All our presents....

We got lots of presents.....

Books

Puzzle Ball

Pans and cooking things

Stuffie

Games

Candy

Chocolate

DVD's

oh and an iTouch!

New iTouch - Taking a picture of Daddy taking a picture of me

Diving computers

Merry Christmas!

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas - I know we did. 

We had our fake Christmas tree with all of our ornaments. 

Ashlynn and I woke Mommy and Daddy up at 8. Then we opened our stockings, then the presents from under the tree. 

For dinner we had rotisserie chicken - yummy!

Awesome Snow Fort

Don't forget, through all those scuba lessons, we had to get there by taking a tram, and then another tram..... and all in the snow!

In our free time, Daddy, Ashynn and I were making a snow fort! It was an AMAZING fort. It had a roof and candles and pretty tall walls. 

Looking out of the porthole

Usually we're on the outside looking in, but now we were on the outside, looking out at the people in the shop entrance. 

More Scuba

Our instructor was an awesome man called Peter. 

Here's some more photos

In the water

Our first descent! Dis-inflate that BC!

Scuba Diving Lesson #1

Over the Christmas break Ashlynn and I took Scuba Diving Lessons! At home we had to do a lot of studying, but on the last day of school before the holidays we finally got to have a dip in the pool!

Here are some photos from our first lesson....

Getting ready...

Happiness is everything and anything at all!

Lizzy's Bday party

After our Sinterklaas party, a few of the girls went over to Lizzy's house for her birthday party. 

Her mom had made an AMAZING cake! It looked like a story book - too bad we didn't eat it. 

We did an activity - making our own soaps 

Lizzy with her cake!

Lizzy, Fiona, Danny (Lizzy's brother), Emelia, Amelia, Katie (Lizzy's little sister) and Adelina poking her head up above

Sinterklaas Party

For a Dutch tradition, our class did Secret Sint - where we buy a present, disguise it as something else and write a poem for the person. It's called secret, because you don't know who did got it for you.

I got Nora, and disguised it as a popcorn bag. 

We did it in Dutch as well - I got a boy and disguised it as a massive iTouch. It was really cool!

Sinterklaas party! We got pizza and I brought in popcorn.
Yummy

Snowball fight!

Piano Duets

On Sunday Anna and I performed our two piano duets - 'Willow' and 'Melody in F'.

They went very well, I'm pleased to say.

We also both sung in the choir. 

Zwarte Piets

While I was off playing piano at CYM (center for young musicians) Daddy and Ashlynn were playing Zwarte Piets at Daddy's Sinterklaas party. 

Mini zwarte piet on the right.....

Prezzis!!!

Happy Sinterklaas

Thanksgiving Dinner

A year or two ago, we got invited over to David and Andrew's house for Thanksgiving dinner, so we decided that we should invite them over on the Saturday after Thanksgiving.
We ate...
Turkey
Broccoli
Cranberry Sauce - YUMMY!
Mashed potatoes
Sweet potatoes
Pumpkin Pie

Yummy yummy!!

Redesigning the World

As many of you already know, I entered into a writing competition. The theme was redesigning the world. Mine was in the top 10!!

 On Thanksgiving Ashlynn and I got off school early and took a train to Amsterdam for the award ceremony. I knew that I was getting one book - for being in the top ten - but I didn't know that I would be getting 5 books, 50 euros worth of book spending money and a lunch with an publisher. I was 2nd!! Out of over 100 entries!!!

Halloween

I went Trick-O-Treating with Lauren, Adelina and Ziyoda.

Yummy! 

I was a Greek princess.

Cruising the Town

As usual we got about an hour to do whatever we wanted to do in the city center. I walked around with Lizzy, Ellie, Adelina, Nora, and Ziyoda. We ended up eating at a Belgian equivalent to Burger King. 

I got pasta. 

My group - Yang, Me, Amelia, Ziyoda, Nora, Adelina, Lizzy.
Mayu, Hannah, Ellie, Emilia

Ellie and Lizzy next to a big church like thing
:)

Splash, splosh

Some photos of the trenches......

The trenches, reconstructed, but we could see shell holes - where shells exploded and made holes in the ground

Very dark tunnel we went into - we couldn't see anything! Think how it would be to live in here!

In some places the water was 20 cm deep 

Ellie and Lizzy

Trenches

For those of you that don't know lots about WW1, the trench system was made in the Western Front. The trenches were on opposite sides of No Mans Land. And basically, if you went 'over the top' (over the top of the trenches) you would get shot down by the enemy. 

The conditions in the trenches were horrible - muddy, wet, stinky, muddy, dirty, rat infested, muddy. You get the point. 

Ellie and Lizzy's boots

Into the reconstructed trenches we went. We had to bring rubber boots so that we wouldn't get muddy feet.

Amelia, Emile, Lizzy and Elli

p.s. Happy New Year everyone!