We've been winter cleaning...

The last few weeks of weather have been very interesting. We had a week of snow, followed by a week of rain and have recently been buried in snow once more. Church was cancelled today for the second time in the last 3 weeks on account of how slick and snowy things are. Here is the latest photo of the view from our apartment:

To keep ourselves busy on days that we have been snowed in, we have all been cleaning and organizing. Atticus is quick to help and will grab the broom as soon as he sees us start tidying up. 

Here he is sweeping under the couch and then trying to sweep up his toys and doodles from the coffee table:

We finished making our special Christmas Advent Calendar in time to begin our countdown on December 1st. It is a Christmas Tree with 24 ornaments on it, one for each day, each with a scripture about the life of Christ. To begin, all the ornaments are turned away and each evening we read the daily scripture and get to turn the ornament over to the decorated side; the tree will be fully decorated in time for Christmas morning. We have really been enjoying the extra focus on Christ. The scriptures begin at the end of Christ's life and then work their way backwards to the birth of Christ, so that one can begin to better understand the full measure of that humble birth.

(Of course, we cannot take credit for this idea, someone very creative came up with it and created a pdf pattern on Etsy; you can check it out here.)

Jason tying the string on to the ornaments.

Beginning the countdown.

Beginning the countdown.

And our Christmas tree is up! We were a little worried about how curious Atticus would be about the Christmas tree since it is his first Christmas being mobile, but he has done fairly well so far. Although, he is quite eager to plug the Christmas tree in every time that he sees the lights are out. And we still need to go on the hunt for this year's Christmas decoration.

We have also been leisurely working on our yearly gingerbread house, nearly done now. We are just enjoying the Christmas season and time together as a family - doing our best not to let it rush by.

Love and miss you all.

-The Clog Crew

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

 This weekend things have gotten a little bit colder.

We woke this morning to thick frost on the grass and slightly frozen canals - winter is here! 

 It is only a matter of time before everyone starts strapping on the ice skates and gliding down the canals.

Thankfully we have been staying warm inside, putting up the Christmas tree and making a Christmas advent calendar (we will try to post pictures of that when it is all finished). The boys quickly went to work untangling the lights so that Mommy could hang them on the tree.

With the cold weather we have had to bundle up in many layers and Atticus was quick to learn how to put on his toque (aka: winter hat) all by himself and is so happy about it.

Here he is taking a break from helping vacuum so that he can put on his toque to stay nice and warm:

A couple weekends ago we went to the Naturalis, the Natural History Museum, to take in their new exhibit about whales and dolphins. Atticus loved checking out all the displays and videos. There were markers on the floor that were lit up and he would stand on each one to look at the corresponding display.

Here he is standing on one of the markers giving us his posed camera smile.

 And here he is with Mommy enjoying an interactive display.

 We are so happy to have some beautiful Christmas decorations up in our home now to add some cheer to the short winter days.

Love you all.

-The Clog Crew

Sinterklaas Has Arrived!

Sinterklaas came in on his boat from Spain to The Netherlands last week, but he arrived yesterday in Leiden. We dressed up in some warm clothes to join some friends downtown to watch Sinterklaas come in with all his helpers, Zwarte Piet (Black Pete). 

Here is a photo of Sinterklaas standing at the stern of the boat.

After Sinterklaas got off the boat, he rode around downtown Leiden on his horse, Amerigo, with many Zwarte Piet following and tossing peppernoten to everyone. Atticus didn't know what to make of all the people and noise, but we're sure that he will enjoy finding goodies tucked away in his shoe when he wakes up in the morning. 

Sinterklaas and Zwarte Piet are visiting from Spain and will stay in The Netherlands until December 6th. If Atticus had been a good boy and leaves one of his shoes out with some carrots for Amerigo between now and December 6th he may just wake up with a sweet or small toy that Sinterklaas left in his shoe. He can even leave his shoe out more than once - lucky boy! He already tried leaving his pencil crayons in his shoe for Amerigo, but we advised him that that may not be such a good idea. Check out how happy he was after he stuffed his shoe:

And of course, here is a family photo of us waiting for Sinterklaas to arrive:

Thankfully, even though the weather was a little chilly, the sun was shining! 

