More Sinterklaas and Xmas

Hi All,

A quick picture update as promised last month. These are still really old ones, but we uploaded them to the blog already, so I thought I might as well post them. Anyway there we go:

As Sinterklaas is bigger than Christmas (for kids at least) some more pictures from our favourite Saint. Noah made sure he arrived in the Netherlands and now he got to greet the Sint at his school:
Noah was festively dressed as a Zwarte Piet:

edit - pictures removed at schools request


Noah went up to give his personal greeting to Sinter Klaas.


edit - pictures removed at schools request

And getting a present in class:


And more presents from The Man himself:

There is also the usual walking around:


We went for a weekend away around the same time, visiting some christmas markets in Germany. Just the one picture, but the whole town looked very festive:


Didn't buy much there, but we found this strangely attractive bird sculpture. Notice our swinging Xmas dog next to it!


And the tree in full glory.


Last but not least:



Enjoy,

Thijs

Why is it taking so long....?

It's been such a long time since we've posted but it couldn't be helped.  The end of the year is always a trying time as we have to re-submit for Noah's care budget.  Plus winter months are difficult when Noah is so susceptible to respiratory infections.
This year was complicated by Thijs having surgery that had complications (he's finally feeling better now).   Noah going to school where the intricate rules we came across caused problems with Noah's budget and took 2.5 months to resolve!!! (Thank you Thuis Beademing, in particular Trudy for helping us with that).  With the current economic crisis, Thijs work is also making cost savings that impact the family.  All in all we've been pretty down in the dumps.

All clouds have a silver lining is a popular saying.  The sun is shining and life goes on.  Even though Noah has been very ill, with cold after cold after virus after ... well, you get the picture!! Even through all that, he is developing really well.  He's playing more, he's making much more eye contact and he's still a happy kid who makes us proud.  Previously he's been at a standstill when ill but now he continues to surprise us. That's a great and wonderful difference.

Thijs and I have been to visit friends and family.  Celebrating Yarah's 1st birthday (wow! how the year has flown by!), and Bart's 40th was great.  I don't get to see a large group of people very often so I was quite nervous, which was really silly because it was fantastic catching up with our old gang.

Talking of "old gangs", I love Facebook.  Especially the photos of friends you've lost touch with, which is certainly the case with my RAF buddies.  Everyone scatters to the 4 winds and moving around it's hard to keep in touch, so Facebook is great.  A nice guy I knew was retiring after 38 years in the RAF.  He posted some pictures from his dinning out dinner, (a retirement party for you civilians! ;) ), and it struck me how all my old bosses are now ......well, old!  My work mates and friends are ... well, errrm, advanced in age.  When did this happen??!!!  I'm now a middle aged person and my friends are also middle aged, some of them have teenage kids!!!   Is this a mid-life crisis I'm having??!!

So I haven't posted any pictures because I'm in the middle of a mid-life crisis.  I'm waiting to book an ab-sailing / diving / para-gliding adventure whenever Groupon has a 'can't resist' offer.   If I survive, I'll do my best to get some lovely pictures of the family Drosten adventures posted soon!

Still smiling,

The Drostens.