Three days into our Great American Adventure, we're all hanging in there: still jet-lagging a bit (parents worse than kids, fortunately) and fighting off a communal chest cold (which preceded our travel to America but which has, unfortunately, gained the upper hand over our jet-lagged bodies)... but otherwise having a pretty good time. Our first visit to the Eastern Shore of Virginia has been very enjoyable -- and to make it even more memorable, I've finally been able to get my camera (the Canon 350D) back into action with a fully functioning lens! So I figured I'd try to post random images from our travels to each different location that we get to visit this summer. The pictures in this post are my "top six" from Virginia.

More than anything else, the greatest joy of our time in this part of the country has been the opportunity for Elliot and Olivia to play with their cousins (Marci's brother and his wife have an eight-year-old girl, a five-year-old boy, and a three-year-old boy -- so you can imagine the fun). I've probably got about 60 to 80 different shots of "cousins playing together" alone! But the top picture is one of my personal favorites.

We've also gotten to take in some of the local scenery -- with one of the highlights being our trip to Jaxon's: a general store in a nearby town with the motto, "If we don't have it, then you don't need it" (apparently, we didn't actually need post cards from the Eastern Shore!). Without a doubt, though, there was an interesting collection of items in the store which really lent itself to feeling like being back in time, in the era of the good ol' American general store). While we were there, I couldn't resist the opportunity to take a snapshot of Elliot wearing an official uniform of the Boy Scouts of America. I also especially enjoyed the visit to the local drug store, where a wisened older gentleman advised me of the best way to beat my chest cold: a shot-glass full of cough expectorant with two glasses of water and a cup of black coffee (turns out his drug-store directives weren't so helpful for the chest cold but were highly effective in snapping me out of my jet-lagged stupor for my second day in America).

We also got to celebrate a six-way "cousins' birthday party" -- since we don't typically get to celebrate birthdays together. Good times... Good times...

Cor has also recently figured out how to wave! It's super-cute because he's especially proud of himself when he successfully executes a waving maneuver.

Roaming around outside in the gorgeous May weather has also been great fun. Marci's brother's family own a lovely home in the rural Eastern Shore landscape. Wheat fields come right up to the edge of the backyard -- quite a radical departure from the Amsterdam streetscape that we're used to.

We also got some lovely portraits along the Chesapeake Bay coast around sunset on Tuesday evening. The portraits turned out great, but my favorite was actually a candid shot of Marci laughing with Olivia and Cor on the beach.

So those are my top six. If you'd like you can see more images on the Family Pictures section of the website...

Next stop: Orlando, Florida.

We made it.

There is, of course, still some adjusting to do (which may be self-evident, given the fact that I'm writing this post at 5:00 in the morning, local time -- and even that's about two hours after I initially woke up!)... But all in all, things have gone about as well as can be expected.  Transportation logistics have gone very well.  The kids have been pretty manageable.  And fortunately, even though I am not sleeping so well on my first night here, Marci and the kids are (aside from a few minor moments of half-wakeful disorientation, which are always to be expected).

Within the first hour of Cor's first day on American soil, he had the privilege of driving within 150 meters of the Lincoln Memorial, the Washington Monument, the Smithsonian Museum, the National Archives, and the Capitol Building -- which, I would have to say, was quite an auspicious introduction to his "native" land... Oddly enough, he didn't seem too impressed.  Ah, the fickle fancies of an 8-month-old...

By sunset, we had made it to our destination on the Eastern Shore of Virginia -- a little strip of land between the Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic Ocean.  We got to enjoy a lovely lasagna dinner with our hosts (Marci's brother and his family).  Even more meaningful than the lasagna, though, was the tall glass of A&W Root Beer, chilled with about 12 cubes of ice which signalled my true homecoming.  And as if that wasn't enough, Jacqueline had made a root beer cake (which I enjoyed very much, though I'd never had it before) and made mention of root beer floats somewhere on the menu within the next couple of days... Ah, yes.  That is indeed when I knew:

We made it. 