The night before Sinterklaas leaves The Netherlands he will come and leave some presents for all the boys and girls that have been good. It is a time that children really look forward to.

Love and miss you all.

-The Clog Crew

Pictures from September

Hey all!

While we were going over some of our pictures we realized we had some from a family outing and plenty of Atticus photos that we never shared. So, we thought we would share them with you so you can see what we were up to in September and have a look at the silly things that Atticus is up to.

First up, are some photos from our neighborhood. September was a surprisingly nice month, so we got to spend plenty of time outside. Everything is still pretty green now, but leaves have begun to fall of the trees and mornings are getting cold.

 Next, we had a family trip to the Hortus Botanicus, which has a beautiful outdoor garden along with several greenhouses that are filled with unique and rare plants. One neat item was the giant Lily Pad!

 On our way out, there was a concert that had been set up on the canal. It was a fiddle group from Ireland and we stopped for a while to listen. Atticus loved dancing to the music; he thought it was a real treat!

Atticus busting a move

 And of course, our blog would not be complete without plenty of Atticus photos. He recently added "oh, wow" to his vocabulary and loves trying to carry on conversations. We just love having him around and hope you love the pictures!

This is Atticus' camera smile; what a handsome boy.

Taking a break...

Downward Dog. Atticus tries to do morning workouts with Laura.

So cute. You can also see him still holding tightly to his lion, which he loves.

Posing

Playing at the park

Feeding the ducks.

Brushing teeth with Daddy.

Prince Atticus!

Enjoying the swing with Mommy.

Running away from Daddy while he was supposed to be getting into pajamas. 

 As a family we have been enjoying some time together in the kitchen, trying out new recipes. We have felt like kids again as we baked up some vegan onion rings and snacked on some toast with Almond Butter and Banana. More recently, we have made vegan cheese sauce (soy free and from scratch) and enjoyed some delicious grilled cheese sandwiches. We also can't forget to share Jason's incredible work on the table decorations for our Church activity last month. We brainstormed together and then Jason went to work to make it a reality and did fantastic! And now we have begun designing this years gingerbread house and can't wait to get to work on it.

Love and miss you all.

-The Clog Crew

Happy Canadian Thanksgiving!

First off, we hope that all of our Canadian friends and family had a wonderful Thanksgiving, however you were able to spend it. We had a small dinner get together here on Saturday with some friends and had a lovely time. Our friends had never been to a Thanksgiving dinner before, so we were pretty happy that we had a pie plate (thanks again Mom!) and could bake some classic Pumpkin Pie to serve them. 

This photo was taken before we baked it. We meant to take a photo afterward but ended up getting side tracked.

Saturday morning we headed out as a family to the Rijksmuseum van Oudheden (National Antiquities Museum) and were able to check out the Egyptian exhibit and the Greek exhibit; both of which we all enjoyed. Atticus walked the entire Egyptian exhibit before he finally tired out and opted to sit in the stroller; it was so much fun seeing him studying all the different displays and how enthusiastic he was. One of the really neat things about this museum is that they have taken the stones of an old temple they discovered and rebuilt the temple in the entrance of the museum - very cool! There are a few photos below.

Laura and Atticus in front of the temple.

Jason and Atticus in front of an Egyptian tomb

Atticus enjoying the kids section of the Greek exhibit.

Jason having some fun in the kids section as well.

Atticus trying to help push the stroller. He was getting tired of how slow we were going and wanted to speed things up so he could see more.

A quick family photo before hopping back on our bikes.

And now, back tracking to last weekend.....

On Friday, some friends were very generous and lent us their vehicle, so Jason took the afternoon off and we went apple picking at a nearby organic orchard. We had great weather and brought back plenty of apples and even a few pears and have been thoroughly enjoying them since. We even made an apple pie on the weekend that we could enjoy while watching conference!

