A visit from Lee David, McCall and Tait

Our kids arrived for an eight day visit to the Netherlands on April 18.  Despite the long journey, they were in good spirits and ready to snack on a rookworst from Hema before driving to Groningen.  It is certainly one of the benefits of a senior mission to be able to entertain family and friends.

We let them sleep in on Tuesday morning while we went to our district class.  I took them to the Vesting Bourtange in the afternoon.  Vesting Bourtange is a star fort that dates back to the late 1500s, but has been restored to the mid 1700 period when it was at its peak.  It was built by the Dutch to block the resupply of Groningen by the Spanish since the route from Germany covered a lot of marshy ground with limited paths through.  Tait enjoyed some of the museums, especially the one where he got to "fly" on a robotic swan.  He enjoyed walking the walls of the old fort even more.  It was a good activity to "get the kinks out" after the long flights.

On Tuesday evening, we took them to a world buffet on a harbor.  This makes buffets in the US look a bit tame.  It is truly a world dining experience.  You pay 25 Euros for two hours of dining, including drinks.  Of course, since we don't drink alcohol, we end up subsidizing others a bit.  Grandma and Tait played fussball, later joined by Lee.  A good time was had by all.

On Wednesday, we headed to Giethoorn where we had rented a whisper boat for two hours.  Giethoorn is a village on a lake and canals and is only navigable by canal or sidewalks.  We got there at 10:00 AM and by the time we left, it was packed.

On Thursday morning, we headed to Apenheul.  This is a zoo primarily devoted to different kinds of monkeys.  For the most part, the animals roam free without cages, but the larger ones are on islands.

Tait demonstrating his inner turtle

The ice cream treat.

 Thursday afternoon, we headed to the Hoge Veluwe national park.  This is the first national park in the Netherlands.  You can use free bicycles to go anywhere in the park.  We always enjoy riding to the St. Hubertus hunting lodge.  This was built in the early 1900s by a famous architect who was a contemporary of Frank Lloyd Wright.

Tait feeding bread to the giant carp

The kids were hankering for an Indonesian dinner, so they located a nice one in the Apeldoorn area.  They offered a traditional rice tafel, but we opted for the buffet because we could pick and choose what we wanted and it had the same dishes as on the rice tafel.  It turned out to be a big hit and we enjoyed the meal and time together.

On Friday, we headed across the Afsluitdijk which enclosed the old Zuider Zee (now called the Ijsselmeer) to Volendam.  Our tradition here is to have our picture taken in old Dutch costumes.  We also took a ferry to the former island of Marken.  We had a lot of fun walking around the island (now connected with a road as well).

At the monument on the Afsluitdijk.  The North Sea is on the left and the Ijsselmeer on the right.

On the ferry to Marken

Tait liked the wooden shoe factory

Time for a poffertjes treat back in Volendam. 

On Saturday, we decided to spend the day in Groningen.  The weather was turning nasty again, so it was a good decision.

The family in front of the Martinikerk

Sister Caldwell and Tait in front of the gold house

Fresh stroopwafels - yum!

A great restaurant we found in Groningen.

A traditional poffertjeskraam.  Unfortunately lunch was too filling.

We found a traditional draaiorgel.  What fun!

 We did not neglect our missionary work.  I was blessed to baptize Maurice van Doorn on Saturday evening.  He is truly a golden contact, referred by a co-worker who set a good example and got him interested in the gospel.  He has lots of leadership experience and will be a great asset to the Church. He has been investigating for about six months and regularly attends Church.

On Sunday morning, we headed to the Groningen ward for church meetings and then headed to the Zaanse Schans.  It was cold and windy, but we still had a good time and topped off the visit with Dutch pannekoek.

Sunday night we stayed in a lovely hotel on the outskirts of Amsterdam.  We had a spectacular view and enjoyed our stay.  On Monday morning we took the tram to central station and then another to the Anne Frank house.  We had a long wait, but Tait was quite patient and active.  We all agreed it was worth the wait.

After the Anne Frank House, we headed to the world famous Rijksmuseum.  We were a bit apprehensive about taking a six-year old there, but Tait came through with flying colors.

Tuesday, April 26 was their last full day in the Netherlands and we spent the day at Keukenhof, the world's largest spring flower garden with over nine million bulbs planted.

More fresh stroopwafels

On Wednesday, April 27, we sadly dropped the kids off at the airport, returned the rental car and headed for the train station to return to Groningen (and full-time missionary work).  This was also Koningsdag (Kings day) in the Netherlands and I also turned 68.

As we returned to Groningen, we hauled a table from our apartment to an open market area where the elders and sisters were talking to people about the Church and giving away Books of Mormon.

Hauling the table from the parking lot.

Sister Caldwell enjoying an orange colored tompous.

Getting the last bit

Two great members dropped by: Shay and Estrella

Elder Bringhurst with the 15 euro guitar

Getting things organized

Digging into a little herring

The before shot

It wasn't a complete success

Sister Caldwell took a tiny bit, her first in 48 years and immediately spit it out.

Almost out of Books of Mormon

Since it was Sister Dixon's first day in the mission field so we took her for dinner to IKEA.

On Sunday, May 1, we were asked to attend church in the Leeuwarden Branch where I was sustained as second counselor in the branch presidency.  This was the first time that we met President and Sister Brandenburg although we know several of their eight children.  We enjoyed the meetings and loved meeting the members.

We had to leave immediately after the meetings to drive to Antwerpen where we presented a fireside to the JOVOs (Young Single Adults) on the second coming of Christ.  It seemed to go well and we have been asked to do a workshop on the same topic at the summer camp and in the Turnhout Branch.  We were blessed to spend Sunday night with the Olivers back in Mechelen.  We are certainly impressed with all they have been able to accomplish in their few weeks in the mission field.

It was a very busy couple of weeks, but it was a great blessing to have McCall, Lee and Tait with us.  We managed to take full advantage of sunny, but windy days and also the rainy, windy days.  We were so impressed with how hard Tait worked to master some key Dutch phrases.  He was very cute and now we miss him even more.