We initiated Cor to what's become a bit of an annual tradition with our family -- riding out to Holland's Flower Region, to take a look at the colorful fields stretching out miles and miles in every direction.  For some reason, Dutch people do not seem to get too excited about all the tulips, daffodils, and hyacinths.  It's considered a silly tourist activity.  Very few make a point to visit the fields at this time of the year.  Surprisingly few have ever witnessed the flower fields of their homeland first-hand.  It's almost to the point that even an extended glance out of the train window is considered shameful gawking.

But our family is not Dutch. :-)

So each year, for the last four years, we've gone out with all the other tourists to take pictures in the flower fields.  It's one of the most unique and beautiful experiences in the Netherlands, if you ask me.

Prior to this year, however, we had always gone out in the late morning / early afternoon time frame, enjoying a picnic lunch somewhere and all that good stuff.  But this year, we decided to travel out in the evening hours -- partly to take advantage of the softer, more golden sunlight that falls across the landscapes at this time of day, and partly to adapt to Cor's nap schedule and the general logisitical challenges of now being a family of five.

Unfortunately, we got stuck in a massive traffic jam, as dozens and dozens (if not hundreds) of tour buses and other vehicles poured out of the Keukenhof -- apparently at its closing time.  Keukenhof is like the Disneyworld of flowers -- highly hyped, highly visited (by people from all corners of the globe), and highly priced.  We've been there before, and enjoyed it... until we discovered that simply driving through the open fields is actually nicer (and a heck of a lot cheaper).  But I had forgotten how much hassle the traffic there can be -- especially if you go during the "rush hour" (which we haven't in the last three years, but unintentionally did this evening).  It was ridiculous.  The situation actually made me start to understand the Dutch perspective on the flower/tourist industry in that part of the country at that time of the year.

We weren't able to get nearly as many photos as we have in previous years -- mostly due to the traffic thing, but also due to the family-of-five logistics thing.  But still, out of the pictures that we did get to take, there were a few keepers (as you can see from this post).  And all in all, we had a good time together.

Next time, we'll just have to remember to pack our tourist repellent. 

What a magnificent spring evening to go to the park!  I'm still missing my nice camera (the lens is still in the shop), but with a pristine blue sky like that and the golden light of a setting sun -- just about any camera takes beautiful pictures.  Especially with such beautiful subject material to shoot!

Can you guess who just got a new pretend sword?  Elliot invested €3.50 of his allowance money, and I'd say he's already gotten a good return on his investment, for all the fun he's had pretending to be Peter, High King of Narnia (we just recently loaned the film from a friend, so he's even singing the movie's theme music as he acts out his glorious battle charges and coronation scenes).

We got a new-old CD in the mail this weekend: Ken Medema: "Just Us Kids." It was a gift from my sister for my and Elliot's birthdays -- and man, has it been a good one!

When I was growing up, our family had the album on vinyl (yes, boys and girls -- I am old enough to personally remember records, eight-tracks, cassette-tapes, CDs, and MP3s as the dominant listening formats!). And listening to the songs and stories of Ken Medema (now digitally remastered) again this weekend was returning to a very happy place in my life: remembering our family's plaid couch, the orange-velvety upholstered chair, our dog Muffy, my blue Darth Vader T-shirt... Ah those were the days...

And although the nostalgic effect of the Ken Medema album was immensely enjoyable, in and of itself, I have to say that even if I hadn't grown up listening to that record, it's just a great album! You couldn't exactly say that it's timeless (the mid-70s brass section coming in at parts, like Chicago's "Saturday in the Park," definitely anchors it in a certain era) -- but it's absolutely classic. The music is really cool -- not just some crap for the kids (a presumably undiscerning audience). It's kind of Billy Joel meets Chicago -- but not merely pop-rock; kind of jazzy and bluesy, too. And then beyond the music, Ken Medema's storytelling is absolutely brilliant. He uses the piano as a beautiful complement to the stories (kind of background music, kind of sound effects), and the stories themselves are both entertaining and insightful. I'm not a professional album critic, so I find my descriptions here falling
miserably short -- but all I know is that it's very enjoyable
listening.

My kids, too, have really enjoyed listening to the new album. Already, after just a few listenings, Elliot and Olivia are singing along with the music and listening in gape-mouthed silence to the stories. I love it.

Thanks, Anna for a great birthday present!