We really need to remember to take photos AFTER the pie is baked as it was much more appetizing and picturesque after it had been baked. Oh well, we're sure you get the idea with the before picture.

Family photo in the apple orchard.

 On Saturday afternoon we headed to downtown Leiden to check out some of the '3 October' celebrations. Since the 3rd of October fell on a Sunday this year, many of the celebrations were on Saturday which meant that we could check them out. The 3 October celebrations are specific for Leiden and happen every year to celebrate Leiden's relief from the Spaniards. The celebration consists of plenty of herring, hutspot, rides, games, olie bollen, market stalls and an Italian opera rendition of the historical event. We started off by watching the Italian Opera, which was a little strange but we loved it, especially Atticus! If you want to read a little bit more about the history of this event, we have put a couple paragraphs about it at the bottom of this post.

Above and below are a couple of the characters from the opera. Their costumes were really interesting.

Atticus watching in awe.

 Then we went and indulged in some traditional hutspot, which contains potatoes, onions, carrots and bacon all mashed up together, ours was then topped with a sausage. It was surprisingly tasty, and Laura even managed to whip of a vegetarian version the following day.

hutspot

 Then it was on to the festive wares market where we shared an ollie bollen (a type of deep fried sugary dough) and checked out the interesting items that we for sale. Then it was off to the games and rides. We were surprised at how many there were. For those of you who are familiar with the Calgary Stampede, picture the Stampede midway games and rides all squeezed into the narrow pedestrian streets of historical Leiden - it was so much fun to check out. To finish off our very dutch experience we got to ride our bikes home in the pouring rain! We made it home in time to wash up and sit down for the Saturday morning session of general conference.

General Conference was incredible, as to be expected. We each had our favorite talks of course, and have loved being able to talk about the different things that stood out to us. We are so grateful to have internet connection so that we can access the sessions so easily. If you missed any of the talks you can go HERE and listen, watch, read or download any or all of the talks. We highly recommend President Dieter F. Uchtdorf's talk and you can watch that one by clicking HERE (for Quicktime) or HERE (for Real Player). President Uchtdorf gave us a nice, gentle reminder of how important it is to slow down, spend time together and build relationships and that trying to speed through hard times, is not the best solution. 

Well, we hope you all enjoyed our update on the highlights over the last couple of weeks. We are all doing well and staying out of trouble.

Love and miss you all.

-The Clog Crew

3 October History

(from this reliable source)

The city of Leiden was besieged from 1573 until 1574, when it was finally relieved. Leiden’s Relief (Leidens Ontzet) is celebrated annually in order to commemorate the siege during the Eighty Years’ War and the relief of the city on October 3, 1574.

The siege and the relief of the City of Leiden took place during the Eighty Years’ War (1568-1648). Intially the City Council remained loyal to the Sovereign Lord King Filips II of Spain, but in June 1572, the city chose to be loyal to Prince William of Orange. In an attempt to regain power over the city, the Spanish starved the inhabitants of Leiden in order to force them to surrender. During the second siege, 6000 of the 18000 inhabitants of Leiden died of starvation and the plague. The City Council remained unmoved and would not even consider surrendering to the Spanish oppressor.

The “(water)geuzen” pierced the dikes at Rotterdam and Capelle aan den IJssel in September 1574, in order to flood the polder lands. The outcome of this action depended on the winds which would have to move the water towards Leiden. The City Council did not surrender to the Spanish King as they had been informed of the plan to relieve the city.

The water rose high and so the Spanish troops fled. According to tradition, it was the little orphaned boy named Cornelis Joppenszoon that found a hotpot (hutspot) in the deserted Spanish army camp Schans Lammen (near the current Lammebrug) and informed the citizens that Leiden had been freed. It was early morning when the Geuzen sailed over the Vliet into the city with a load of herring and white bread on board.

As a token of appreciation for the city’s brave resistance, William of Orange founded the University of Leiden on February 8, 1575.