Christmas Cookies Madness 2009

December is here and it's freezing !! Now is 0 degree celcius and next week will be -9C !! The prediction that the canals will once again frozen !! brr...
Yesterday, with several friends we make cookies and watching Christmas movies... all day long..until midnight. I was tired today at work and having a dead line is not helping me.. was chaotic.. but it's over now..
We ate so many cookies !! Clay missed this because he is sick... poor thing..
But he likes all the cookies I brought home :)

Cookies display table
Chocolate chips with frostingbeforeafter
Raspberry short breadChocolate chip with frostingMacarronsGinger cookies

Double chocolate

Angel frosting on chocolate chips

Our first cookies
Corn flakes with marshmallow and red hot cinnamon

hershey candy cane tumb prints

Halloween!

Halloween was a blast this year. First we went to visit our friend John, who was stuck in the hospital post-surgery. We were careful to hide our costumes on the way in and out of the hospital (they were a bit gory), but we had fun showing them to John in the privacy of his room. Iggy was there, too, and had us all in hysterics with his Mexican wrestler get-up.

Then we were off to Pete's house-party. He went all-out with the decorations, and we had great fun playing with Elli's cockroach cake and commenting on all our friend's costumes. The outstanding costume there was Wilson's Operation game guy. Maybe next year he can make it work, too!

By 1:00 the party was just getting loud and festive, but we skipped out anyway and headed to the always great Boom Chicago Halloween party. The theme this year was "thriller", and many of the costumes were based on horror movies. Highlights of the night included at least 5 separate people dressed as Alex from Clockwork Orange, two guys dressed as the ghost from The Ring (dancing on stage to a great DJ), and, oh yeah, me! I took home the top prize for most original costume! You can see my "award-winning decapitated head in a microwave" above. I was a surprised as anybody, but I think it was the functional things that sealed the deal: it had a flashing LED light inside, and the door opened so I could drink (and breath).

Elli gets a well-deserved honorable mention for her "knife in the head crazy chef" costume. It also looks great on Nick!

Chocolate and Delft

With our goodies bag, full of yummy chocolate we made

For my friend Silvia's bachelorette celebration, several girls went to De Lelie in Delft for a chocolate workshop.
It's a very nice store with lots of delicious chocolate. The class is pretty big, there are about 4 groups including 2 bachelorette party group.
I didn't take a lot of pictures, but here are some chocolate with Delft theme.. The look delicious!

Art-Zuid

There is an art exhibition: ARTZUID, in south amsterdam area. Zuid means south. This is an exhibition of outdoor sculptures placed in the green median in the Apololaan area.
A lot of bizarre sculpture and some controversial, such as the woman with limbs amputated. Weird. We went today by bike on the way back from kayaking at Amsterdam Bos.

Tom Claassen - Carcrash

Florentijn Hofman - Rottend Fruit en Wespen

Kim De Ruysscher - Inside

Zhang Hongbo - Fat Lady

OK, now some of the kayaking pictures. We were supposed to go camping this weekend, but the weather is sooo bad on Friday and Saturday; wind and rain... but Sunday is okay so we went kayaking with Cathy. It was a good idea - so relaxing ! It's nice to see so many trees and green colours and the natural landscape. Living in a crowded city such as Amsterdam sometimes feels busy all the time, and noisy. A short break to the countryside is necessary. Balance is important :)

This time we rented 2 person kayak + a dog in the middle :) Nick is a free loader!

Funny self portrait...look at Nick ! :D

Cathy in action . She ran 10km before this.

De Hartjesdagen

Only in Amsterdam.
This is a annual festival in August, take place in Zeedijk which is on the Red light district and Chinatown. . The translation is literary 'Days of Little (cute) heart'. It is 3 days festival with all kinds of festivities. More about this festival, click http://www.dehartjesdagen.nl/
The highlights including Opera singing from windows on Saturday and on Sunday is the competition of ( I don't know how exactly to describe this)... but where men wearing woman clothing and women wearing man clothing.... costumes, as you may says..The festival is not to be mistaken with the gay event, because straight people also taking parts.

There are judges along the zeedijk alley, where the contestant walk up and down and show their costume and make up.Judge point #1

Talking to the judges on the window

There are quite a lot of drag queen... and some costumes are very interesting.
The band was great ! We had so much fun people watching and eat festival food, bubble teas and enjoyed the music... wish I know the name of the band.
What a great city we live in ! Gorgeous town and so enjoyable... in summer days especially :)

Busy July

One afternoon at the park

Time goes fast.. I need to slow down and look around. There are so many things going on in Amsterdam. The city is now buzzing with tourists. Buses , canal boats and rental bikes are everywhere.
Here are some of our highlights in July 2009.

- 4th of July camping in Texel island.

Dutch NavyBig ferry to Texel, usually depart every hour. It takes 20 minutes and it is really big!

Very patriotic dogSpacious camp site

Nick like the beach, but sometimes his eyes got sands... poor thing..

smores..Well, it is Dutch camping... so the camp site has a nice swimming pool ! lol..We can't resist to take a group picture with the salon as background... :p

- Scooter ride

We are at the tip of Java island, Amsterdam

We went a few times to the Amsterdam bos this summer. It's such a nice place with gigantic trees.
With rented electric scooter, we strap a basket on Clay's scooter for Nick. He was really enjoyed the ride. In Amsterdam bos, we ate at Pancake house and visited the Goat Farm there.

Very nice outing.Yummy pancakesVending machine for dog treats.. They are very handy.A hen and 3 of her chicksThe pig also function as a couch for this young goat...Goat milking machine... the farm making biologic /natural goat cheese

- Outdoor movie at the Hermitage museum. The museum is having Russian theme movie night. So we went to see the film with a few friends, Dr. Zhivago. It was freezing ! They provide blanket and we even brought fleece sleeping bag, but it is a looooong movie ! It was start at 10pm and finish at 2:00am ! There was an intermission in between.
The Hermitage has a beautiful courtyard.

- Gay Pride parade

Always a big celebration in Amsterdam. We went to the Drag Queen olympic and it was really fun show. We had a great time there and after that we went to see outdoor film at Vondelpark. The Film museum is always have a few outdoor movie during summer. The ticket is only €3. I really love the movie which is The General. It's a silent movie and the soundtrack is done by Japanese orchestra which is fabulous music. Highly recommended.Film museum in Vondelpark.. very nice atmosphere at nice, really pretty...

- Birthday parties

Several friend's birthday parties, since the weather has been nice both are outdoor celebration.Emily's surprise party at Westerpark

Kamran's birthday at Vonndelpark

-Kayaking in Amsterdam Bos
It was an Meetin event that Marta organized. Clay took Nick at his kayak. He chose the 2 person kayak so Nick can have some space. I think he done really well for the first time kayaking.. Next time need a floating device just incase.

Kayaking group

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Random

I guess bicycle is a great transportation device. Usually it is transporting a person or two or three.... and apparantly you can transport a fridge a well, if you want to.
Off course you don't see this very often, but yes, occasionally.... From far away, the person looks real...cool !
This is at a parking lot by the office buildings in Biljmer, what's that mean ?? Place to gather under a tree ?? (scratching my head)...