Family visits

Well it is already the first of March! I am a bit tired after a couple of long days looking after Edward. Adam has been working very long hours.

We had a very busy final weekend in February - on Saturday morning we drove from Eemnes to Goettingen for a family reunion. The VIP guests were Uncle Marco and his wife Lila from Canada, and I think Edward was a secondary VIP guest. Uncle Jan Maarten was also there, but unfortunately Leo could not make the journey. We all had a lovely weekend. Dad and Gitty are very generous hosts.

Highlights:
- catching up with family and having some lovely conversations. I really value the generation older than mine.
- Edward drinking sparkling mineral water out of an eggcup.
- Edward crawling up both flights of stairs with Uncle Marco following closely.
- the magnificent dinner on Sunday night.
- my swim in the hotel pool. I was the only swimmer and it was just lovely.

And yesterday my cousin Eveline and her daughter Caesar visited us for the day. We went to an indoor children's playground - this must be a Dutch invention. I'm not sure it will catch on elsewhere. It was the most noisy place I have ever been in, if you can imagine a few hundred children running, playing, yelling, jumping, climbing... in a place the size of a school gymnasium. Edward was initially quite scared, and stayed very close to me and just looked, and looked at the place. He eventually adjusted to the noise level & other children and had a quiet play in the little baby corner. He has a slight cold this morning, which I guess was to be expected. It was excellent to have a long catch up with Eveline, who is now over halfway through her second pregnancy.

Adam came home from the Hague safely last night, he stayed overnight there and Edward and I both missed him very much.

Tomorrow Nikky (cousin of my father) and Tante Ida (sister of my grandmother) are coming to visit. There is going to be serious house-cleaning tonight! It will be lovely to see them and Ida is the last of that generation alive so I am glad that she will meet Edward. I'm a bit nervous about what to feed the visitors - it's hard in another country - I'm not sure what they expect. I bought some biscuits from the local bakery and there are also strawberries in the fridge. Perhaps some chocolate (I remember my grandmother always offered chocolate) and something savory as well.

Highlights of today (for me):
- Adam going in late to work and it was wonderful to have breakfast with him.
- this morning Edward said "book" (he was looking at a book), so I am delighted.
- the Eemnes market.