The Eventful Week 2 Well, my stay in Holland has been great so far, excpet for one little sad detail: I lost my purse. Or, it might have been stolen, we are not sure. But since no one has turned it in, we assume it was stolen :( Yeah, it was pretty sad! Luckily I had taken out my passports & tickets, so I can still fly back to the States. but unfortunately my camera, wallet (with all my vacation cash) and Ella's epi-pen were not so lucky... I hope that someone who needed the money and had a baby with serious food allergies found it and is making good use out of it :) It was a bit of a panic figuring out how to replace Ella's Epi pen since Dutch pharmacies don't accept American perscriptions, but we found a solution and have one in our possession again. Phew. What a relief. Then, of course, it took a couple of trips to the police station and the public transportation lost and found, but no luck, no one has reported my bag yet! But, we keep hoping someone will. And if not, then so be it :) I have learned a lot from this experience already. First of all, I feel very grateful that I didn't lose either one of my children or my passports, which is far, far worse than losing my purse. And at the end of the day, what I lost was all 'stuff' that can be replaced. So i know good will come from this trial, and I am grateful Heavenly Father gives me humbling experiences to learn to rely on him and exercise faith. I know he is answering my prayers, though it may not be the answer I want (to find my purse), but I know that he can make good come from any situation, so I pray that if I do not find it, other good things will happen/be learned from it instead. So, on to more happier things :) Besides that, my stay has been wonderful and so much fun. I thought i would do another blog update before Christmas since quite a few things have happened since then. First, Benson had his official thirs birthday on Tuesday. We already celebrated it before we left, but Uncle Sander still lovingly bought benson a Dutch Appeltaart and we sang to him:

 

I can't believe my little baby boy is 3 already. He has so much fun here and loves playing with his Dutch cousins. I am sure it will be hard for him to leave. We have spent a lot of time sitting at home playing games and talking, which has been one of the highlights of the trip. I love simply spending time with my family, which is most precious to me. My parents love Dutch pajama's:

 

On Wednesday we spent the day at 'The Efteling", which is the largest Dutch amusement park here. Strangely I had never been so my sisters and her husband treated me to a wonderful day. Because of the snow it wasn't very busy so we had no wait times for any of the rides, which made up for the cold. But we all bundled up and had a great time:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The kids were all tuckered out by the end of the day! Yesterday was a stay-at-home/visitng family/shopping day. in the morning my mom, sister and I went to the Dutch open Market here in the Hague. A bunch of men dressed as Santa Clause were getting ready to play some festive Christmas music to erntertain shoppers, so my sister asked if we could take a picture by them. One of the men seemed to take a liking to us, note his arm tightly around me (little creepy...:)

 

In the afternoon my parents & I made a trip to visit my aunt and her daughters, about an hour from my sister's house. It was a lovely visit, I hadn't seen them in many years. We enjoyed catching up, and my parents liked seeing their old dog Lucy, that used to be their dog untilt hey retired in the States.

 

 

So it has been another fun week! I am so grateful to be here and can't believe it is already Christmas Eve day. We are planning a lovely dinner tonight and then Christmas morning tomorrow. My sweet Andrew did very well in surgery and is recovering at home quite well. I am glad he is being so well taken care of, as I miss him the most this holiday season.