Oom Martijn

JB's brother arrived to spend a few days with us.  It is a five hour drive from his home in Apeldoorn, the Netherlands. The kids were thrilled to see him again!  Sam in particular had grown attached to  Martijn during his visit to the US in 2012. 

Highlights of our time with Oom Martijn included the previously mentioned mini golf trip. 

This day ended with dinner and treats (ice cream in shapes!) in Markelsheim where the kids enjoyed tag around the fountain (note Easter egg decorations, these are common right now and many yards are festively decked out with eggs)  as well as many long distance phone calls from the pay phone booth attraction!

Happily still chugging along, a late night, but happy kids!

The next day JB was experiencing a vicious 24 hour bout of food poisoning but Martijn joined us for a simple dinner of Sam's new favorite, German butcher shop hot dogs and Kartoffelsalat.  Watch out Mom, the German stuff rivals yours! :)  (Potato Salad) 
We played, "Drive Through Window" and the kids and their uncle placed their dinner order at one of the fun widely opening glass window "doors".  There are no screens on anything and the bees are out en masse so we are constantly fighting away insects, but it is worth it to enjoy the beautiful Spring air.

On Tuesday our whole crew met at the school in Bad Margentheim.  Our plan was to stage a photo op with the entire van Hecke clan decked out in the bright yellow "van Hecke Family Adventure" T-Shirts.  We got wonderful pictures of the whole family together. 

From there we traveled on to the "science park" and "work out park".

As well as a walk through the public health spa area.  We relaxed our knees on high benches and watched a water show set to music of top hits by the 70's band "Queen".

We finished the day with yummy cakes slices in a cafe courtesy of Opa.

  Goodbye for a couple weeks to Oom Martijn, we will see him in Apeldoorn over Easter!  He gave each child a gift bag of specially chosen gifts including a bike flag for their bikes.  And thankfully he left stacks of Euro's for us to use!