning, but we have memories, pictures, and our beautiful Christmas wreath to warm our hearts for much longer!

Thanks for a fabulous visit!  We love you Grammie and Granna!