December 27

Our last day at the Scooby Dooby! As usual, we slept in until after 10:00. In fact, most of us did. We headed down to breakfast and noticed that “the young ones” were not there. This would be Carrie, Christian, Christian’s girlfriend Karen, Victor and Victor’s girlfriend, Geoff and Geoff’s girlfriend. We decided that they needed to get up and join us for breakfast, so someone (not sure who), supplied a few of the little cousins with a couple of stainless steel pot lids to go upstairs and use them like cymbals and wake them up! So off they went, the littlest ones following behind Quinten, up the spiral staircase. I really wish I would have had my camera to take a picture of that. They looked too cute, like the seven dwarfs, marching up the stairs, on a mission. Well, a few minutes later, mission accomplished because Carrie, Geoff and Renee came down to breakfast. The little ones were still upstairs, and we soon found out that they couldn’t get Christian and Karen up because once Christian heard them waking Carrie up, he rushed to push some of the beds up against the door to keep the little ones out! Well, eventually they made it downstairs as well. After all, the kids may not have been able to get inside, but they could still bang those pot lids together!
After breakfast we just worked on getting our things packed up so we could be out of the Scooby Dooby by 4:00. Some of the guys decided to take a quick trip to the site of a former concentration camp that was only about 30 minutes away called Westerbork. I passed on that trip, finding it to be too depressing. A few years back Bill and I visited the Holocaust Museum in Washington D.C. and that was depressing enough. I can’t imagine actually being at the site of a former concentration camp. While they were away, we packed everything up and we pretty much had it all finished up by the time they returned around 3:45. Once they arrived, we all helped load everything into the cars. By that time, the wind was really blowing and it was very, very cold. But we were soon all packed up and on our way back out of the middle of nowhere.

We made plans to all meet at my cousin Shirley’s house to have dinner before we all went our separate ways. I was wondering how in the world we would fit all of us in Shirley’s house. Most homes in Holland are small by U.S. standards and I just couldn’t see how we would fit 20+ people in her little living room! But then again, I forgot that my Dutch family does this all the time! Sure enough, since we were the last to arrive, I saw just how it’s done. There were simply many chairs lined up on the outside perimeter of the living room. There were even some people sitting on her stairs! But hey, it worked out, especially for the little girl cousins. Inez, Pascale and Anouk were busy dressing up in various princess outfits and dresses and came downstairs. Well, the way we were sitting on both sides of the living room, it resembled a catwalk. And those girls were all about walking down it like supermodels:





The first two photos are of Inez and the third is her younger sister, Anouk. I love these pics! They are too cute!


After dinner at Shirley’s and a little more visiting (as if we hadn’t already spent enough time together!), we all headed home. Of course I was up late again, because for some reason ever since arriving here, I just can’t get to bed early! In fact, as I type this up, it’s 12:51 a.m.! And so that was what happened on day 9 of the American Invasion 2009.