Happy Birthday Bev!

I've done it again!

Even though I was in England with my sister in law Bev last week, and I knew her birthday was coming up, I forgot to get the card and present in time!

I do it every time!

So Bev, this message is for you.

Have a great Birthday!

and in case there is no one organising your birthday cake, here are a few ideas from Cadburys:

American Chocolate fudge cake

Magic Flake Cake

And not a cake but a great flowerpot dessert from pioneer woman

Have a great birthday, and a wonderful few days with your family! All our love from Holland!

England, and so on!

We made a last minute dash to England on the ferry from Ijmuiden to Newcastle in the last week of Jolandas school holidays.
We visited "between showers" and I was glad to get down to Tynemouth Long Sands for a sunny interlude with all the cousins, as well as "Oma", "Opa", and my sister in law Bev. Bev has already beaten me to the post, with her blog about our trip to Alnwick Gardens - her pics are really good!


Anyway, we got Opa to direct the construction of the Sandcastle project, and all went well untill Katie was caught by a freak wave and got soaked. So we went off to wet 'n wild for the afternoon!
It was a great visit, and Jolanda had a chance to prepare her latest dessert creation during a rainy interlude. We have decided that strawberries in England are not as attractive as Dutch ones, so here is a picture of a dessert she prepared earlier!



The cocktail also pictured is not a tequila sunrise, as theres no alcohol, but as she created that too perhaps it should be called "Jolanda's Sunrise"!

Adventure forest!

My resident technical wizard finally had time to download the photos from my telephone, so I can now bring you exclusive shots of the Hindess family in action on the zip lines and high wires of the adventure forest at Mont Royal!

Here's Jolanda giving me a wave!

Here she is hanging in mid air!

Here is John hanging from the top of the photo!

Heres John on a 75 meter long zip wire, which dropped 40 meters! Jolanda did this too, but she was going so fast I could not get a shot!

The quality is not so good, but it gives you some idea of the day - which we all enjoyed very much!

From Russia with love

You know about my new niece, Aleksandra. Amazingly I also just got news from my New Zealand friends Rob and Jan that their adoption of Valerii has been finalised and they have finally become parents. This is one of the last pictures of Valerii taken before he left the orphanage in Irkutsk. Irkutsk is in Eastern Russia, Siberia. Aleksandra's orphanage was in Stavropol, in the west of Russia.

The two orphanages are at different ends of Russia, but compare the leaf motif on the chairs in sascha's picture to the wall mural in this photo of Valerii!

Even though these two children lived at different ends of Russia, their lives were similar. Now as adopted children, Aleksandra will grow up in Germany, and Valerii will grow up in New Zealand. They will be worlds apart, but both are now surrounded by love, and part of a real family for the first time in their lives.

All our love to both the Owens and the de Voers.